Artist Statement

My piece entails three portrait rectangular canvases, painted black and covered in a collage of cheerleaders’ bodies, which have been rearranged to re-create cheerleading formations. These canvases present three different formations and are arranged horizontally adjacent to one another. I took photos of our three university cheerleading teams, during the University Cheerleading Nationals, and created the three collages through both analogue methods and with photoshop. After experimenting with different background colours, I decided upon black, due to the feeling of depth that was created by the contrast between the red uniforms and the black background. The collages were printed onto paper and then reworked with other photoshop collages and original images, and glued to the canvases.

 

I feel that the imperfection of my analogue collages better reflected the imperfection and physicality of cheerleading. My own experience has shown that the ‘perfect’ formations are only illusions, as a stunt can be imperfect during a performance, but as a whole, the formation can still succeed to create a satisfying aesthetic. Also, the involvement of human error that comes with the analogue process, captures the human error experienced in cheerleading. Furthermore, the varying sizes of cheerleaders bodies are also conveyed better with the analogue method, although, photoshop provided a more efficient way of enhancing the quality of the images and planning and arranging the formations. This artwork aims to present the accumulation of the individual to create a mass body of aesthetic formation. This idea was drawn from my own experience of cheerleading, a sport that relies on the combined effort of numerous bodies and cannot function individually. I wanted to present this by eliminating the individualism of the body, thus removing faces. I used bodies to re-create the cheerleading formations and to show how this arrangement of bodies, working together, creates a pleasing image.

 

I wanted my pieces to be aesthetically pleasing because of the pleasure I had experienced when watching cheerleading myself. I investigated Paolozzi’s work, such as ‘Bash’, which appears manic to the eye, whilst providing aesthetic pleasure. I felt that this reflected the manic nature of cheerleading, and how this mass flailing of bodies and limbs can create this same aesthetic image. I looked at his collaging method and found that it was the arrangements of images that created the beauty as a whole, but when the elements were viewed individually they became confusing. My work was also motivated by the Chapman brothers’ sculptures. Their re-arrangement of mannequin bodies illuminated the gory and disturbing element of my own work, as I cut apart and transformed the cheerleaders’ bodies. I feel that this added another dimension to my work, as it indirectly tackled the sexualisation of the female-cheerleader body, by presenting the typically sexualised body parts in disturbing arrangements. Thus drawing focus onto the formations and how the body parts worked together to create a mass aesthetic.

 

Easter background experimentation and photography

I obtained cheerleading pictures and plan to use them for photoshop.

The above images are a few taken by myself and (when I was performing) friends of our team competing. When looking at these images I thought I could experiment with the same blue being used for a background.

Week 10 exhibition piece, background piece painted blue

I started by using a mixture of blues to match the blues used in this competition (the image shows the blue a lot darker than in real life), but I quickly found that this background absorbed the collage rather than making them stand out.

I then checked other competitions and found that black was regularly used.

I also painted one of the pieces white, as I felt painting the already white paper white would provide a stronger background and be better to compare to against the black background.

Week 10 exhibition piece, background painted white

Week 10 exhibition piece, background painted black

Week 10 exhibition piece, background painted black

Week 10 exhibition piece, background painted white

After completing the backgrounds I found that the black ground made the image stand out so much more than the white or blue and enhanced the colours of the collage. Therefore I will be painting my canvases black for the background and working the collage over the top.

 

Week 11

I am now planning to experiment with a more engaging background.

I also plan on presenting my work on a canvas or panel to give a greater presence to my work, as well as providing a better sense of space for my work.

I want to experiment with photoshop to see how it can enhance my artwork.

I will be taking photographs of my upcoming competitions, of my own teams, of which there are three which will each be reflected in the three canvases. I feel that this will enhance my control over the images and how I can use them in my collages, as well the attachment to my team providing a better connection between myself and my work.

 

Artist Talk: Harold Offeh​

Harold Offeh is a British performance artist with 20years experience as a practising artist. He also has spent time teaching in both Leeds and London.

Offeh’s work aims to explore performance and to unpack what it means ‘to perform’. He also investigates the actions involved with performance, their relationship and how the audience engages with performance art.

