Photography – Page 5 – prints and research

June 2, 2020June 2, 2020

Lockdown week 10

Care

There are amazing human examples of care by families and health professionals across the world as people fight to survive the virus. It is increasingly difficult to comprehend the reality of the figures reflecting individual suffering.

Above is the current situation. The beginning of the graph is January 1st 2020 with covid at zero. Click the link and be shocked by the trajectory of this interactive graph.

Birmingham School of Art #printgang

*: : : (red)*, 2016
Color sugar lift and soap ground aquatints
45 × 42 in
114.3 × 106.7 cm
Edition of 25

I had an in depth conversation with Justin and Taiba about the Jaqueline Humphries’ print: ‘Red’ referenced in respect of her use of emoji figuration, pattern and abstract grounds. Justin had seen the print for real in a recent visit to Crownpoint Press, San Francisco where it had been made. He reported that it was an impressive work and its size, for an etched print, added to the impression.

We discussed the potential to silkscreen a mark resist drawing on to an aquatinted etching plate by printing with drawing fluid on the plate for it to be dissolved and let the acid bite. Like silkscreen parts of an image may be stopped out to protect from further inking, but in this process areas of the plate can be stopped out for deeper biting. I am not an etcher and am not wholly sure of the process, but it is worth thinking through and experimenting with when back in the Printroom. The concept of mixing silkscreen and etching is appealing.

Masking

Meeting a friend in the street we participated in a socially distanced catch up conversation. Jayne is a top costume designer who has designed and made covid masks and kindly offered to make us one each. A few days later the doorbell rang and she and partner Dave had placed a jiffy bag with two masks in a socially distanced way on our letter box. Taking the opportunity to share some time we walked round our communal garden and showed them the neighbour’s developing veg garden and greenhouse reconstruction. We talked beetroot, bees, damsons and peacocks. As we went our separate ways Jayne said this was the best part of making and giving masks to friends: the talking and sharing. Nice!

LockDown LookOut

Lockdown Lookout No1 has been made. It awaits editioning as a digital print or the basis for a larger silkscreen print based on the layers that have come together in the making. Drawing No 2 has begun.

Looking out of another window a range of tree leaves and light are framed by the rectangular window section. Beyond the sunlit highlights I am drawn into the undergrowth on the ipad’s electronic surface feeling my way through the branches, leaves and shadows. The digital magnification function allows one to see further into the detail and the drawing of its, before reducing the view back down to observe the drawing in context of the whole. The first layer has been drawn in 7 days, not 7 weeks. Probably because a format/concept for a series has been established and one can progress with confidence, while aware that a second drawing may not be as satisfying as the first.

On day 4 I was drawing late evening and a tv documentary following 90’s comedian Tony Slattery as he tried to find solutions to his continuing mental health concerns came on. At 60 years old it was an emotional roller coaster ride for him and his partner Mark as he faced psychiatrists, alcohol consultants and past childhood demons. The next day when I returned to draw from where I had left off, I began to be aware of not only the memory of the drawing approach I had taken, but also memories of what was going on in the Tv programme. An image of Tony Slattery battling through against the odds appeared as a type of mental trace. It seemed to be initiated by returning to the same focussed drawing modus operandi that I was pursuing on the iPad screen, while in front of the Tv Screen 12 hours before. The two aligned in a manner not anticipated.

*Lockdown Lookout #2. digital iPad* drawing. layer 1

#Blacklivesmatter

At the end of this week 10 Lockdown is met with terrible trauma in the murder of George Floyd. The reality of vicious racism has been brought to the global stage and protest by all of us is demanded. The disproportionate burden felt by people of colour in the care, employment and justice systems must be recognised and addressed in this pandemic moment of change for the future.

Birmingham Museum acknowledged this need as has artist Mohammed Ali.

painted 1st June 2020. Birmingham, B14 Silver Street.

Thats it

May 26, 2020May 27, 2020

Lockdown week 9

It doesn’t get any easier.

It doesn’t get any easier to assimilate what we are experiencing as daily death statistics become a normality. Not an acceptable normality. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ‘Reconcile’ the reality of the figures and confined Isolation.

The infographic is interactive : https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid -19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/

Birmingham School of Art #printgang

While posting a recent #Printgang screenshot an image from @Crownpointpress, the iconic San Francisco arts press caught my eye. Crownpoint is a unique press where artists spend dedicated time making ground-breaking prints with expert printmakers.

Crownpoint founder Kathan Brown observes in her introduction how printmakers traverse image making: “In 1965 Richard Diebenkorn drew a woman’s face on a plate and fifty-one years later Jacqueline Humphries, working at the same table, integrated emojis with abstraction. She said she was thinking about the plates, not the prints. The plates make the print.”

Jacqueline Humphries at Crown Point Press

My first impression of Jacqueline Humphries’ featured print ‘Red’ was that it was a layered colour screen print using stencils, half tone and cmyk techniques.

