BA2 Fine Art - Reflective Journal

There are elements of this unit that I feel I could improve on, as well as elements that went well. Overall I felt that this unit did go well, and I have learned a lot in terms of curation, collaboration and marketing, but I also have a lot to develop further.  Cross Course Collaboration Project -  I feel that this project went extremely well, we all worked well as a group, were able to come up with a strong idea, delegate roles to each other and plan out what we were going to do and when. The editing process went well, and the only issues we faced was the background music which we eventually managed to get to work with the video. I think something that we could develop further is our use of props and maybe looking into clothing and setting. However we worked with the issue of lack of setting/props by turning it into more of a comical sketch.  Anteros Exhibition - Although there were some challenges that I faced during this curation...

As well as screen prints, I wanted to create some more digital pieces. I really liked how the text piece looked and I decided to experiment with moving the layers around and using different effects. I quite liked the contrast between the text and the gender symbol, and how the text seemed to be overpowered by the symbols in the background, symbolising how women always fight back and stay strong no matter what is said to them or about them. I did feel that the screen prints did lose this slightly as the focus for them was more on product than meaning. I think I would liked to do more of these, and possibly even think about combining my embroidery with them, using them as a base design and working into it. I do think these are quite basic, and I could develop these further, perhaps playing around with the composition, and even changing the text/images. Perhaps even changing the colours from bright and bold to dark and less...

This week was the install for our SELLOUT exhibition. We met up and moved all of the equipment and artwork/products over to the space and then deligated roles to each other. Me and Kinga were in charge of setting up furniture, Charlotte & Beth were in charge with setting up the clothing rack and planning out where and what pieces to put up on the wall. After the table was set up, we then got together and discussed what had been planned out, whether or not to add more work to the walls/table and what final things needed to be done.  For my pieces, me and Beth decided that it would be interesting to have one of my screen prints on the wall, followed by the exposures showing the layers, and then ending with my embroidery piece slightly to the right of the screen print pieces. We felt that it would illustrate the repetition of the gender symbol throughout the pieces, and illustrates how the pieces move from a complete text piece to just symbols. For my smaller textile pieces, we...

As well as embroidery pieces I have done a small amount of screen printing within this unit. This was also a teaching session for fellow student Beth, who I'm working with for the 'SELLOUT' exhibition. Beth wanted to do some prints for the show as she hasn't done printmaking yet, and has been solely focused on sculpture. I decided to help guide her as well as create some screen prints for the show as well.  I chose an image which was inspired by a previous screen print design, which was text based with a floral background edited into the text through photoshop. I used the same techniques and same text but a different background. I wanted to do something with the gender symbol as that has become a staple image within my work, but also works well with the aesthetics of the show. I created a repeating symbol background with a pink gender symbol repeated, on a teal background. I chose pink and teal as they were the main colours used for the marketing of the s...

Within this unit my work has mostly been embroidery based. This is a medium that I started to look into within the last unit and was really interested in. I decided to carry on with it during this unit in between the individual projects that I had going on.  For the pieces I have experimented with creating banners with embroidered imagery and text, inspired by the craftivist movement and the work of Sarah Corbett. For the image based banners, I used pieces of cross stitching fabric, embroidered the images which were based off of feminist iconography, and then stitched them onto patterned floral fabric in the same vein as the craftivist banners. I felt that it was really relaxing spending time just weaving in an repetitive motion and creating works with real meaning not only to me but to all women. I created an image of a uterus to signify how our bodies are our own and it should be down to women to decide what we do with it regar...

I thought I would reflect further on my Womanism Exhibition and highlight observations that I noticed throughout the process.  One observation was how I was able to apply my feminist practice to my curation. For example, I was the one in charge, not a man, all of the artists were female and the theme of the show was mainly directed towards females. It felt empowering to be able to control things myself, and also allow female artists to be in control of their work as well in terms of how they would like it to be displayed and how they want their work to be worn, as was the case for Alice's piece. I felt overall it was an empowering experience for all involved.  Regarding the all female artists factor, it really reflects on my previous research in to how few exhibitions there are that are curated by and feature women. I would hope that this show helps to show people that women can be just as talented as men in the arts industry and I think I woul...

After brainstorming ideas and researching into craft and the idea of a pop up art shop I decided on using my postcard designs for t-shirts instead, and chose to exhibit one of my embroidery hoops which is made up of 3 female gender symbols embroidered onto cross stitch fabric with beading around the top and bottom. I choose to embroider the gender symbols as it was something that I hadn't done yet with the symbols and felt that it would be interesting to see how these symbols would change once stitched lovingly, by hand. Much like my hand made object, this embroidery hoop did have an element of the occult to it, like they were witchcraft symbols. I find it interesting how the interpretation of a symbol can change due the medium it's recreated in - link between materiality and image. I also had an interest in female identity, and how we identify as women - ' My work heavily features the female gender symbol as a sign of unity, strength and power. For this pi...