Module pieces - Tracing The Land

Land art is made directly in the landscape by sculpting the land itself or by making structures in the landscape with natural materials. Land art, also known as earth art, was part of the wider conceptual art movement in the 1960s and 1970s. It was established by pioneering artists who investigated natural sites, alternative modes of artistic production, and ways to circumvent the commercial art system.

Earth art, another phrase for land art, is an art technique that is made directly in the landscape, sculpting the land itself into earthworks or making structures in the landscape using natural materials such as rocks or twigs.

Land art was part of the wider conceptual art movement in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous land artwork is Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty of 1970, an earthwork built into the Great Salt Lake in the USA. Though some artists such as Smithson used mechanical earth-moving equipment to make their artworks, others made minimal and temporary interventions in the landscape such as Richard Long who simply walked up and down until he had made a mark in the earth.

(Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970)

(Great Salt Lake, Utah)

(Mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water)

A liminal space is a place of transition. It is typically devoid of humans and, in some cases, distinctly surreal—its artistic antecedents might be works of art such as The Red Tower, by Giorgio de Chirico.

So as I experimented with the art of liminal spaces, I researched how the absence of human presence is essential, as it gives off the feeling of unfamiliarity and unrealism, or maybe even being forgotten. Human absence is notably made present by the artist’s gestures and objects in the more figurative-looking works.

To experiment with this art, I tried to recreate some images from the internet by using different media, such as paints, chalk and oil pastels of different surfaces, such as cards, paper and canvas, this way, I found out my strengths and weaknesses. I also took some inspiration from other artists.

My experimental pieces from earliest to latest:

The only issue with this piece is that if I were to do this again, I would stay with the technique of watercolour, but see what the colours would turn out to be as I expected them to be solid colours, not with glitter. I would also keep the colours watered down so that it's subtle and not as bold, so they don't immediately catch the viewer's eye on the colours, instead the outlines should.

(reference image)

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Mandy Payne, a multi-award-winning recent graduate from Nottingham University who currently lives and works in Sheffield, is an artist inspired by the urban landscape, issues of gentrification, inequality, social housing and the flux of city environments. She is interested in Brutalist architecture, notions of utopia/dystopia and finding beauty in the ordinary/overlooked.

Sheffield's Grade II Park Hill flats are in the process of being reassessed as a modernist treasure. Yet, as the concrete blocks await gentrification, there is the danger of their brutalist grandeur being aesthetically dissolved. She recognises this in Between Places And Spaces, a series of unforgiving paintings of the flats.

Regeneration (Park Hill Estate)

Transience (Park Hill Estate) is my favourite because of how liminal and unreal the image looks. Aerosol spray paint and oil on concrete (Private collection). The lighting on the right makes it look unsettling as liminal spaces are often associated with transitions, in which the image looks as if the light is transitioning to get brighter or darker. The shading is flat, which makes it look basic yet unsettling.

Ferdinanda Florence was an artist who works with liminal spaces, was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Arlington, VA. She received a degree in art history and studio art at The American University in 1994 and has continued to pursue a successful professional life as a scholar, teacher and practising artist. After earning her Master's degree in art history at the University of Maryland College Park in 1998, she taught high school studio art before launching her career as a freelancer artist.

Liminal Space is a location which is a transition between two other locations, or states of being. Typically these are abandoned, and often empty buildings in the early hours of the day or a school hallway during summer, for example. This makes it feel frozen, slightly unsettling, and familiar to our minds, it makes it uncanny, which Florence used to create her art.

I have taken inspiration from Florence in my own works and so I have been taking photos of empty or long abandoned areas of buildings, like shopping centres. My photos are in transition from busy to emptiness, as Florence shows. I have taken linear perspective into account while taking these photos to capture the abstract shapes, as perspective is very important when painting interiors and streetscapes. However, it is also useful when painting landscapes, still lifes, and figures and portraits.

Images taken by me:

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Paintings by Florence:

(Sunset no. 1)

(Waterman 9)

(An image that Florence had an interest in; Black Night: Russell's Corner by George Ault, 1943)

(from Florence's series called "Wilson and Old Wilson")

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Some of my photos of the empty shopping centre market stalls contain abstract shapes, abstract art uses a visual language of shape, form, colour and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. These images show basic shapes with some basic colours.

An artist who uses abstract shapes and colours in their works is Anthony Caro (1924 - 2013), during a career that spanned more than six decades, Caro achieved international recognition as one of the world’s leading sculptors. In 1960, he abandoned his earlier figurative work and began making abstract sculptures in welded and painted steel. In a significant departure from tradition, these constructions were placed directly on the ground; dispensing with the convention of presenting sculptures on plinths, they confronted the viewer immediately, producing a one-to-one encounter with objects that were in the world but not of the world.