It was not. It was a large-scale, large plate sugar lift etching. The process is captured on Crownpoint magical moments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=418&v=zafzGvlMer8&feature=emb_title

After further research into Jacqueline Humphries’ work and online video interviews, I was rewarded with insights into her layering work aesthetic. She makes images between abstraction and figuration. Mixing abstraction and modern tech images. In print and painting, she uses keyboard characters, emonicons, colons, commas, ascii code, parenthesis and emojis. ‘It’s all done in a computer. Proof those and I make a decision, I have a large laser and I stencil them onto the canvas, then maybe I paint into it. Some characters are blown in contrast in photoshop and bring out different qualities.’

‘For three decades, Humphries has tackled the question about the relevance of abstract painting in a visual culture that is increasingly influenced by screens and technology. The paintings she has developed over the past few years combine both traditional and contemporary methods, abstraction and figuration, gesture and mechanical reproduction, density and flatness, optical illusion and physicality— creating a new language in the long history of abstract painting.

“I am less interested in harnessing technology as a means to make painting or changing painting through technology,” Jacqueline Humphries has said. “But in how technology has changed me. How computers have changed bodies. And so by reimagining painting as a technological interface, I think of painting as a screen upon which anything can be projected.”

Her integration of the complementarity of abstraction and technological imagery encouraged an appreciation of how one artist has embraced these two facets of image making in print. As well as enjoyment of the ‘Red’ artefact’s dark patterning over bright painterly coloured ground it is a contribution to my research into analogue and digital silk screen printmaking.

Other works:

https://www.greenenaftaligallery.com/artists/jacqueline-humphries

And an interview from Aspen Art Museum on July 25, 2019: https://youtu.be/kl6YydkDqDI

Material Encounters

The Material Encounters Cluster at BCU presented a philosophical webinar delivered by Professor Tim Ingold from Aberdeen University on the subject many arts researchers tussle with in and out of lockdown: HOW CAN ART BE A PRACTICE OF RESEARCH. Professor Ingold is a world renowned Anthropologist and author of books including: Lines (2016), Making (2013), Being Alive (2011) and The Perception of the Environment (2000). This was a most stimulating lecture and Q&A enabling the sold out audience to consider their research in a wider intellectual context than the current restricted environment enables. https://materialencounters.wordpress.com

To wear or not to wear, that is the question.

As debate of how Lockdown might be relaxed the issue of masks has to be dealt with. In considering the pros and cons I looked into the 1918 pandemic flu response that devasted populations having just survived the mass deaths of the first world war. It threw up century old images of masked people and the theories of effectiveness reminiscent of current consideration:

The gauze mask was another prevention method using similar ideas of contagion and germ theory. In the United States it was widely accepted for use in hospitals among health care workers. The face masks consisted of a half yard of gauze, folded like a triangular bandage covering the mouth, nose and chin (BMJ, 11/2/19118). These gauze masks acted to prevent the infectious droplets from being expelled by the mouth and from the hands, contaminated with microbe from being put to the mouth. The barrier from the hands was thought to be more important than the barrier from the air. This rhyme was a popular way to remind people of the ordinance.

Obey the laws

And wear the gauze

Protect your jaws

From Septic Paws

A group of people posing for the camera

Description automatically generated

They found that the mask wearing led to “a rapid decline in the number of cases of influenza,” (JAMA, 12/28/1918). A study in the Great Lakes, however, did not find such beneficial results. Mask wearing by hospital corps did not have an effect on the incidence of disease as 8% who used the mask developed infection while only 7.75% of non-mask wearers did (JAMA, Vol. 71, No. 26). Despite these results, the masks were commonly used by many in an effort to avoid the pandemic influenza disease.

https://virus.stanford.edu/uda/fluresponse.html

LockDown LookOut

Major development!

Reviewing the digital iPad drawing I decided that the drawn dark framed tree could benefit from and extended frame to situate it in a wider visual context. In photoshop the drawing is positioned on a photograph of the window frames, at 40% opacity creating a light grey abstract irregular grid. The drawn black and white image is tinted, much like the making stencils for silkscreen prints to give a green flat background to the tree and flat blue to the sky. These are all made in separate layers and reminiscent of the waking images that have inspired the print. For print it has become by applying analogue silkscreen conceptions in the data processing of photoshop to be printed out from an inkjet printer.

Lockdown Lookout. digital inkjet printing

*Lockdown Lookout. digital settings, by hand.*

*Lockdown Lookout. digital inkjet pr*oofs

1. Bright colour settings 2. Bright settings with no window detail. 3. Softer colour settings. 4. No colour with window detail. Over the next week one will be selected to print an edition.

SUPA Gifting Success.

I am very happy to report that the SUPA lottery lucky dip has been a great success raising £2500 for women’s aid. See the postcard artworks: https://www.supagallery.co.uk/supa-dip

Eid Mubarak

Sunday 24^th was the Islamic celebration of the ending of the month of Ramadan and fasting which Connect Futures observed with a creative visualisation.

On the 24th USA Zakat Foundation broadcast a free virtual show and celebration on Facebook live: Eid-in-Place. Birmingham UK’s Mohammed Ali and Guz Khan contributed.

https://www.zakat.org/en/eid/

Take Care. Stay Safe.

May 18, 2020May 18, 2020

Lockdown week 8

More Relaxed?

Over 312K recorded deaths globally. Over 34k in UK, where there are signs of slowing, but every one is a personal tragedy.

