Documenting

After visiting the V&A and Serpentine gallery, I documented some of my way home. 

I loved this picture as you can the the grid work of two large buildings against a small pink house which is also contrasting to the colour of the two large buildings. In addition to this, the upwards linear lines of the two large buildings work against the diagonal lines of the street with I found quite interesting. 

I documented children playing with bubbles and there was the movement of the bubble man making the bubbles, the bubbles them self and the children trying to catch them. I think i myself was just as fascinated as the children. 

Images of movement 

Serpentine Gallery

We visited the Serpentine gallery where we saw the outside installation piece. 

As you can see from this image, it is vivid in colour and appearance due to the range of textures and layout. 

I enjoyed the installation because of the use of colours and area outside and a diversity as to how it was used such as multiple side entrances as well there being a centre where it all joined together. 

I changed some of the photos I took to black and white to see if there was a change in mood when looking at the photos and found that it made the place seem more eyre and as though you were trapped. 

I then checked out the inside exhibition by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye called Verses After Dusk. Now looking back the reference to dusk may have to do with the use of a dark tertiary palette. 

The Quickness, 2013 

Some Distance for now, 2013 

Both of these oil paintings show a dark black skinned man against a dark background. You would think that he would blend in with the dark brown background but Boakye has made the man infront of the background by highlighting/making the areas around his body, where his skin may clash with the background lighter. Boakye has also used different colour tonalities as can be seen under the arms and how she has used red. 

Half a Dozen Dead, 2010 

The above two oil paintings of the man are similar in the idea of highlighting the body and making it stand out from the background as can be seen from the above and below painting. 

Shoot the Desperate, Hug the Needy, 2010

I like the idea that to some extent the body should and does blend with the background.  

Thought you cannot see from these photograpsh, the paintings use rushed and quick stroke marks. It is a more controlled version of Lucian Freud's stroke marks. 

A Toast To The Health Of, 2011

In the above two photographs you can see to some extent the looseness in marks and it making more of an idea of the figure rather than fully realistic and it being our eyes that combine it all to make a full picture. This is easily seen in the trees as they have been drawn very vaguely. 

Interstellar, 2012 

From the above two oil paintings you can see that Boakye's style in painting had changed a bit as she no longer was using very dark backgrounds which could blend with the skin though she still was using dark tertiary colours. 

I love the use of colours in the Interstellar painting as you can see the use of brush strokes and well as her using a variety of greens. Her use of brushstroke filling up the area around the dancer make me feel as though it is wind filling around the body and as though there is quite a fast pace to the dancing. 

Victoria and Albert Museum

We took a trip to the V&A 

On the journey there from the station to the museum, I took the underpass which leads you directly to one of the entrances. I found myself studying the walk there and observing things I would not normally see. 

I found that it was very quiet apart from the footsteps of people or echoes of people's noises. I could tell it was made to directly suit it's purpose and nothing else.

Along the walls there were advertisements for other exhibitions. 

Once inside the museum I looked around and found objects which I liked and caught my attention. 

This light caught my attention as it was made from dandelion seeds. I love the idea behind this as it is joining nature with an everyday basic need for light. The grid formation of the light has been carefully thought through as it allowed the dandelion heads to be dispersed over a larger surface area. 

The intensity of the colours on the bowls is what caught my eye as well as the look of the bowl having a flimsiness about it due to curving/warped shape. It is these type of imperfections that attracted me to the bowl as this is a type of Wabi-Sabi aesthetic which I enjoy seeing in art and daily life. These bowls were made of laquer which over time deepen the colour of the bowl. 

The laquer bowl is very contrasting to this bowl/vase which is very simplistic in its look from its colour, to texture and shape but I found it eye catching possibly because it came from a part of a set that ranged from small to large. 

When I first saw this vending machine at the museum, I did not understand the meaning but once reading it's side caption I found the meaning of it to be very truthful. It explores the idea of 'our increasing loss of control over biological data and privacy. It proposes a dystopian future of genetic engineering where DNA samples, each packaged with the picture of the donor, can be offered in a vending machine'; it is addressing the idea of personal data and information being shared and swapped as well as the idea of what future desires may hold of people. 

