Interim Presentation

This presentation was an overlook on all the work we've done so far, but to concentrate on our current work in progress. I included an explanation to my changing ideas throughout the project. The luxury of freedom to change my ideas is given by the broadness of the competition brief - Conceptual work. The competitions are opened to artists after all! 

To recap - my starting idea was to work with landscapes - researching the likes of Paul Gaffney sparked my interest. But, it didn't cover/contain much depth. Nor is it as easy to create conceptual images out of landscapes alone. So I went back to researching competitions and past winners, finding a pattern that they tend to follow a documentative series.

This led me to a new idea, to follow a series, yet specified, and following a slightly different visual aesthetic - abstract (cut off forms in frame, lack of visual context - to specify). I went on to show several artists that sparked inspiration for what to specify my series in - visual interior spaces of my past homes and how the spaces correlate with each other. 

My next issues were maintaining contact and trust with the homeowners, as well as my test shoot not turning out quite as I had hoped. It was still first stages, but my tutor was put off the idea on the fact it still didn't include much depth. I was wanting to carry on with the idea, but I agreed with the point that the images/idea was still lacking something. 

So my next step was going back to research. I wasn't throwing away the whole idea, I wanted to concentrate on the aspect of objects - mundane/household - their use and relationship between another. My research led me to several areas, in both modern and traditional senses - traditional still life painting, and the works of Sarah Palmer and Linus Lohoff. This led me to the idea of mixing both together, traditional and modern renditions of still life artwork. 

I started in the studio, but stated in the presentation the images did not work at all. The harsh studio lights with traditional objects did not mix as I had hoped, so I had to find another way for the traditional and modern to mix. Only a few images worked, but they weren't exactly working towards the direction I was going in. Visually, however, they work very well.

I go on to show examples of what I had tried next, using natural light as the traditional paintings had. The photographs were now becoming something, aesthetically. I was aiming for visual simplicity whilst experimenting with set-ups. A simple backdrop so the viewer can concentrate on the objects.

My issues here is now I need to dig deeper and research the theory behind it. I am creating these images for a reason, I just need to understand them and myself more. 

I asked my peers which images they preferred, those I had shown in the studio, or those taken in natural light. Their response? The studio images were much more impactive, the overall consensus was very much positive with these images, they are bold, the images look as if the fruit is floating, they are very clean. But, as I had thought myself, their beliefs were that the natural-light images had more to say.