Writing an Artist’s Statement

I am finding that writing a few short paragraphs on my Body of Work rather challenging.  It is somewhat difficult to express in words what my images are trying to express; which is perhaps descriptive of the difficulties I am having at the moment in progressing with my major essay – I don’t want to progress in one direction only then to find that I need to change direction once I have progressed with it.  I have therefore decided to make an attempt at writing an artist’s statement on my body of work to help clarify my thoughts and intentions.  The following are, therefore, an attempt at two versions; one based on the reflections I made in my Body of Work Assignment 3 submission, and the second is based on updated thinking on what the statement should be.  Both have been difficult to write and neither is likely to be the final version, but for now they serve a purpose and will be something I can come back to later:

Based on Reflections from BoW Assignment 3 Submission

This Body of Work reflects on the threat from society and adulthood to Land as a ‘childhood paradise’.  The paradise is formed from memories of childhood engagement with Land and an adult appreciation of the influence this has on personal identity.

It is influenced by the Neo-Romantic art movement of the 1940’s which reflected on the threat of war and impending consumerism on our ‘English’ identity; formed from a spiritual, mythical, & idealised notion of land, body and society.

The Work takes an autobiographical approach by retracing a childhood walk around the estate I grew up in, and then sets this against a more ambivalent wander around a new place I have still to get to know

By juxtaposing images from these two parts of the Work, a conversation develops around the similarities and differences between these two places, whilst also engaging with the viewer on some of the restrictions; real and perceived, imposed by society on childhood engagement with Land. 

Based on an Updated Perspective of the Artist’s Statement: Dec. 2014

This body of work looks at society’s relationship with Land; asking whether opportunities still remain to engage with it in the same way as we might recall from our childhood memories.  It is set within the context of concerns over Land’s future conservation caused by society’s lack of value for it.

It begins by revisiting a ‘childhood paradise’; a time and place where a child was able to freely engage with Land and form a significant bond with it.  At the same time, however, it also asks whether this ‘paradise’ truly existed, or has it been formed from a romantic notion of the past?  It then reflects on a time and place set in the present, to question whether society and/or adulthood have been the cause of the demise of this lost paradise, or do opportunities still remain for similar relationships with Land to be formed?

The body of work leaves open the question of whether a child’s relationship with Land is important to society’s future attitude towards its conservation.

Assignment 3: Feedback

This is a quick catch up post on the tutor feedback I received for assignment 3.  I am glad to say that the feedback was very positive with a suggestion that I am almost there with the visual aspect of the Body of Work.  The next step will be to fine tune some of the pairings and work on an Artist’s Statement to consolidate the connection between statement, images and the contextual studies essay.

I am conscious of not wanting to spoil the Body of Work as it is currently presented by ‘fiddling’ with the image pairings too much, but I do see opportunity for improvement with one or two of them.  As for the artist’s statement, this is what I have been struggling with a little; I seem to be able to express my thoughts visually but then struggle a little when trying to put that into words.

Body of Work: Assignment 3

The following text is my reflection on the third assignment of the Body of Work, which accompanies this PDF document of the actual submission images: Lost Opportunities book_2  The PDF needs to be viewed at 2 Page View to appreciate the arrangements.

I also included a full range of other images to give my tutor opportunity to suggest alternative arrangements

Land Values and Lost Opportunities

From the last assignment feedback, the recommendation was to concentrate on developing the new project I had just started around the new area I had moved to in the West End of Glasgow.

This is what I did and set off photographing what caught my eye as a flaneur wandering around this new place.  However, as I did this I soon found myself taking a typology type strategy whereby I would collect images based around particular categories of objects.  I developed the following classifications to ensure a reasonable collection of photographs to use for this project:

• Neighbours I have yet to meet.
• Land affecting place, and place affecting land.
• Rubbish as landmark for place.
• Pedal power.
• Signs and places.

This strategy was never intended to become the end outcome but more an approach that expressed a sense of place whilst also describing the opportunities to engage or disengage with Land.

As I came to a reasonable end to this project I began to think about how I was going to develop it into my Body of Work which is when I started to move my thoughts towards juxtaposing this element with the Lost project; which is based around the estate I used to live.  And so, rather than present this Glasgow West End project as Assignment 3, I have decided to combine it with the Lost project to illustrate where I think this Body of Work is heading.

The PDF document is, therefore, the first attempt at juxtaposing these two sets of images together.  I think that there is still some work to go with this but want to use the feedback from this assignment, along with some of the projects in Part 3 of the course notes, to think more carefully about specific pairing of images as well as ensuring that the full set is illustrative of the message I want to portray.

At the same time as putting this together, I have just received feedback from my second assignment for Contextual Studies which confirmed my own concerns that my focus was still a little vague and as a result my literature review was too wide on photographers’ response to society’s relationship with and value for Land.  Whilst I haven’t fully addressed this just yet, it has pushed me towards clarifying my intentions for this Body of Work.  I have therefore written the following reflection on my Body of Work as I see it at the moment.  I was surprised at how difficult it was to write this but I think that this reflected on the vagueness of what was my current thinking and the need to refocus.  I hope that the following is a much better explanation of the context behind this Body of Work.  I still think, however, that Assignment 3 has more work to go before it fully delivers on this reflection, which I am hoping the feedback from it will give me some pointers towards this.

 

Reflections on Land Values & Lost Opportunities

This Body of Work reflects on Land as a childhood ‘paradise’ under threat from society’s lack of value for its preservation.  This paradise is formed from childhood memories of engaging with Land, and an adult appreciation of the influence this has on personal identity.  This Work therefore investigates the threat to this paradise from society and adulthood.

It is influenced by the Neo-Romantic art movement of the 1940’s which similarly looked back at their ‘lost paradise’ formed from a spiritual, mythical, & idealised notion of land, body and society, under threat from the darker forces of war and impending consumerism.  Their bond with Land was based around a metaphor of motherhood, nurturing, good and love.

This Work takes an autobiographical approach by retracing a childhood walk around the estate I grew up in, which is then set against a more ambivalent wander around a new place I have still to get to know.  The childhood walk considers the impact of adulthood and society on this ‘paradise’ and uses it as a metaphor for humanity’s perceived lost value for and relationship with Land.  The adult wander seeks out similar opportunities for engaging with a new Land and a new society to consider whether this ‘paradise’ still exists today.

By juxtaposing images from these two parts of the Work, it develops a conversation on the similarities and differences between these two places, which is then supported by a third dimension; the blackening out of certain features in the childhood walk set.  This hints at a political voice in an attempt to engage with the viewer on some of the restrictions; real and perceived, imposed by society on childhood engagement with Land.

While the concept of a childhood paradise is partly based on sentiment and a tendency towards romanticising our memories, the style of the photographs in this Work has purposely avoided a romantic or idealised notion of Land or place.  They are thus non-sentimental, straight photographs to represent things as they actually are.  This helps to raise an alternative question of whether this childhood paradise actually exists and thus will its loss be missed?