I have made many more calls on my time and attention this week on external activities that would normally be made face to face. Now mainstream video conferencing apps that we knew nothing of 8 weeks ago, bleep me with my appointments. Apologies to those whose bleep I have missed. Zoom and Teams have been productive, or as productive as they can be with so many people not at work physically or having been ‘furloughed’ (another new word to the vocabulary).

For arts people under lockdown there is nowhere to physically participate, art galleries, cinemas, theatres, music venues nowhere. A recent tweet from a vibrant and innovative cinema programmer, locked down with two 5 year-old children put the condition many are in: ‘I can’t remember what job I used to do. I think it was something to do with pictures in a screen. Moving flickering lights. Sound too.’ David Baldwin, Mac Cinema, Birmingham.

Laura Cumming and Charlotte Higgins. The Guardian

Through instagrammed alerts from arts colleagues and follow on references two articles have helped me consider where we are as museums and art galleries are closed and the curators, managers, support staff and thousands of visitors are left bereft :

Close your eyes and imagine seeing the art worlds treasures as if for the first time. #LauraCummingArt

After the war (2^nd) the arts came back stronger. They can do so again now. Charlotte Higgins

Rather than bemoan the state we find ourselves in they paint constructive ways forward that can considered as we see post lockdown possibilities and beyond to arts gatherings. An historic reminder that post world war two UK society decided that arts and culture were important for the future and established the Arts Council and the Festival of Britain. Food for thought.

Lockdown (art) Television

Interestingly two of the newly produced lockdown programmes on television that have encouraged participation and have been enjoyed by many are arts focussed: Grayson Perry’s ‘Art Club’ and BBC Arts ‘Life Drawing Live’. It seems the great British public want more art. Art Club is from GP’s, not the doctors surgery, but Grayson’s studio with his partner Phillipa and a mix of celebs doing art and public submissions for inclusion in a post lockdown exhibition as record of . There have been heart-warming moments of emotional exchange that art has brought to the host and active artists. The first transmission of Life Drawing Live was pre coronavirus February, and a little scoffed at as a titillating gimmick by BBC Arts and Avanti producers. Well in lockdown 8, thousands upon thousands of people drew and submitted their work to the BBC collection centre. The hosts introduced life models in poses from various artistic traditions and took the participating artist’s, at appropriate social distances through 30sec, 1min, 6, 10 and 12 minute poses. The option of ‘pose cam’ on the red button was available to home drawers to focus on an unmediated relationship to the drawing. As a lockdown experience it worked well. My daughter and I drew live, sharing our drawings and comments by text – 90 minutes of live life-drawing, via television worked in Lockdown Britain.

I did not share my drawings with BBC, but have done so with SUPA who have mounted a ‘lucky dip’ art postcard lottery. When you enter you’ll be randomly assigned one of our Supa Dip postcards; original works of postcard art created by celebrated and emerging artists.
All profits go to Women’s Aid who are providing vital services in lockdown and beyond.

BCU, Birmingham School of Art #Printgang

I did share one of the drawings with the Print gang who had also taken part in the TV event. Both drawings were clearly of the same subject, but with their own particular mark making approach. They were also shared with @msnorabruno, a ‘printgang’ alumni who video called in from Northern Italy and shared her thoughts on the lockdown experience as we’ll as showed us her impressive home made silkscreen printing press she had researched through https://www.t-shirtforums.com. Inspiring. Printgang is such a good session where we draw, plan and make prints for a future where we will make prints in our post lockdown selected media.

Lockdown Looking Out

Looking out has not progressed far! Only to consider setting the detailed digital drawing of the weeping tree in the visual context of the window through which I am looking out of. Maybe too literal? Still more to come on this drawing. Maybe title change? Lookout Lockdown?

*Patthompson’s weekly Monday lockdown diary.*

Academic research is slow! I have a couple of projects to complete which are close, but I have not progressed the wider areas of knowledge that are calling me. It does not make me feel good or productive. When Patricia Thomson’s Monday morning Lockdown blog opened with a monitor filled with large text: DO MORE I was dismayed. Of course, she was to explain that she has got a ‘case of what I could acronym FONDA – Fear Of Not Doing Anything. I see much more clearly now how I am prone to think I have done absolutely nothing at the end of the working day. She has been working hard daily, but it does not feel like it and she feels guilty because of it. She concludes that: ‘maybe the first step towards changing the academic guilt regime is to be aware of it. And making a kind of very late new year public resolution to try to get over myself and it.‘

FONDA is a crock. FONDA begone.

lockdown diary

May 11, 2020May 11, 2020

Lockdown week 7

Tacit Possibilities.

Over 32k recorded deaths in UK. Over 285K globally. Every one a personal tragedy.

Tacit knowledge is a specific knowledge first articulated by philosopher Michael Polanyi. I know this as it is a new area of analysis that I have unearthed in my research under lockdown. So, it can’t be all bad! I’ve also completed an essay I have fashioned from 4000 words to 1000 (in four months) which is a ‘vast improvement’. Lockdown isn’t that bad.

The cherry blossom has come in the sunshine of April, and is now gone in the winds of May.

The passing of nature is more apparent in Lockdown which is good.

