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.

Jake and Dinos Chapman

The Chapman Brothers, Jake and Dinos, are known for creating purposely shocking and disturbing work, that has caused much outrage from audiences and critics.

They both attended the Royal College of Art and were assistants to the artists: Gilbert and George.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes,Plate 39 from The Disasters of War 1810–20 (first pub. 1863), Etching, fine and large grain aquatint, hatching, 15 x 20 cm

Jake and Dinos Chapman Great Deeds Against the Dead 1994 Mixed media 277 x 244 x 152.5 cm

The Chapman brothers went on to use mannequins to recreate some of Goya’s work. They continued to create different versions of these installations and then went on to take this further by collecting Goya’s etchings and defacing them. Replacing the faces with disturbing clown-like faces, and monsters heads.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, Nobody Knows Why, (2003)

Jake and Dinos Chapman Gigantic Fun 2000 Etching from a portfolio of 83 37 x 42.3 cm

The defacing of these images appears as an attack upon respected art, especially as Goya is recognised as a taught artist in art education and his artwork widely respected. The brothers were reported as announcing that

‘I’d like to have stepped on Goya’s toes, shouted in his ears and punched him in the face’

and this is clearly shown as they not only recreated his work but went onto recreate his work by adding their art on top of his own work and also appearing to just deface his work with a cartoon, doodle-like art.

Zygotic Acceleration, Biogenetic, De-Sublimated Libidinal Model, 1995, Fibreglass,150 x 180 x 140 cm

The brothers continued to use mannequins in their artwork, however, became much more shocking and pornographic as they merged child-mannequins together and deformed their faces with genitalia. I find these pieces highly disturbing and grotesque and this is what the brothers wanted their audiences to feel. Other pieces present the arms of mannequins creating the Nazi swastika symbol, as though adding another darker level of disgust to the already gross piece.

When removing the pornographic and disturbing aspects of these pieces I find the form really interesting. I find it interesting how the bodies are naked but I find this desexualises them as they appear more like a monster or deformed creature and I would find it interesting if a similar removal of sexualisation could be achieved when using cheerleaders bodies. I also like the formations and way the bodies are in odd positions as I feel this would transfer well into the inhuman stretches performed by cheerleaders, that can appear as non-sexual and more disturbing or non-human.

Artist Talk: Julia Crabtree

Julia Crabtree creates installation artwork collaboratively with Will Evans. Their beginning piece was a C shaped large installation made from their art departments discarded vents. This installation was presented to us in a video where Crabtree and Evans crawl and slide within the sculpture and emerge from the top opening, and then fall back into the bottom in a continuous cycle. Crabtree explained how this explored the outside perspective and its contrast against the physical involvement Crabtree and Evans experience within the piece.

Gullet, 2017, Cell Project Space

Crabtree also explained her movement into a warehouse and how this influenced her next work. They decided to flood the warehouse with water, whilst using gouache to cloudy the water, as to obscure the idea of depth for the audience. They aimed to create a setting, this setting was added to by installing a functioning jetty, which the audience could walk over. Crabtree talked about her experience of maintenance and how this enhanced the immersive nature of her artwork, as she had to stir the gouache back in with the water to give the cloudy effect.

They collaboratively removed a ceiling and suspended it in a museum. After this they returned to Slade School of Fine Art where they installed a desert like scene, with cacti and brightly coloured sheets of paper draped from the ceiling and flooding the floor.

Crabtree also explained how working in a domestic space changed the way they worked, in comparison to warehouses and art studios. She said that they wanted to explore the Haptic and Optic elements of installation. They worked with digital animation and altered the floor plan, so that in the animation smoke filled the rooms. They then had this printed onto a carpet which filled the entire floor space. She said that the use of digital animation removed intent, as it was created by the coding not by themselves. She also said that she found it interesting that no one could see the whole image on the carpet, due to how it fit around corners, meaning only sections could really be experienced. Crabtree also added that she was interested in unanchored art work, which could be presented inside and out, or brought the outside in. Within this carpet installation, they also incorporated other independent sculptures made from polyester and foam. She said that these sculptures reflected rigging tools, and had previously been used in her artwork at Slade.

