Tate Modern Visit

Tate Britain, first opened its doors in 1897, to a small collection of British artworks. Founded as the National Gallery of British Art, its role was changed to include more modern art. Later changed its name to the Tate Gallery after sugar magnate Henry Tate, who laid the foundations for the collection. By 2000 the Tate Gallery modernized to Tate or the Tate Modern, a combination of four museums: Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives, a total close to 70,000 artworks. Also introducing their website which displays all the collections across the galleries as-well as exhibitions.

During my visit to the Tate Modern I gathered photographs and sketches as primary research for my  project. Expanding from this primary research I found artists that relate to my theme of work.

Colour Harmonies

Primary Colours: Red, yellow and blue
In traditional color theory (used in paint and pigments), primary colors are the 3 pigment colors that can not be mixed or formed by any combination of other colors. All other colors are derived from these 3 hues.  
Secondary Colours: Green, orange and purpleThese are the colors formed by mixing the primary colors.
Tertiary Colours: Yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green & yellow-greenThese are the colors formed by mixing a primary and a secondary color. That's why the hue is a two word name, such as blue-green, red-violet, and yellow-orange.
These were the basic three wheels I knew until Gary threw six more colour harmonies wheels into the mix. Thanks.

Design Principles

How did you personally feel about working with the 'Design Principles' and what could they offer you in the future?

The Design Principles:

-Balance

-Unity

-Contrast

-Emphasis

-Pattern

-Movement & Rhythm

I feel they give me an option to create ordered chaos within my work, being able to create work with different outcomes every time. These are defiantly artists ingredients to create the best combination of balanced work. It allows you to think in simpler terms and acts as a check list.

What has been new for you about working in this way?

Its being able to use unrelated elements together and you focus a lot more on the method of working. Your able to relate to more artists work and create your own similar styles. As a whole its a learning process taken on board.

Short Story - Creative Writing

I thought it had all changed, I thought she was back to normal, back to life, reality. That was until I got home the afternoon. She was sat there, in the nude, back towards me, the sheets dropped over her soft plus skin, her glossy waved hair pinned back with her cream pearl grip. Frozen like a beautiful sculpted statue, with just the slight movement of her shoulders indicating her slow, deep, breathing pattern. She looked desolate and taken away with the unknown. The unknown we call her imagination, a dark deep place that takes her away from life, takes her to a place only one would not want to wish to imagine, were your drained from all emotions. You have no identity and develop a bareness, an emptiness as such, as if you are no longer yourself as a being, but as such you are a progressing piece of architecture. Creating pilers to prop yourself straight, staircase's inside to ensure all parts of you are still connected. Each room or different chamber stores objects, ornaments and belongings to help remind you of who you are, who you once were, who you will be.

Language and Expression through the art movements

A picture is worth a thousand words. Art portrays its own language and can speak to people in many different ways. Often expressed through use of tone, colour, composition, texture etc..
Tom Wolfe argued that late 20th century art had become so dominated by art theory that it was now less a visual medium than a literary one: "The paintings and other works exist only to illustrate the text," he claimed. Iv noticed this myself comparing different art movements.

Art movements have changed through the decades. 1867-1923 the Impressionism movement, Claude Monet was a french artist and a leading member of the Impressionist group of the painters. 1872 he visited Le Havre where he painted 'An Impression, Sunrise', which was exhibited in 1874, part of the title was used derisively by a critic to label the whole movement. This exhibition is now known as the First Impressionist Exhibition.

“Painting does not have to be ‘literary’– an invective which many people use in regard to paintings that do not depict apples on a tablecloth or a broken violin.” –Edvard Munch, 1929

1890-1926 The Modern art movement was in full swing. Edvard Munch, a Norwegian painter and printmaker was greatly influenced by German Expressionism and created works themed intensely on psychological treatment. His work has become symbolic of the human condition and doesn't suppress emotion both conscious and unconscious. his perplexing, enigmatic work was a product of his troubled life, of which he grew up around sickness, madness and death. By his middle age he became an alcoholic, after a breakdown his genius of art progressed him through his life. Edvard describes madness and death like black angels that kept watch over his cradle, this has had a lasting effect throughout his life that is greatly reflected in his work. 'The Scream' one of the most famous and iconic pieces in art. There are four copies of The Scream, only one of these copies is privately owned, the other three belong to museums and galleries, however the privately owned copy differs from the rest by the poem that's inscribed into the original frame. this poem relates to a diary entry from which the poem originated, Munch refined his entry in small but important ways before placing it under the artwork. The scream is truly surreal and best represents the mind of a mentally ill person.