Annie Drew’s images of Venice in Lockdown offer a daily instagram update of a European society two weeks ahead of our UK experience as it relaxes restrictions. @annie.drew1

Good to see Venice, if in LockDown. Follow on #veniceinlockdown

The Art School ‘print gang’ video conferencing took an unexpected direction from a talking catch up to recreating the print-room environment where printmakers ‘make’. In the making sharing takes place, informally when makers feel the need to discuss or show their developing works for critique. Instead of talking together we make together. Heads looked down to artworks in visual concentration, with sounds of brushes, pencils and burins filling the airwaves. Occasionally a head rises to say something of interest as would happen in the real world Printroom mezzanine. An online creative making format had been brought into being, perhaps unintentionally by recreating a virtual printmaking environment. Posting this experience on instagram, alumni requested to join in. Locally and internationally. For the next 2pm session invites were sent to Quanzhou and printmaker Yuchen Yang joined at 10pm china time.

We celebrated seeing each other and began to make. 30 drawing mins later Yuchen held up her portrait of Justin for all to see and celebrate. Alumni from other countries are seeking to participate.

This is Lockdown GOOD.

The ongoing Looking Out from Lockdown drawing has been completed after 12 days. Well the drawn weeping tree has been made, but the looking out frame isn’t quite right yet. It will be worked on further. An additional thought of a printmaking approach has come to mind and is to be tested with ‘digital silkscreen’ layering in photoshop for digital printing. It’s a long journey out of lockdown.

Looking Out from Lockdown. Day 12 iPad drawing.

This lockdown week I have been spending some time looking at how a number of arts organisations can make their way through lockdown with digital offerings and to a physical post Lockdown future when they might contemplate reopening to the public. Its not at all easy for many of them that rely on delivering daily cultural offerings and welcoming people from all backgrounds into their spaces to participate in art for all ages. It will be a long way back from Lockdown to the new normal for art centres and galleries. Back on instagram a new artist lockdown initiative is happening. Began literally by single abstract artist Artist Mathew Burrows @ArtistSupportpledge is a move to generosity and artist mutual Lockdown support.

Mathew has given an interview to Jacksons art supplies, (which is open for online orders): ‘Matthew Burrows is an East Sussex based abstract painter. However if you regularly post your artwork to an Instagram account you may recognise his name as the founder of the Artist Support Pledge. When the Covid-19 pandemic started to affect the UK in the first half of March, Matthew Burrows had the idea to start posting works for sale for £200. When he had sold £1k worth of artwork he pledged to buy some art work himself for £200, and encouraged other artists to do the same. 95,000 posts later the #artistsupportpledge is playing a vital role in keeping the visual arts industry alive, as well as helping to build a community and promote generosity.’

https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2020/04/29/matthew-burrows-purpose-matters-more-than-judgement/?utm_campaign=1897532_Blog_Newsletter_05_05_2020&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Jackson%27s%20Art%20Supplies&dm_i=42I2,14O58,6KIMR2,3ZBNE,0

This is Lockdown Very Good.

I noticed an artist’s pledge artist offer her colour pencil drawing titled: ‘bucket list’. Composed with a construction worker leaning on his hammer, contemplating his next move or perhaps his bucket list. At a good social distance his bucket sits nearby. I messaged @SueLewisblake and made an offer which she was happy to accept. It has arrived in the post and I will enjoy it reminding us of Lockdown times and what of our bucket lists will survive.

‘bucket list’. Sue Lewis-Blake colour pencil.

Lockdown continues to throw up possibilities

May 4, 2020May 4, 2020

Lockdown week 6

Its possible to be more positive.

Lockdown 6

Over 28k recorded deaths in UK and 68k in USA. Unimaginable a few weeks ago and everyone a personal tragedy.

In better, most positive news the beginning of the week saw the first whatapp pictures of baby Finley. A joy to their parents after many days of anticipation, potential inducement, hours of waiting in the hospital car park for Dad and hours, and hours of labour for Mum. All three are happily well together back home. Congratulatory flowers, chocolates and Prosecco were delivered by nearby cousins, across the doorway, at a social distance.

This week has seen further positive printmaking developments following acceptance that silkscreen print is impossible in Lockdown and a local digital solution is required. I ventured to my studio and locked myself in, meeting no one. A photographic image of a handmade mark, made in the Birmingham School of Art Print room was the first dipping of printmaking toes. Smooth cartridge paper and specialist Hahnemühle German Etching paper had been ordered online orders and was the first test.

Previously having tested the dithered bitmap approach with limited success another non bitmapped approach was taken. Inkjet print research suggested that using a photoshop CMYK mode, rather than ‘bit map’ or ‘RGB’ might deliver a less colourful black and white print out. CMYK does not look that different on screen, however the colour hue can be altered more effectively. A yellow cast was applied and printed out on plain, smooth cartridge and once reviewed on heavyweight grained Hahnemühle etching paper.

This paper has a coating applied specifically for inkjet printing. It has unique ICC number that is applied to photoshop to be best calibrated for the Canon printer being used.