Offeh presented a clip from ‘Space is the place’, a mixture of lo-fi and sci-fi film, made in the ’70s. ‘Space is the place’ explores reality and ethnicity, presenting this as a type of myth. The lead actor, Sun Ra, was a performative influence through his self-authorship, such as his self-naming, and conducting his own narrative, such as adopting Egyptian qualities.  He was also apart of the Oakland Black Panther Party. This film presented an idea of realness and authenticity, which Offeh chose to explore.

His project ‘The Real Thing’ was an installation and group work, consisting of a collection of album covers all sharing the title ‘The Real Thing’. Offeh used these covers to investigate the techniques of narrative in a commercial sense and through the marketing of the music, and marketing what ‘the real thing’ is. This show also contained Offeh’s previous performance work, presenting it on different TV screens, placed on the exhibition space’s floor. This collection of performance art called ‘Archive of me’, shows Offeh performing, and reflecting upon himself and his own narrative.

Offeh went on to introduce another of his projects called ‘Action Lounging’. This project came from an exploration of the black male music artist lounging pose, commonly found on 70’s and 80’s album covers. This spurred an interest in the self-representation of these men and typology. Offeh said he wanted to unpack the representation of the black male body, focusing on this lounging pose found on album covers, and what this pose communicates to an audience. He was also interested in how the seminal American people began to be accepted into the white mainstream music scene at this time.  He was also interested in the music video for Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, which ‘broke colours bars’, as Offeh describes. Offeh went onto creating performance work through the re-creation and re-enactment of these poses and found this became a kind of research. Offeh took on this reclining pose in different settings and landscapes to investigate how the pose related to its surroundings, and also found that the position was uncomfortable adding to his questioning as to why this pose was so commonly used.

Offeh started a pop-up workshop at the Tate Modern, where he invited the audience to be photographed re-creating these poses, to be apart of an installation. The photographs were presented in an exhibition on album covers and explored how the pose’s interpretation altered according to the different bodies that performed the pose. He also went on to take on the pose in the exhibition space, reclining in artworks and seeing how a live presence affected the audience. This live performance was continued, where Offeh and other artists mirrored a pose that was projected on to a screen behind them.

Offeh also presented a sculpture of Grace Jones, compared to his own creation in light of this piece. His sculpture, instead of the beautiful female black figure, was that of an overweight black man. He explained that his work focused on the more domestic figure, and performed these poses live, holding the poses for a lengthy time.

Offeh also showed some of his reading and explained his interest in the concept of opacity and transparency. This came from reading work by Glissant and through a conversation between two other artists discussing this work called: Jacolby Satterwhite and Zach Blas.

Offeh found that Glissant’s writing explores a dichotomy of opaqueness and thus investigates obscured clarity, opacity and uncertainty.

Another project called ‘Radio City’, was conducted by Offeh and Mario Harrison in the Learning Gallery at the Tate in 2016. Here they invited other artists to document their artwork with a 15minute radio piece that would be played on ‘resident fm’.

Offeh is also interested in day time reality talk shows, especially those with all female panels of varying ethnicity. His interest was spiked by the conversation between one of the African-American presenters and an interviewee called Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who had taken on an African-American identity. This discussion that arose between the academic Rachel and the presenter created an investigation into the language used in the conversation. Offeh transcribed this conversation and created a script, which was read by 6 people. This script was repeated six times so each person reading could read each character’s part. This performance was used to create an opening for a conversation about sensitive topics such as gender, race, sexuality and class, as well as a source for his artwork. This project was called ‘Reading the realness’.

Offeh continues to read for research:

I found Offeh’s perspective on realness and performance really interesting, especially his methods. In relation to my work, the idea of performance, and capturing poses are really apt for my own investigation into positioning and formation and I find that my artwork is the reverse by taking a live piece and presenting it as a static image.

Eduardo Paolozzi 1924-2005

Sir Eduardo Paolozzi was a Scottish sculpture and artist, considered a pioneer of pop art and receiving a Knighthood from the Queen in 1989. He was a collector of found objects, models, sculptures, tools, toys and books, which inhabited his workshop and inspired his work. Paolozzi was recognised for his collages, screen prints, graphic works and sculptures.

