2nd Semester Assessment Post

Throughout this past semester, I've been particularly focused around the act of painting within my practice, more so than I have been in previous semesters. I've been still been incorporating drawing into my practice and it remains the solid base on which my paintings build. Rather than having a particular focus on using different types of material to make my work, I've been experimenting a lot more in terms of the material that my paintings are made on. So, instead of just using canvas and paper as I have done previously, I've been branching into using cardboard and wood board as surfaces to work on. One of the advantages I've found by using cardboard is that I'm a lot more relaxed in my working method when approaching the surface allowing me to experiment within my work more than I have previously. As well as this, the cardboard surface has offered unique challenges in terms of working with it, the materials soaking up a lot of the acrylic paint that I applied onto it, this meant that I had to increase the amount of paint used, creating a thicker, more impasto like surface.

One of the main driving forces or themes behind the work that I made this semester was the focus upon the idea of identity and the self, exploring the relationship between the artist and the work that they've made and how that work can be used to explore and analyse parts of the self. Towards the end of the semester, my work began to take a more specific path in terms of exploring identity, focusing upon exploring my sexuality and identity and my relationship with these aspects of myself. My practice revolves around this idea of using art as a way to explore the self and the relationship one has with the self.

"Both art and the artist lack identity and define themselves only through their encounter with each other."- Harold Rosenburg

This quote from Harold Rosenburg helps to surmise the essence of what my practice is about, for the work and the artist to be explored through one another in order to discover more about themselves.

Within this semester, I've attempted to branch out more in terms of the surfaces that I've used in order to make my work as well as changing the type of paint that I use, venturing into the use of oils in order to explore what that medium is able to offer my practice that acrylic isn't able to on its own. Moreover, I've also attempted to incorporate the practice of drawing more into my paintings, using stick of charcoal to emphasise certain areas, or to more clearly define what I want to be defined. I believe that this allowed my painting practice to become more fluid in is creation, I wasn't as afraid to introduce new elements to the painting in order to push it as far as I could.

In terms of the artists that I've been researching this semester that have influenced my practice, I looked at the works of Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Guy Denning, Picasso, George Cando.