Data sheet: Datenblatt-GermanEtching Download

Inkjet photoshop and canon prints settings

The above images show the range of photoshop colour and printer settings applying the German etching ICC number. Once set and colour cast in place the Canon 7 ink printer settings were set based on previous tested settings: A3, Grayscale, Inkjet Hagaki. Printouts on cartridge suggested that the detail of the handmade mark could be retained however the grayscale output did not seem as rich in depth as the colour output. The grayscale setting was unchecked and a colour print made on Hahnemühle. This worked well and retained a depth of colour, detail and embedded in the deep grain of the coated paper. Like the original handmade image the iphone photographs below do not reflect the material tactility of the print, but hint at what it is when it can be viewed by in person.

Eventually through trial and error I arrived at a satisfactory print. Now named ‘Surface Tensions’ and described here:

Surface Tensions is inspired by thinking of the place of the legendary Birmingham School of Art Print room where many cultures have met to make. The abstract image began during a fingerprint testing of water and powdered lamp black ink on the gleaming glass printroom mixing surface and given a material presence on a scrap of cartridge paper. A record of the ink mark has been kept as data in digital photographic archives for a moment like this, to give a new printed physical presence to the memory of place. Made by hand, kept as data, printed with inkjet.

Looking out. I thought my Lockdown looking out drawing would be finished by now, but still at it with a shock moment when the Apple Pencil would not make any marks! Repaired and functioning as expected. Completion next week!

Browsing apps for new additions to the drawing possibilities turned up the Camera Lucida app: The ipad becomes a camera lucida with the help of a vase. Click below to era more from the developers.

Zoom and Teams users continue to find new ways for communications and family entertainment.

Our daily Teams printgang meet fell silent except for the sounds of pencils, brushes and burins as the usual talking heads turned down to concentrate on individual artworks taking form. From time to time a head would lift to show progress. Thanks to Lucy, Tabz, Justin and Boysie.

Finally a 14^th Birthday got very exciting with virtual candle blowing, Pictionary on zoom whiteboard, followed by Heads Up with phone app across, Edinburgh, Melrose, Derby, Birmingham and London.

Guess: ‘CHEERLEADERS”

April 28, 2020April 28, 2020

Lockdown week 5

It’s changing, I mean I am changing.

I have accepted making the silkscreen, serigraphic prints I am researching cannot be done during Lockdown. I can research, read and write about the work, but accept that I will not be able to test through making. That will have to wait. Talking on screen with artists and colleagues; seeing lockdown work beginning to appear online and in particular Instagram, along with planning for scheduled exhibiting has taken me to a position of motivation to ‘make in lockdown.’

It will be digital in essence, but with analogue, material processes and outputs. This challenge has brought thought and experimentation forward. I safely visited the studio for the first time and Locked myself in, meeting no-one. Using a Canon A3 ip8700 inkjet printer, which is usually used for outputting black and white images on to plain paper for the first stage of drawing for silkscreen print, I begin experiments with outputs for finished prints on a range of papers.

An international print exhibition has been organised by four Australasian Print Groups. Thinkingofplace is the third iteration of the exhibition concept and is planned for international exhibits over the next 2 years. Our printmaking team coordinated by Dr Catherine Baker will produce A3 prints for delivery to Melbourne on June 1^st. A deadline. Perhaps this is what has been required to ‘make in Lockdown’.

For Thinkingofplace I am working with a finger printed lamp black ink, abstract image originally made on paper as it was being tested on the mixing glass in the Birmingham School of Art Printroom. The image was imported into Photoshop, converted to greyscale, areas edited and curves applied to loose the background and enhance the presence of the analogue marks in the now digital image. A 200 bitmapped line dither was applied to bring a digital ‘grain’ to bear. This is a much finer grain than the 105 line used for silkscreen printing. The depth of black and grey ink required to make a digital print was tested by printing to the printer with plain, photo matte and arches papers, available in the studio. On review of the results a smooth A3 cartridge and Hahnemühle digital etching paper were ordered online, to extend the range of print surfaces and ink impressions.

2 blacks and a grey. one yellow, cyan and magenta.

If the prints are satisfactory, they can be offered up for Thinking of place and other live lockdown ventures such as the artists pledge.

Returning home I move ‘Looking Out’ on. This is an ipad drawing of the view I wake to each morning of a weeping tree. Far from sad it is a beautiful tree. It has become a task beyond that which I envisaged. Now I am on day seven, it should be completed in the next few days. I cannot draw it for long as my eyes begin to hurt from making the detail effective through the digital pen, iPad surface and underlying photographic image. Each session usually lasts as long as a chapter of the audiobook I listen to: Broken Greek, by Peter Paphides, about his mute childhood in his parent’s Birmingham’s Hall Green chip shop.

‘Looking Out in Lockdown’ first drawings

Brief horticultural research narrows the name of the tree to: Cupressus nootkatensis.

Cupressus nootkatensis is a species of trees in the cypress family native to the coastal regions of northwestern North America. This species goes by many common names including: Nootka cypress, yellow cypress, Alaska cypress, Nootka cedar, yellow cedar, Alaska cedar, and Alaska yellow cedar. The specific epithet “nootkatensis” is derived from its discovery by Europeans on the lands of a First Nation of Canada, those lands of the Nuu-chah-nulth people of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, who were formerly referred to as the Nootka. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupressus_nootkatensis

Garden Design centre also call the ‘quite majestic’ tree the ‘Green Arrow’ https://www.gardenia.net/plant/chamaecyparis-nootkatensis-green-arrow

August 19, 2018September 10, 2018

Fruits Drawings 15 Years Apart.