Death Valley

Crabtree and Evans then moved to Canada. They created ‘worms’, which are jesmonite casts of intestines. Crabtree said she found it interesting how these casts had elements of both disgust and seduction about them. Upon moving into another new space, and realising that the carpet would no longer perfectly fit into other museums spaces, Crabtree and Evans started creating art work which was not created with a specific space in mind, but instead made the installation work with the new space. This resulted in experimenting with not using nails to hold their pieces in place and instead they started using their sculptures to hold up each other. They said this created a relationship between the pieces, as sandbags created lumps in the carpet and paper sticks held other sand bags against the walls, and the ‘worms’ lay statically wriggling on top of and adjacent to the other pieces. They wanted to created a further relationship between the piece and the audience by having them walk across the carpet and be within the installation, involving their optic and haptic experience. However at this first presentation the museum was in the mountains and audiences were wearing hiking boots that would ruin the carpet, so this couldn’t be done. This was continued in other spaces, and in these audiences were able to walk on and sit on the installation.

Tracts

 

Crabtree and Evans also explored glass blowing, creating round bulbs which they filled with water and found they too fit with the strange combination of sexual and disgusting and so incorporated it with their installation work. They had these glass bulbs supported against the wall with paper sticks, however unlike the sand bags, there appeared a more aggressive relationship due to the pinching of the material as it was held against the wall. These glass pieces were also radioactive, and to enhance their exploration of sculptural relationships, there was a performance in their installation, where they had a Geiger counter next to these pieces. The reaction from the sculpture caused the Geiger to sound and this reflected a conversation between the sculptures through the machine to the audience.

Crutch

The exploration of the sensuality through material was captured in a looped film where memory foam was prodded and recorded expanding back to it’s original state. Crabtree explained that through experimenting, they found inanimate objects, because of their lack of heat, did not cause the foam to hold the prodded shape and bounced back quickly. However, with body heat, when prodded with a finger or body part, the foam held the prodded shape for longer, making it easier to capture on film. They found that this need for physical heat and body created a more sensual feeling when watching the footage. They then projected this footage onto the walls of their exhibitions.

When listening to Crabtree’s talk, I perceived her artwork to be material focused rather than content or context. The two artists seem to work experimentally to explore the relationship between the audience and sculpture as well as between the sculptures themselves. I find this really interesting as it illuminates concepts that I had never thought of before, as I find myself stuck on content rather than form.

Artist Talk: SOHEILA SOKHANVARI

Soheila Sokhanvari is an Iranian-born artist. Sokhanvari first studied an gained a degree in Biochemistry before completing a second degree in Fine Art, and started her presentation with an image of her final piece at Goldsmith University. It consisted of a taxidermy pony upon a blue round object made of fibreglass. She did not going to depth about the meaning of this piece although gave the pieces name ‘The Green Movement’ – upon researching this i found that this piece was a part of her exploration of magical-realism as well as acting as a political piece, as it the refers to the 2009 Iranian movement where protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office, during the presidential election.

Soheila Sokhanvari, 2011,
Taxidermy, Fibreglass, Jesmonite blob, automobile paint, 170 x 230 x 140 cm

She explained how her pieces explore trauma, reflecting upon her own exile from Iran. She explores this through different methods. One method being drawing from an image, (she uses photographs of her family) and then drawing from the first drawing, and repeating this process until she decides the piece is satisfactory to her. Upon asking how she knows this point she put it down to her intuition. After questioning it also arose that this method reflects the distortion that occurs through memory. These drawings are created using crude oil as a form of physical connection to the political importance of crude oil in Iran.

Soheila Sokhanvari, Paradise Lost

Another method of exploring her trauma results in creating art from the negative spaces found in her family photos. She uses this negative space to create a positive self-representation of her own form – placing herself in the picture.