‘Mr Peanut’, 1970

He established ‘Hammer Prints Limited’, which was a design company, working with textiles, wallpaper and ceramics. Attention was first drawn to his screen prints and sculpture ‘Art Brut’. He also established the ‘Independent Group’, in 1952, who ‘were a radical group of young artists, writers and critics who met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London in the 1950s, and challenged the dominant modernist (and as they saw it elitist) culture dominant at that time, in order to make it more inclusive of popular culture’ (https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/i/independent-group: visited 28.04.19).

‘I Was A Rich Man’s Plaything’, 1947

Recognition as a pioneer of pop art came from his piece, ‘I was a rich man’s plaything’, viewed as one of the first representations of Pop Art. Paolozzi described his own word as surrealist, however.

‘Bash’, 1971

Paolozzi’s screen prints and collages incorporated a collection of Pop culture references and technological imagery such as television screens and radios. He continued to incorporate many variations of machines in these works, whilst exploring the limitations of screen printing.

I became interested in the college and screen prints due to the chaotic arrangement of elements. I found that the designs were incredibly pleasing to the eye, although confusing at the same time. I had found the same experience when watching cheerleading, and also the crazed nature of performing. I found ‘Bash’ was one of the most interesting pieces. I think this was due to the surreal feeling it conveyed. When creating my own collages I felt that the headless bodies and legs created the same surreal feeling. I wanted to enhance this feeling and so aim to make my collages even busier and crazy with limbs, whilst maintaining the formations and aesthetics of cheerleading.

Artist Talk: Patricia L Boyd

Paricia L Boyd presented her past 3 years of artwork, produced whilst living in San Fransisco.

She explained her interest in Liquidation auction catalogues, and her investigation into ‘post intelligence’, which were an AI company. She went on to show the images that interested her from this catalogue containing the miscellaneous objects this company aimed to sell.

She also introduced her other interest in ‘Grease cycle’, which was a local authority scheme to recycle the grease found in restaurants to be used as biofuel in cars.

At first, she explained, that she didn’t see a connection between these two interested, however, it developed after her exploration of the sewage works, photographing the vats containing sewage and grease.

‘Formation’

‘Formation’

She talked about her group show at the CCA What is institute. This project began when she bought two items from the liquidation auction: an office chair and a turntable. She went on to explain how she took these objects apart, deconstructing them to inspect their individual parts. After this she took moulds of these parts, using a mixture made from grease. She stated that she enjoyed how this disgusting mould, made of sewage, glistened and became something almost beautiful when cast.

I found her relationship with the exhibition spaces and her work the most interesting aspect of her talk. Boyd embedded her moulds into the wall, presenting the negative of the chair or turntable part in the mould, whilst half of the mould was hidden inside the wall. This came from her interest in the negative space and forms of relief in the moulds. She also explained that there were captions connected to the works, to give the audience information on the mixture used to create the moulds and how the system regarding liquidation and grease cycle worked.

Boyd explained that her chosen parts, a turntables feet and the back of an office chair, had a linked purpose. She explained that she saw these parts as providing the user stability, where the turntable’s feet held itself in place and the back of the office chair supported the users back.

This group show travelled to Vienna. Here Boyd continued her work with moulds, this time exploring the variation in the material used to create the moulds through the replication of the same cast. She explained her interest in the relationship between the standardised mould and the unstable, disgusting material used to make it.

Boyd also presented some of her video work, created alongside Lucas Quigley. The video shown presented a camera slowly diving into a pipe of sewage at the top of a building, then once it had reached the bottom the camera was very quickly pulled back out. I found it interesting how Boyd had forced this video to be seen. They had interrupted a URL for a website, so that when clicked onto the audience had no choice to watch the video, as it stopped them seeing or accessing the website at all, with the video taking up the screen.

After this played she talked about her other show, ‘Good Grammar’. Here she explored her relationship between the exhibiting of her work and the work with herself. This came from the laborious nature of installing the work, and how to present the work she had to cut into a gallery’s walls. She felt that this represented how her artwork was expanding and escaping the limits of the gallery’s space. As well as her moulds, she presented two videos on TV Screens called, ‘This is a list of do’s and don’t’ and ‘dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s’. These videos were created in reaction to two gramma guide books, and how their supposedly ‘neutral’ sentences, used to demonstrate grammar, for her, demonstrated singular ideas on subjects such as gender, to be and how to work. She found it also acted as constructing a reality, without intending to.