In 2005 on a summer visit to Corsica I drew a line drawing of walnuts growing on the vine. The drawing was made with a pencil on sketchbook paper. For 15 years I had not come across a walnut plant or anything like those defined fruits, leaves and branches. This summer, 2018 I saw figs growing rather incongruously in West Wales with a similar fruit and structure. Attracted by the same sun lit ripe fruit image I embarked on a drawing, but this this time I had an iPad and pencil to hand. I deliberated on what I should draw to reflect this group of fruits: line, shading?

I began by taking a number of smart phone photographs from a range of angles to achieve a useful composition. Not something I considered in corsica with a traditional lead pencil and sketchbook in hand. I began the figs drawing with it in mind to make a line drawing similar to the walnut drawing. First I created a layer in the iPad procreate app for my favoured photographic composition. A second layer became the space for a shading and a third for a line drawing. For the line drawing I selected the 6b pencil and a mix of ‘perfect pencil’ and ‘blunt pencil’ for the shading layer. I began by line drawing two of the figs to the left and their branches. I then swapped to the shading level and drew the figs to the right. Enjoying reflecting the shapes in both modes I went on to compare each by viewing them side by side by making each’s layer visible. Each had their own quality of image and I went on to completing each I their particular layer.

Drawing in line requires a lightness and variation of weight to create a line depicting the whole object, while shading demands an overall approach to the object and its volume. Like the Corsican walnuts both drawings include indications of the branch, stem and leaves structure to the plant to suit each technique. The line drawing with rather extended branch and stem with little detail of the leaves, while the shaded drawing takes the reverse approach, with more detail in the leaves and less attention to the branch and stems.

For the shaded drawing the leaves were added to give more depth to the fruit on the branch. Both drawings have their discreet qualities. However, out of interest and ‘just to see’ what it might be like to mesh the two I switched both layers to visible and a ‘new’ third drawing is revealed. The shaded drawing now had sharper edges. The more defined edges from the line drawing gives the third composite drawing more presence and the inclusion of the line drawn extended branches give more context to main subject – the figs.

Click the Line,shading composite above image to view a moving imager capture of the drawings. https://vimeo.com/285645969

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walnut

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_fig

August 4, 2018August 10, 2018

Andrew Tift – Walsall New Art Gallery

Sadly I missed the opening of Andrew Tift’s show of portraits a few weeks back, but today I headed over to The New Art Gallery Walsall. And I am so glad I did. The gallery from top to bottom was totally rewarding. Wonderful to see a show dedicated to an artist’s portraits made over 3 decades. Wonderful also to see a full wall screen of an entrancing dance film by Hetain Patel, Photographs from Pakistan by Mahtab Hussain, Cornelia Parker’s Thirty Pieces of Silver and as always the Garman Ryan collection of gems.

Andrew Tift’s portraits reflect the artist’s life experiences and people’s he has engaged with from his home town of Walsall and the places he has visited including a spell in Japan. Many of the drawings and paintings are from a hyper realist tradition and are framed in conventional rectangles as are many of his influences. However there is a piece that is not rectangular – Body Shop, It is a car door, but it is painted and hung vertically. At first unrecognisable as a functional part of a car. Like a piece of Rauschenberg pop art it reveals itself and goes on to offer more as the painted image, equally out of sync with the shape it is on, and the work of the artist that surrounds it – Japanese men in a sauna. This is from a study visit Andrew made to research Japanese car manufacturing. In 1995, he was sponsored by oil and gas giants BP to create a portrait based solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery titled Sayonara Pet. He focused on the cradle to grave work ethic in the Japanese car manufacturing industry, initially in Sunderland and shortly afterwards in Tokyo. He documented the car workers and their families. The painting in itself feels like a document of the men’s culture outside the work space. It feels like we are being offered the opportunity to share in the artist’s ‘look into’ a moment. Like much of Andrew Tift’s work the portraits are celebrations of his subjects, but also a document of their lives.

His paintings and drawings are in the main created from series of photographs that he compiles over a focussed time with his sitters. He took over 400 pictures of Kitty Godley in 2006 to help him formulate his triptych of her. She was the daughter of Jacob Epstein and first husband of Lucien Freud who painted her in 1948/9. The resultant portrait was the image used in the 80’s on a poster to advertise the collection in the old walsall art gallery and encouraged Andrew to cross the doorway into the hallowed gallery and be inspired to make paintings. He never forgot that image, even though he was surprised how small it was in the real. He arranged to visit Kitty in her home in Suffolk to make a triptych of black and white portraits which became a BP Portrait prize winner. He also embarked on a single portrait of Kitty in the same pose as for Freud’s portrait over 50 years ago. Its inevitable that comparisons are made between the portraits and how Kitty’s face reflected her life then and now. Andrew’s portrait is not a homage, it is his interpretation and reflection of the woman he met which feels deep and full of admiration of her life.

