Development of Final piece

This is the development of my first painting i have made for my final, from sketchbook, through each stage of development, then finally the final piece up in the studio.I the work I wanted to emphasise the the colours of the homeless man’s possessions and make it look almost beautiful by intensifying the bold colours found in the Piece by doing so I want people to be attracted to the image before knowing fully what my work is about, it is also not the typical imagery that you would expect when discussing the issue of what it is like living on  the street which is pretty dark. In the image I decided I didn’t want to focus on the figure himself as I don’t believe that it is important who the person is but the situation that he is in and by not revealing his identity it not only protects what little he has it also will hopefully help the audience reflect on the situation and hopefully be easier to create a feeling of  empathy for those left living on the street by enabling the audience to put themselves in the situation.

Top 5 Documentation Posts

• https://st20069521.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/identity-and-objects/
• https://st20069521.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/acecetate-experiments/
• https://st20069521.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/development-of-final-piece/
• https://st20069521.wordpress.com/2017/05/10/final-piece-2/
• https://st20069521.wordpress.com/2017/05/10/my-family-cabinet/

Artist Statement

Through my work I would like to raise awareness of the homeless population in Cardiff. With an aim of connecting the viewer to the struggles of living on the street by hopefully creating feelings of empathy towards the homeless. Through painting and collecting found objects, my practice explores identity, the narrative of objects and their role in the construction of someone’s identity. What does it means when that is stripped away? These media interest me because they allow me to immerse myself in my journey through the urban landscape, talking to people about the underlying issues within my work and collecting objects from family, asking the question, what you would take with you if you found yourself living on the street? I have underpinned my work with research concerning the homeless in Cardiff, using conversations, recent news articles and documentaries.

My Family Cabinet

Part of my final pieces features a cabinet of collected objects. throughout this year I’ve been asking people what objects they would take with them if they ended up on the streets. I had some really interesting responses from the practical such as a sleeping bag, the sentimental, photographs etc. to people making a joke of it. either way the question raised a lot of conversation over being homeless and got people to really think of the really of living on the street. To showcase this I decided to present a cabinet dedicated to what my family and I would take with, all of us interestingly decided to chose sentimental objects to put in the cabinet with the exception of books and I also decided to choose a sketchbook and pencil so I would be able to still draw and write. I think that the objects in the cabinet allow people to then think about they would choose if they had to be put in the same situation.

Final Piece

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This is the development of the second piece that I made. in this piece I wanted it to still look like its connected to the first piece but in this one I was much more focused of getting the bags as realistic as possible and the background faded, to really emphasise the homeless persons possessions. I think that the two pieces together work well and compliment each other when set up in the space. The same as in the first painting I decided to only focus on the objects rather than the figure as I believe I will help people reflect on not only the situation but also the cabinet of object and the question,what would you take with you ?

Painting on canvas

the images above a from painting i completed on, just to get used to painting on canvas again in preparation to painting for within my work as I think it will be the direction in which i want to go in to complete my work.

The first image is from the Taff trail i wanted the make it so it was unclear what you were seeing so it was almost like a snapshot from my memory rather than anything in particular. the second piece I created i wanted to experiment with different materials including ink, charcoal and cigarette ash. Overall I think that the materials I used are effective especially the use of ash as I think links well to the homeless,

Acetate Experiments

These are some of the acetate piece which I used for the layered experiments discussed on a previous post. in this work I wanted to focus on something that is seen as a very much home tradition such as embroidery and focus on something with is completely the opposite, the homeless. My main inspiration behind this work was Grayson Perry and much of his work look beautiful and ornate until a closer look when his work deal with such contemporary topics such as teen pregnancy.

After discussing this work with lecturers and other people on my course I decided that they are not as effective as they could be and maybe using a different material other than the acetate would be more effective, such as a cushion. But overall the idea of picturing something beautiful to highlight a much darker topic such as homeless is something that I would like to continue within my practice using different media i.e. painting.