Chair made of plastic polymers

Hand knitted nylon filaments that we're knitted around toy marbles. 

This coat designed by Iris Van Herpen is breathtaking as from afar/first sight it appears to be a coat made from feathers. But close up, you can see that 

The coat was designed out of paper. This was made during the time Harpen was exploring the idea of the application of laser-cut mesh structures to form - highly articulated 3D patterns. I love the idea that Harpen took a basic machinery used often in design but more in graphics and product design but used this took somewhere else and to create a whole garment from it. 

Me and the Leaf 

Plaster relief 

I loved the tower of shops and houses found in London. For myself it showed an identity of how robust and packed London is, as well as the idea of there being many of one shop. The texture of the tower also made me think from afar that it was a pile of rubbish-almost as an exhibition version of a scrapyard. But even though close up it makes up a town of shops and houses, it could still represent the idea of the amount of dirt and waste we must collect and fill the ground with because of over populated world we live in. 

Close up you can see that the shops have been printed onto a care that has been folded. The fact that real shops have been printed on their gives it a greater realistic aspect, and makes me question what people would think and how they would react if painted instead especially as many of these shops are simplistic and could have easily been painted. 

I feel as though this is a main centrepiece of the V&A, made by David Chiluhi. Both its form and colours make it attractive to human eyes as well as it being placed in the ceiling in a main atrium/inner quad of the museum. 

Main atrium/inner quad. 

The hat of this wedding dress caught my eye due to its formation. For me it resembles idea of a birds nest, spiders web or a ball of hair. I love the looseness it it even though it is quite a tight formation. 

 

Day One

We started off our first week by bringing in 6 sentiment objects. Of course I forgot mine but managed to find on myself and in my bag 6 objects which mean a lot to me. We tried a variety of skills/method drawing these objects. The first way we drew with was the traditional method (I used a pencil) and we had the longest amount of time to draw this object. 

You would think the most traditional way and way we were used to mainly drawing would instantly mean that this would be the best outcome of all our drawings but of course even with this method there are flaws as not every detail will look precise or correct (such as the front leg being longer/thicker and the facial area not being precise enough). But I found that by trying different methods throughout that day such as feeling an object and drawing it with your eyes closed to drawing with the hand you do not usually write with (see image below). 

That you found different techniques that had outcomes that differed from the usual but we're interesting in design. I found my drawing of my lunchbox, drawn the the hand I don't usually draw with quite interesting as it ended up being a line drawing yet could easily be something a child drew. I think it is the rawness and looseness in the image that I find myself engaging with. 

Introduction

My name is Jade, spelt without a Y (Jayde) and is not short for Jadesola. From that you may be able to guess that I am Nigerian. I am of Nigerian heritage, but am born and bred British so have adapted two cultures into one lifestyle. Creativity is something that inspires everything I do and is all around us, sometimes we don't realise it nor realise the things we have been influenced by but it is there. Being creative is a main aspect in my life and something I have taken more from one side of my culture (British influence) than the other (Nigerian). When I was younger I wanted to be a doctor, but soon realised sciences were not for me. Being a doctor, lawyer or engineer is more along the lines of a career which is normal within an African/Nigerian culture rather than to "study art" and be "taught how to use a paintbrush" as some of my relatives may say; finding it perculiar that I want to do something that I could do with my eyes closed, or do using my hands to spread paint across a piece of paper. But what they fail to understand is that for me it is more than that, being creative and doing art is my way of life, though that may change as I get older but for now it is this. Art is a way of being open and expressive as well as it being something I am good at. Unlike sciences or maths - which would have allowed me to go down a more traditional root of a subject Nigerian's were familiar with young adults studying at university. But for me art is what I love; which many fail to understand in addition to there being money in industitries that are less traditional in form and function. These adults lack to understand what the future holds and there is more in a room than just what the naked eye see's. For now this is who I am and doing an art foundation at Ravensboune this year will allow me to explore this further.