Kitty was born in Wednesbury, a town near Walsall, as was Andrew’s Wife Anne who posed for two drawings in the Show; The Bath and Woman with White dog. The latter is based on the painting by Lucien Freud of Kitty when she was pregnant. Again we are invited to make comparisons across time, but also the fact that the location of both subjects are the same: the Black Country in the West Midlands. Andrew’s large drawing seems more empathetic of his wife than that of Freud’s.

The catalogue essay, ‘Conversations with the Past by Charlotte Mullins’ 1. provides valuable insights into Andrew’s motivations and recurring foci on life and death, past and present, and portraiture itself. She refers to Tift’s contemplation of his portraits, the dedicated preparation with his sitters and the meditation of the process of drawing. She Refers to Roland Barthes concept of the good/valuable photograph capturing the ‘air’ of the subject.” Barthes cautioned, ‘if the photograph fails to show this ‘air’ then the body moves without a shadow, and once this shadow severed ….. there remains no more than a sterile body.’ 2. Tift strives to capture the ‘air’ in both photographs and paint, for it is ultimately through paint that he brings his sitters to life. The portrait is not complete for Tift without time being folded into its surface as it is painted.’ This is an important differentiation between the photograph and the drawing or painting. The photograph can capture the ‘air’ of the subject, however the skilled work and attention selection of the detail to be made by the painting and drawing artist brings something ‘more’ to the portrait and adds to the ‘air’ of the subject.

His My daughter and My Mother hang next to each other, decades between them, but painted in the same year, 2018. In the catalogue they each sit on a page next to each other with the fold between them, however the invitation to compare is even more apparent in this closer format. One is encouraged to make comparisons, and contemplate the passage of time, and the painter’s perceptions of his relationship with these two females so very close to him that he has presented to us, and himself.

As said above seeing Andrew Tift’s body of work in the New Art Gallery with the Garman Ryan collection that inspired him was a treat. The viewing was beautifully complimented by Hetain Patel’s film, Don’t Look at the Finger; Photographs from Pakistan by Mahtab Hussain and Cornelia Parker’s Thirty Pieces of Silver. My visit was helped by the brilliant gallery assistant that brought me up to date with the exhibitions and the recent acquisition of a Frank Auerbach painting from Lucian Freud’s collection made available through the Arts Council Acceptance in lieu scheme.

Below is a slide show from my visit.:

hetain patel - Dont look at the Finger

Charlotte Mullins, Immortaloise. Cornerhouse publications, home 2018.
2.Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, 1980, trans. by Richard Howard. Flamingo 1984. p110

October 16, 2017October 16, 2017

Bahrain Artists in Birmingham @ulafaa

The rise of Maliha @ecstaybash

I dropped by the IPS ( International Production Space in Birmingham School of Art) that flowed from pieces from Bahrain Artists presented by the Bahrain based Ulafaa Initiative in the foyer. It is a rewarding show with insights into how young artists are making their voices seen and heard locally and internationally. I asked the curator Tamadher AlFahal about the show’s origins and she invited me to the talk she was presenting (as part of her PHD) that evening and an open invite to a further panel discussion about the cultural production of the Arab Gulf that is happening on the 19th @ 5pm in the IPS :’AS NOTED/UNNOTICED’ a part of “I AM KHALEEJI”; a series of events and happenings that offers prelude to the contemporary art scene of the Arab Gulf.

free Hugs campaign

From the discussions it is clear the art scene “within the Arab Gulf (or GCC) has been through a state of flux. Typically exposed to Western audiences, and the greater art world, as a strongly diluted stereotypical image of the Middle East. The Arab Gulf’s distinctive art identity remains undervalued.

This project addresses the misconceptions of the contemporary art scene in the Gulf, it offers an alternative view that is diverse, unique and vernacular in attempt to understand its complexity and dynamics. Specifically focusing on shedding light on the Gulf art scene as a distinctive voice within the Middle East. “

Issues of identity, religion, gender are clear in the work on show, but the range of video, photography, graphic and printed artworks are strong in their own right. There are plays with sign posts (literally) and the two photographic/print based pieces – The rise of Maliha @ecstasybash and My Ghutra is Me @stefanistan deal directly with issues of personal image and identity in clever, creative and insightful ways. ‘Maliha : a Name meaning having beauty, kindness and strength’ and ‘Ghutra’ the traditional male headress and as one of the subjects told the artist : ‘the eyes are the window on the soul, but first tell me how you wear your ghutra and I will tell you who you are……’ Both pieces are portrait based although the whole portrait is not shown in either works.

@ecstasybash’ instagram bio is understated : “Photographer , Slightly Artistic, mildly photographic”. Her website also provides further insight into the inspirations for The rise of Maliha.

The show is also referred to By the Book @ulafaa

About the Speakers for the upcoming panel on the 19th October:

Khulod Albugami is an artist and an academic member at the College of Art & Design, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University in Saudi Arabia since 2011. She is currently doing her PhD in Fine Art at Birmingham City University, UK. In her research, she investigates the possibility to formulate different approaches, where art and spatial practices can be used for social empowerment by women in Saudi Arabia. Her main area of interest and research are cultural production in Saudi Arabia and its impacts on creative spaces made by women.