Boyd showed another video, which she had been commissioned to make as an advert for the Superbowl. The 2013 advert was called ‘Men Ascending’, and consisted of a man assembling and disassembling a car. She then recorded this advert within the other adverts and shows, due to her interest in the relationship and sandwiching effect.

Boyd continued to show the development of her sculptures, and how she took the surrounding wall that her moulds had been installed into and then displayed the sculpture and its wall as a whole.

After this, she presented another project called ‘Absorption and Elimination’, where she experiments with photo ground methods. She created large pieces created from shop windows with graffiti on them. She presented this in Melbourne, Australia in a trade union hall, due to its non-typical location as a place to exhibit artwork. She explained that she was looking at the idea of public and private and became interested in bus shelters, due to their public use, but private ownership and how they are both enclosed and open spaces. She created further pieces from the glass on the bus shelters.

‘Absorption and Elimination’

Overall I found that Boyd’s exhibition methods were the most interesting aspect of her work, I especially enjoyed how she embedded her pieces into the wall and adjusted the space to accommodate her work and not the other way round. I would like to explore the limitations of exhibition space myself, through installing my own work.

 

 

Artist Talk: Barbara Walker

Barbara Walker is a Brittish artist, using research to inform her artwork. Walker’s inspiration comes from social media, literature, conversations, and arguments. Walker explained that her work on soldiers developed from a discussion on the war, and had made her question the involvement of black soldiers.

 

The Big Secret I, 2015, Conte on paper,159 x 195cm

Walker’s artwork does not start until she has fully researched her topic, she looked at army archives and wanted to start a dialogue with current soldiers, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Walker said her work is about 80 percent research and twenty percent actual art. After researching the soldiers of WW1 she found there was an absence of representation for black soldiers.

 

Walker wanted to explore WW1 with reference to her own Caribbean culture, and so focussed her research on the British West Indians.

Walker works with charcoal, as she feels it has an immediacy and is easily accessible and light to carry when travelling and conducting researching. She said she found charcoal and interesting material due to its low position in the hierarchy of art materials, suggesting it is seen as lower than other mediums such as painting. She explained that this acted as a metaphor in itself for the idea of absence and lack of representation.

 

The Big Secret IV, 2015, conte and white paint on paper, 159 x 195 cm

Walker presented her artistic process as finding a photograph, recreating the image using charcoal, and then destroying, smudging, wiping or removing certain people in the images. She suggested that this was an act of disrupting the commentary on soldiers and drew attention to the part that was missing, and so the absence became a positive space.

 

Walker described her artwork as being full-scale work, and that all of it was deliberate and planned, and that the fact it was labor intensive and involved strong commitment acted as another metaphor. Metaphors run throughout her work, with the wiping representing the erasure of narrative, leaving the remaining traces of an image, while the white paint used is also acting as a metaphor for ‘white-ing out’.

A struggle arose when dealing with the 2D, as Walker wanted to find new ways to present the idea of absence, whilst retaining traces of the image. Therefore she started experimenting and learning about printing and started incorporating embossing into her artwork. The embossed figures, although the white is physically still present, their lack forces attention onto the black soldiers in the pieces. Walker explained that boredom becomes a motivator, as once a method becomes too familiar she needs to move forward and explore new ways of creating art.

 

Vanishing Point, 2018, Vanishing Point 10 (Dolci)
graphite on embossed Somerset Satin paper using a Photopolymer Gravure plate

 

She also looked at the hidden female contribution in the war and continued to work with embossing. She also introduced cutting and sticking. This being a severe, aggressive method was enhanced by the removal of nurses onto separate pages, leaving their negative form in the image they belong to. This explored the idea of removal and appropriation.

In 2017 Walker exhibited her work in the Diaspora Exhibition at the Pavillion. Walker wanted her artwork and the exhibitions space to work together. She placed a soldier, at a larger than life-scale, at the top of the stairs of the only entrance. She felt this allowed the soldier to act as though he was greeting the viewers and this carried on with the three soldiers and the collection emerging on the walls as the audience climbed round the stairs into the exhibition. She wanted to convey an idea of feeling and thus felt the positioning, so the soldiers’ eyes looked at the audience created a connection between the work and them.