(Early One Morning, 1962)

(Month of May, 1963)

My inspiration for this technique is Julian Opie, born in London, in 1958, who creates work in a movable way without anyone's help. The portraits consist of animated walking figures, rendered with minimal detail in black line drawing, which are hallmarks of the artist's style. His themes are "engagement with art history, use of new technology, obsession with the human body" and "work with one idea across different media."

- The Guardian.

One of Opie's most notable commissions was the design of an album cover for British pop band Blur in 2000, for which he received a Music Week CADS award. In 2006, he created an LED projection for U2's Vertigo world tour, and in 2008 Opie created a set design for Wayne McGregor's ballet Infra for the Royal Opera House in London.

The work of Julian Opie is known throughout the world. Opie's distinctive formal language is instantly recognisable with public commissions from New York to Seoul, London to Calgary, and an uninterrupted flow of international museum exhibitions. It reflects his artistic preoccupation with the idea of representation and how images are perceived and understood. “Everything you see is a trick of the light,” Opie writes. “Light bouncing into your eye, light casting shadows, creating depth, shapes, colours. Turn off the light and it’s all gone. We use vision as a means of survival and it’s essential to take it for granted to function, but awareness allows us to look at looking and by extension look at ourselves and be aware of our presence."

I have taken inspiration from Opie's works as they move to show a simple action, such as walking, Opie and Caro's art has been used as a reference to my art so that I can use the abstract shapes in the photos to create basic yet detailed images together, therefore the process for the image just created has been used to create another piece of art.

While creating the videos, I would position the shapes at a certain place on the physical image before taking a picture and moving them closer ever so slightly so that it seems like they have been moving by themselves.

Here is the link to the videos.

Two frames of the video one after the other, show part of the process:

For the second video, I used a similar approach, but rather than shapes moving closer to their positions, I used the same image but drew the lines with the colours from the original image. Once an image was taken, I would add a line so that the process of the image continues.

Taking inspiration from Piet Mondrian:

Some single frames of the process:

Research - The Ordinary

When it comes to the ordinary in art, any artwork can be considered the first authentic example of an artist's piece. An original artwork would be the first version of a painting an artist creates, not any subsequent prints, reproductions, or imitations of the artwork.

But ordinary art can also mean that ordinary everyday objects (found objects), such as things found around the house, such as a chair, can be used for composition to rearrange the ordinary to the extraordinary so that a viewer would look at the art and think that they could potentially replicate it, as art can be anything, such as a painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, decorative arts, photography, and installation.

"A work of art in the visual arts is a physical two- or three-dimensional object that is professionally determined or otherwise considered to fulfil a primarily independent aesthetic function."

- Wikipedia.

An artist who uses everyday objects, or found objects, for their artwork is Liz West (b. 1885), a British artist known for her wide-ranging works, from the intimate to the monumental. Using a variety of materials and exploring the use of light, she blurs the boundaries between sculpture, architecture, design and painting to create works that are both playful and immersive.

"West creates vivid environments that mix luminous colour and radiant light. West aims to provoke a heightened sensory awareness in the viewer through her works. She is interested in exploring how sensory phenomena can invoke psychological and physical responses that tap into our own deeply entrenched relationships with colour. West's investigation into the relationship between colour and light is often realised through an engagement between materiality and a given site. Our understanding of colour can only be realised through the presence of light. By playing and adjusting colour, West brings out the intensity and composition of her spatial arrangements."

- the About section on her website.

(Tempo, 2013)

Tempo is a simple installation of fluorescent LED lights that are in the order of the rainbow, but in a spectrum so that each colour blends into each other, and it can create other art as it casts shadows of what is around it.

"The fluorescent stick light, a key material in West's new installations, is perhaps one of the most effective visual spatial devices. Aside from its obvious exuberant colours, its most striking feature is its stripped-back materiality. West has modified each stick light with a particular colour. This colour palette is reminiscent of the neon lights that were so prominent in the 1960s coinciding with the emergence of installation art. Through methodically mixing each tube in relationship to each other, West cultivates our perceptions, drawing on Albers' practice-based theory that colour can only be truly understood in relation to other colours and, crucially, our own knowledge of the colour spectrum. The raw exuberance of the stick lights becomes a catalyst to trigger a response: the viewer is needed to activate the work." - Jack Welsh, 2013

Another artist is Martin Parr, who uses photography to set the scene and capture what is going on in the moment so that it will be encapsulated for future viewers to see. 

"At first glance, his photographs seem exaggerated or even grotesque. The motifs he chooses are strange, the colours are garish and the perspectives are unusual. Parr’s term for the overwhelming power of published images is “propaganda”. He counters this propaganda with his own chosen weapons: criticism, seduction and humour. As a result, his photographs are original and entertaining, accessible and understandable. But at the same time, they show us in a penetrating way how we live, how we present ourselves to others, and what we value."

- Introduction, Parr's website.