Quentin de Pimodan works as an analyst at Katch & Reyners, a public affairs agency. He studied engineering in Paris and then for several years worked for a French publishing house that aims at explaining national and international administrations to young audiences. He spent a year in Yemen in 2008 and was based in Bahrain for two years in 2014 where he co-authored “The Khaleej Voice”, a six books series documenting the urban artists in the six countries composing the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). He also contributes to Greece-based think-tank, the Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS), with a particular focus on Iraq.

Amal Khalaf is the Assistant Curator of the Serpentine Gallery’s Edgeware Road Project, an international residency and site-specific research programme based in the Edgeware Road neighbourhood of London. Amal curatorial and research activities address themes of urbanism, community media activism and art through participatory projects and media initiatives. In her work as a researcher and curator, she has been involved in collaborative programming with artists and community groups in London and Cairo, in addition to running activities ranging from screenings, performances, seminar series and conferences. Previously, she worked at Gasworks, London, the Townhouse Gallery, Cairo and Al Riwaq Gallery, Bahrain, as well as co-founding Hold and Freight, London, a project space based in an abandoned Victorian railway arch. Khalaf is also a Research Associate with the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, co-authoring a book on moving image in public space.

Convenor

Anthony Downey is Professor of Visual Culture in the Middle East and North Africa within the Faculty of Arts, Design and Media at Birmingham City University. Recent publications include Don’t Shrink Me to the Size of a bullet: The Works of Hiwa K (Walther König Books, 2017); Future Imperfect: Contemporary Art Practices and Cultural Institutions in the Middle East (Sternberg Press, 2016); Dissonant Archives: Contemporary Visual Culture and Contested Narratives in the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2015); and Art and Politics Now (Thames and Hudson, 2014).

Chair

Tamadher AlFahal is a Designer, TEDx Speaker and Co-founder of Ulafa’a Initiative; a reconciliation-through-the-arts project. Her practice extends from community art projects to installations. She sheds light on areas of cultural conflicts and religious misconceptions influenced by her upbringing in the Arab world. She also co-founded Beige and Teal with artist Leon D., a creative platform for art and design that celebrates social and cultural narratives of Bahrain. Her main areas of interest are cultural identity, art collaboration and the creative process. Tamadher is currently doing her PhD in Birmingham City University, UK where she investigates philosophical approaches in contemporary Islamic design studies.

August 4, 2017August 5, 2017

Thresholds – its historic Virtual Reality

On leaving the School of Art in Birmingham’s historic city centre I noticed a plaque to my right that had escaped my notice on the many occasions I have descended the stairs down to Margaret street. The municipal history of the building is there for all to see in the ornate gold stone carved type : “This Building was erected by the Corporation of Birmingham for use as a School of Art, upon land given for that purpose by Grecoe Collmore Esq with funds contributed by Miss Louisea Anne Ryland and MESSers Richard and George Tangyea 1884.”

As I ruminated on the age of municipal and philanthropic value of the Arts to Birmingham, I crossed to the Waterhall gallery, a part of an equally cultured contribution to Birmingham’s proud city centre – The Museum and Art Gallery.

Sitting on the steps was Pete James the curator of Matt Collingshaw’s Thresholds. Pete is a mine off knowledge and information on the unique role Birmingham and its scientists and artisans played in the invention of photography. Thresholds captures the amazing moment Fox Talbot made his first Photogenic Drawings in King Edwards School. He and Matt have recreated the space he displayed his first pictures:

The jester and the cat, by Henry Fox Talbot

Behind the large wooden box in the gallery is a white space with a few empty white cases and tables. A number of people walk around the space with an electronic backpack and headset seemingly seeing and touching invisible objects. I was kitted up with the gear by the gallery assistants and encouraged to venture into the space. I was immediately ensconced in a 1830’s room with wooden ceilings, paintings, candle chandeliers and Talbot’s first photogenic drawings. Astonishing in their lifelike quality as one moved around them. Even more surprising was the ability to see a cloudy white version of your hand hovering above a picture, which when you turn your hand towards you, appears in front of you to inspect more closely. This is virtual reality. What would Talbot have thought about this when he first showed his photogenic drawings to amazed friends, students, teachers and scientists? How image making has developed in 200 years, from Birmingham New Street’s School. The school was demolished in the mid 1800’s and rebuilt as King Edwards opposite another gallery the Barber Institute.

Speaking to Pete I enquired when the term photography was applied to describe this process of capturing images with light. He clarified my question by saying Fox Talbot and Herschel used the word photography to describe the process whereas Talbot used the Photogenic drawing description to describe the objects of the process. There is much more information in the exhibition, including Stereo images of the original room, the King Edwards building and a film by Ravi Deepres and Michael Clifford on the Camera Obscura.

Pete James captures pictures with smart phone camera

The show is only on for a couple more days in Birmingham before it begins its journey from the birthplace of photography to its next venue Laycock Abbey.

Go see it if you can. If you can’t, here’s a good illustrative film :

http://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/bmag/whats-on/mat-collishaw-thresholds

Category: Photography