 

Transcended Installation, Diaspora Exhibition, Venice Biennale

Walker presented a video of her working. I was really interested in how she worked with scaffolding and watched as she moved about it whilst wiping and washing the charcoal drawings away.

 

Another project developed as Walker started photographing individual, contemporary soldiers and drawing their portraits. She presented these portraits on ‘call to arms’ posters and created a dialogue with individuals as her research. She found it interesting to use paraphernalia found in museums combined with contemporary soldiers.

Overall Walker’s work acts as an exploration into representation and making unrecognised contribution by black soldiers recognised, and enjoys the difficulty that comes with this.

Week 10: Exhibition and Crit

Our exhibition entailed a wide range of work, with many different themes and methods. I find it really interesting when looking at these pieces when confronted with no context.  I find this interesting in my own work, to see how my group experience my work.

Before exhibiting my work, I had changed the layout and combined four of my collages, with some added body parts to aid the linking, and created two larger collages in the same style as my newest development (far left in image).

These pieces were originally on A2 paper, but when I arranged them next to each other, it was clear that a large amount of blank space was pulling the focus away from the works. I also found the thinner paper aided the vertical presence of the stunt-like formations.

When putting my work up, I used pins. In retrospect, I feel frames would have been a better method of display. The pins draw away from the images themselves and add a ‘make-shift’ and ‘unfinished’ feeling to the work. I feel that may be because the works themselves are still developing and are not yet developed enough to present as a completed work. My studio group confirmed my thoughts when providing feedback.

 

Week 10 exhibition of three collage pieces

 

I was happy with the way my work was taken by my studio group. The ideas of formations, and confusion, and disturbing nature of limbs expelling from the wrong places were all responded to.

We also talked about different methods of portraying this outside of analog collage. I want to explore photoshop as a method of compiling the image. I also want to explore more mixed media, using paint to merge the bodies more and give a liquidated feel the way the limbs protrude from the other body parts.

I also want to experiment with scale. I feel like the larger the piece the more overwhelming the figures will appear, and I fell this could act as a way to convey the intimidating nature of the ‘mass’ and cheerleading itself.

I want to work with presenting on canvas, or with frames, as a way to make my work look completed.

Week 9: continued

After trying out some ways of displaying my art, I felt that I needed to link the individual pieces together. I wanted to check how this would look before cutting up my pieces and so made another collage with the aim of creating a stunt-like formation and using up the vertical space of the paper.

Stunting collage, mixed media on paper

When creating this piece I looked at my past pieces and used different elements, such as the kicking legs and identical imagery, mixed with body parts taking on each other’s positions. This is shown with the top collage which at first glance appears like a typical flyer ‘shape’, however, the limbs and torso are misplaced. The use of the open legs refers to a ‘toe-touch’, although it fits with my continuation of the sexualised female body in cheer, and highlighting it in a disturbing image to challenge this sexualisation.

I used the faces of cheerleaders, male and female, to reference the mass created by each individual. I feel this combined with the collection of body parts that hold them up, helps to convey this notion of a united body, and the mass not the individual.

I plan to now cut out my other collages and join them together to create a stunt-like formation with them to enhance the feeling of the mass collective.

Week 9: mini exhibition plans

I have started thinking about how I want to display my collages. I feel as though after my last piece, arranging my images so they combine together to present this idea of performance and combined bodies could be successful.

Arrangement idea (upside down)

Arrangement idea 2

Arrangement 1 idea

I created arrangement 2 first, as at first I was accepting the square shape of the paper and was trying to work with that by having then act like collage. However, I quickly realised this didn’t aid my work in any way.

I moved onto thinking about the actual formations of cheer and came back to the well-known image of the pyramid. Again I arranged them with the restraints of the paper. I like the way these overlay each other But I feel it would be much more successful to present on the same background rather than taking away the focus on the images with the material.

I also started arranging the pieces I felt were most successful at conveying formation and the ‘united body’ and using masking tape placed them on a plain wall to get an idea of how they can work together.

Thin Diamond formation

5 Dice formation

I created these arrangements using the formations I have learned in cheerleading.

stunt formation

Diagonal Lines Formation

I feel as though I need to cut these images out and then arrange them on a large piece of paper so that I can move the images closer together. I am also thinking of adding limbs and further body parts to link each collage together each image works with each other. I feel that this will strengthen the idea of formation and unison.