Soheila Sokhanvari, Self-Portait

This sculpture ‘Self-portrait’ was created in reaction to her previous drawing, which was created from the negative space of a photograph. She created it as a way to create a physical presence, forming a positively spaced piece.

Sokhanvari also continues to create a series of work with passports. She takes old passports and reinvents and parodies them with ironic stamps relative to the passport owners gender, ethnicity and other identifying factors. She has presented these passports in clear frames so both the covers and the photo pages can be seen.

I found this the most interesting artist talk of the year so far, due to Sokhanvari’s clear explanations on what drives and inspires her artwork. I also was really intrigued by her use of the negative and how she created a physically positive piece from it.

 

 

Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker is a British artist, who studied at Gloucestershire College of Art and Design and Wolverhampton Polytechnic. She is a sculptor and installation artist and was born in 1965.

The reason I have become interested in Cornelia Parker is due to her piece:

Cold Matter: An Exploded View

When set the assignment of a ‘fragment’ and having already decided upon my ‘impossible sculpture’, I found myself visualising the mirrors as fragments and broken and so when i saw this piece i saw a connection. Parker exploded a shed, which continued old belongings as well, and created this installation as though the explosion had been paused. What I find really interesting is the fact she had no control over what the form of her materials would be, the splintering of the wood and the broken house-hold items were completely out of her control, and I felt that this allowed me to explore the idea of smashing my mirrors without think about what shapes I will end up with. I also loved the way the shadows are cast around the room, due to light bulb which sits within the sculpture. I felt that this effect was the same as which i wanted my sculpture to create, however in reverse where the light is moved by the sculpture around the room rather than blocked out by it.

In an interview with Tate curator Michaela Parkin, Parker explains that to her the shadows make it as though the viewer is almost within the sculpture too as their own shadow mixes with those of the sculpture. I find this really interesting, as I had thought about encouraging viewers to take a torch to explore how the light reflects from all different angles. When looking at this piece this is a feeling of calm about it, regardless of the fact it captures a dangerous and violent moment. This idea connects to the fact mirror, although creating beautiful reflections as well as when refracted rainbows, the edges and the appearance are sharp, cold, and also violent in appearance. This contrasting state really interests me and I feel it also reflects how my ‘impossible sculpture’ creates both a Utopian and Dystopian world.

Pipilotti Rist

Pipilotti Rist, ‘Ever is Over All’, Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a56RPZ_cbdc

Pipilotti Rist is a video-film-artist, who creates video installations. Her work is centred around the female body, and conveys a sense of sexuality and spirituality. In the work ‘Ever is Over All’, I was intrigued by the mixture of images that blended together, without boundaries creating a psychedelic fusion of abstract nature and the real imagery of the woman smashing car windows. This surreal combination really captivated my interest because of how the imagery was conveyed, with the sweet and dream-like audio contrasting heavily with the content of smashing windows. Furthermore this surrealism was enhanced by the happy expression of passersby, especially the police woman. When exploring ideas with my group we felt that using this same ‘sweet’ audio would aid the dream-like state we were wanting to convey within the calm section of the film.

Alex Katz

Eleuthera, 1984

Alex Katz is an American artist born in 1927. I find Katz’s artwork really interesting and important to the creation of my painting. I have looked into how he depicts the female figure, especially in his portraiture, and I really like the simplicity of his style. I think the attraction to this style is due to the use of a block, contrasting colour used as the background. I feel like this has influenced me to keep the background of my painting simple with the white rectangle and main black area left without detail. I also feel like the aesthetic of simplicity is emphasised by the small range of shades used for the skin tone. I feel like to get the expression of the woman across clearly I should focus on limiting my palette so that the features are clearer and not clumped with lots of different colours. I also like how flat and smooth the paint is upon the surface. I feel like this adds to the clarity of his paintings, and I too want the features of the woman and her clothing to have this same clarify. Although the paint is flat and smooth, Katz’s use of shading and harsh contours add depth and detail to his paintings that stop them from appearing unconvincing. I feel that by focussing on the tones and shades rather than using a wide range of colour will help me to make the clothing and face of my figure convincing.

Black Hat, 2010