He takes images of people on their day-to-day routine, to make his art seem more natural and less composed.

(Fotofestival Knokke-Heist, Belgium, 2014)

(Signs of the Times, London Underground and Bus Stops, UK, 1992)

Research - Ambiguity

"Ambiguity is the type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible. A common aspect of ambiguity is uncertainty. It is thus an attribute of any idea or statement whose intended meaning cannot be definitively resolved, according to a rule or process with a finite number of steps."

- Wikipedia.

In simplified terms, something is unclear or confusing, or it can be understood in more than one way.

Ambiguity in art is an artwork having several possible interpretations or meanings; of an uncertain future. Ambiguity in art creates multiple interpretations and meanings, letting the viewer think of their own perspectives and experiences of the work. Ambiguity can also add depth and complexity to a piece, making it more engaging and thought-provoking. Many artists use ambiguity in their work to challenge the viewer's assumptions and encourage them to question their understanding of the world.

A good example of a high level of ambiguity is provided by a well-known image; the vase/face illusion illustrated below, in which we can see either a vase or two silhouetted faces facing each other.

"However, it is important to notice that, although we can choose between the vase or the two faces interpretations, we cannot stop the ambiguity of the situation providing a degree of tension."

- Painting School.

An example of this is Tony Cragg, born in the UK in 1949 and has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany since 1977. He constantly pushes to find relations between people and the material world, as there is no limit to the materials he might use, and there are no limits to the ideas or forms that he might conceive.

"His early, stacked works present a taxonomical understanding of the world, and he has said that he sees manmade objects as “fossilized keys to a past time which is our present”. So too, the floor and wall arrangements of objects that he started making in the 1980s blur the line between manmade and natural landscapes: they create an outline of something familiar, where the contributing parts relate to the whole. Cragg understands sculpture as a study of how material and material forms affect and form our ideas and emotions. This is exemplified in the way in which Cragg has worked and reworked two broad bodies of work he calls Early Forms and Rational Beings."

- Lisson Gallery.

Spyrogyra, created in 1993, is an example of this, as the collection of objects together can be interpreted as more than one thing; a pile of green bottles in a certain position or a tree created by glass bottles.

Bad Guys, created in 2005, is another example, it is a sculpture made out of bronze. It can be interpreted as a malformed shape made out of bronze, or you can see human faces depending on the angle or side you look at it.

 

Another artist example is Ettore Spalletti (1940 - 2019), an Italian artist. He exhibited at Documenta in 1982 and 1992 and represented Italy at the Venice Biennale in 1997. Spalletti was mostly known for his light blue monochrome paintings that he created on different surfaces and for his creative use of light. Spalletti lived and worked for all his life in his birthplace Cappelle sul Tavo in Abruzzo.

Blu e oro, paesaggio, colour impasto and gold leaf on board can be interpreted as just some coloured stripes on a board, or it can be interpreted differently depending on how the viewer views said piece of art.

Il colore e l'oro, eco rossoazzurro, 2016

Color impasto on board, floater frame on 4 sides, gold leaf

Research - feminist interventions

"Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that societies prioritize the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies."

- Wikipedia.

Feminine intervention is an emphasis on the complex interplay between internal and external factors in women's lives, feminist interventions are designed to promote women's safety health, positive lifestyles, personal strength, competence, and resilience. It holds the position that societies prioritize the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies. Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and improving education, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women.

Feminist art seeks to challenge the dominance of men in both art and society, aiming to gain recognition and equality for female artists and question the assumptions of womanhood. Feminist artists used a variety of mediums, including painting and performance art, and crafts were historically considered 'women's work' in the 1960s/70s to make work aimed at ending sexism and oppression and exposing femininity to be a masquerade or set of poses adopted by women to conform to societal expectations.

In art, this relation is reflected in the sublimation of sexuality. Traditionally, the key elements associating gender themes with visual issues have been female sexuality and nudity. These two factors are the predominant aspects of gender themes in Renaissance and Baroque visual art.

People who represent these feminine interventions are artists such as Janine Antoni. She was born in Freeport, Bahamas. She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in New York and earned her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1989. Antoni is known for her unusual processes, using her body as both a tool and a source of meaning within the conceptual framework of her practice.

Using the body as a tool Antoni shows the unequal equality of the sexes with the female being objectified, as if to be looking like a table with a cloth wrapped over the top. As if feminism is struggling to intervene to make a stand for themselves, rather than men making them stay at home and take care of the house and children, as if women should he the house furniture themselves.

It is called Saddle.

"It is a full raw cowhide draped over a mould of Antoni’s body. When the material hardened, the mould was removed. Like a ghost, the cowhide holds the memory of the artist’s body. When confronted with the object one feels the absence of both the artist and the cow."

- Antoni's website

Another piece of art of Antoni's that feels like this is Inhabit.