I was walking along the road with two friends

The Sun was setting – the Sky turned blood-red.

And I felt a wave of Sadness – I paused

tired to Death – Above the blue-black

Fjord and City Blood and Flaming tongues hovered

My friends walked on – I stayed

behind – quaking with Angst – I

felt the great Scream in Nature

Surrealism began in France 1924. Sigmund Freud wrote a book called 'The Interpretation of Dreams' where he describes the 'Unconscious mind' as a deep layer of the human mind where memory and instincts are stored. This book is what inspired the poet Andre Breton to publish a manifest proposing his theory that art and literature could represent the unconscious mind. it is here at the low level of the mind where ideas have been plucked by artists through the many layers of the mind and onto the canvas.
Artists who agreed with Andre Breton's idea range from Salvador Dali to Max Ernst.
Freud believed the primary motivation for life was sex, he later changed his mind despite the fact that sex is a instinctive and vital process for human reproduction. Breton believed; love, poetry and liberty were the keys to understanding human beings.

"In love with the shape and sounds of words" Dylan Thomas

There are two main types of surrealist painting, on one side there are dreams describing the subconscious mind and on the other side there is 'automatism' that expresses the unconscious mind, there is a fundamental difference between the subconscious and unconscious mind.
In psychology, “automatism” refers to involuntary actions and processes not under the control of the conscious mind—for example, dreaming, breathing, or a nervous tic. Automatism plays a role in Surrealists techniques such as spontaneous or automatic writing, painting, and drawing.

Dreams have a rich source of creativity, colours and moods.

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, a prominent Spanish surrealist is probably the most iconic and famous artist in the Surrealism movement. At first glance at Dali's work there is an unusual feeling of emptiness, and at the center is a wild and wierd set of objects, often distort and disturbing. Its these finer details I love in Dali's work, and how each element is so perfectly placed to symbolize something, these symbols may mean something different depending on how you view the piece, or even your mood at the time.  

City Art Gallery Visit

When placing yourself in front of Susan Hiller's 2010 'Rough Times' your drawn to each separate panel as an individual image. Each panel a distinguished colour but still some how contains every other colour still. The colouring creates a more contemporary feel. These colours almost give the work a dreamlike quality which creates a disconnect between what is imagined and what is reality. A set of nine panels, postcard style as such, landscape and sea scene. I do find interesting though that when viewed very close up, each image is pixelated and unclear until viewed from a distance. The size of the piece hung there on its own is impressive and sets of a mood after viewing it in the room.

Film Review - Pride

Based on a true story, the film depicts a group of lesbian and gay activists who raised money to help families affected by the British Miner's Strike in 1984, at the outset of what would become the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners campaign. The National Union of Mineworkers was reluctant to accept the group's support due to the union's public relations' worries about being openly associated with a gay group, so the activists instead decided to take their donations directly to a small mining village in Wales — resulting in an alliance between the two communities. The alliance was unlike any seen before but was successful.

Pride is a very heart-warming and emotional film. Seeing how a movement, not so long ago effected many people. In a sense, almost everything has changed since then: 30 years on, the coal is gone, and same-sex marriage has been enshrined in UK law. By focusing the struggle on a small, but distinct circle of people, the audience can connect to the intimate human drama that played out in the much larger public arena. The lightness of tone when dealing with heavy issues is appreciated. In the process it sidesteps the pitfalls that could've made this account preachy or didactic. This might alienate some seeking more hard hitting controversy, but the script fashions a narrative much in the way a powerful sports movie works. It creates a David and Goliath story and invites you to cheer for the underdog.