"Antoni turns her attention to the complex role of mothering. After years of exploring her relationship to her family and most specifically to her mother, Antoni now focuses on herself in this role. Embracing the necessity of shape–shifting to accommodate this position, the artist renders herself half–spider, half–hermit crab. It is unclear whether her body is suspended or ascending: whether or not she is entrapped or the structure of support. On closer inspection, it is clear that she is holding space for a very delicate creation."

Sarah Lucas, an English artist, is internationally celebrated for her bold and provocative use of materials and imagery. Using ordinary objects in unexpected ways, she has consistently challenged our understanding of sex, class and gender over the last four decades.

She is part of the generation of Young British Artists who emerged in 1988. Her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humour by incorporating photography, collage and found objects.

It was in the early 1990s when Lucas began using furniture as a substitute for the human body, usually with crude genital punning. Throughout her career, Lucas has continued to appropriate everyday materials (including, for example, freshly made fried eggs) to make works that use humour, visual puns and sexual metaphors of sex, death, Englishness and gender.

Lucas' art also goes with intervenes art with feminism and bypasses the patriarchal society by showing art looks like each gender made out of household objects, such as shoes, chairs and some sort of pillows, to the point where the viewer is easily able to recognise which set of objects is one gender.

Research - Authorship

The dictionary states that Authorship is the state or fact of being the writer of a book, article, or document, or the creator of a work of art. For example, "the single authorship of the book gives it a uniformity of style and a proper balance between chapters."

Authorship is a primary basis that employers use to evaluate academic personnel for employment, promotion, and tenure. In academic publishing, authorship of a work is claimed by those making intellectual contributions to completing the research described in the work. In simple cases, a solitary scholar carries out a research project and writes the subsequent article or book.

Authorship gives credit and implies accountability for published work, so there are academic, social and financial implications. It is essential to make sure people who have contributed to a paper, are given credit as authors.

However, inappropriate authorship involves undue credit to a non-contributor and no credit to a true contributor. Many examples of both types of authorship issues have been documented. Just because something is created by a person and doesn't have the maker's name attached to it, is it worth people knowing about the person who designed/created it, thus it being branded? Just like the company brands we see today.

Inappropriate authorships are defined in simple terms as those which do not follow all the standard criteria for authorship.

"International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommends that an author should meet all four of the following criteria: [2]‘‘Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work,’’[3]’’ Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content,’’ [4] ‘‘Final approval of the version to be published,’’ and [5] ‘‘Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved’’. The committee further designates that in addition to excluding a scholar who has not met all four criteria, any scholar who meets all four should be included as an author."

- The Embassy of Good Science

Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian, created in 2019, it appears as a fresh banana affixed to a wall with duct tape. As a work of conceptual art, it consists of a certificate of authenticity with detailed diagrams and instructions for its proper display. Two editions of the piece sold for US$120,000 at Art Basel Miami Beach to significant media attention.

In my opinion, this is an example of inappropriate authorship mainly because of how easy it is for other people to make something just like this, it holds no originality or artistic style as well as being basic and tasteless. Just because it exists, doesn't mean it is art.

But things of popular notability, it is taken into account that they are of authorship, such as Agatha Christie, (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. This is appropriate authorship, in my opinion, because of how popular her creations came to be, and continue to be well known, well known to the point of several movie and television adaptations.

Christie's creations can be called art to a degree because they have a style in which she curated them, what made her stories stand out were, of course, the characters. She created memorable and dignified characters which any class of readers could relate to.

She was adept at combining period subject matter with delicate story development, creative plot structure, and psychology. This is evident in her novel, Curtain, her brilliant finale. Written long before her death and placed in a bank safe with instructions to be published only after her demise, Curtain is an artwork that utilizes the best of her talents.

(Christie in 1958)

Another example of appropriate authorship is Cecily Brown, (b. 1969, London) one of the most celebrated artists working in painting today. Brown draws from the compositional structure, historical motifs, and brushwork of master painters across an assorted range of genres. Her style of painting uses a palette ranging from bright hues to deep blacks, her works obscure singular readings as their compositions break down into restless and elusive activity.

A favourite of mine from Brown is Girl on a Swing, painted in 2004. A person with peach-coloured skin sits on a swing, holding onto the ropes, in a forest setting in this loosely painted horizontal work. The swing hangs from the two topmost trunks, just to our left of the centre. Beyond the trees, the upper left quadrant is painted with broad strokes of pale blue; the upper right with cool, mint green. In the lower left, a tree trunk lies along a grassy ground with plants growing around it, painted with dashes of vivid green and red. The lower right has some strokes of terracotta orange. An area to our right of the person and swing is painted with smears of brown, peach, red, grey, and white, and is difficult to make out. Brown's style is shown this way, creating an image, but it also lets it be distinctly seen with the positions of the colours and methods of strokes.