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Sunday 12 May 2019

Work In Progress: 'Traveller' on show at Saltaire Art Trail 25-27 May



Traveller 2019 
This piece will be on display at Saltaire Mill in Yorkshire Art Trail between Sat 25 - Mon 27 May 2019.
You can check out other projects on instagram and Youtube.  Alternatively you can see other textile work here and my biography here.

Saltaire Arts Trail is a community arts event held annually on the late May Bank Holiday weekend. It offers an imaginative visual arts programme, celebrating the village’s rich heritage which surrounds Salts Mill.

The Arts Trail uses imaginative venues -  public buildings, the homes of Saltaire residents and outdoor spaces around Saltaire, to display visual art outside of traditional settings, as well as delivering new exhibitions and commissions.

This video shows how I created the piece:
 The piece is called Traveller and I am in the process of developing a wider series for this work. 

Traveller
 2019 
The central figure is walking alone in an abstract landscape. The figure’s form is incomplete disjointed and in part translucent. The figure is protected within an atmospheric diving suit walking across an open plane above sea level. The person is encased in the suit and detached from their surroundings; unable to connect. The person is not submerged, but they cannot breathe freely. The piece uses visual prompts for the viewer to interpret the work on their own terms. Is the traveller a Nomad or explorer? Are they aimless or pursuing a direction of their choice?

How Traveller was Constructed

The supporting images give a flavour of the process of this piece in development. I started with brainstorming words associated with themes of loneliness and isolation. These words have then informed primary and secondary image sources which become symbols within my work. The aim is for the images to be open to interpretation and help the viewer explore their feelings and emotions.
 
I'm aiming to develop a new series of work which is going to be titled Odyssey.
For now, here is a short summary of how Traveler was developed:
 I started by exploring abstract forms using inks and paper. I'm aiming to build towards a cohesive series of work. Therefor I wanted all the images to be rooted in the same initial process although all the images will be varied and different.
 Here is a selection of the images from my sketch book going through that process.
 I wanted all the images to be loose, chaotic and fluid. The tension however has been finding a pattern and relationship between these images.
These images were then scanned together and reassembled in a collage format through an editing software called Krita (which is like Photoshop but free!)
I then combined several of the edited pages from my sketch book to form a new composition. I have used this process in an aim to bring symmetry to the composition of work and the series overall. I am attempting to create a sense of balance with the individual image but also I am mindful about how the works will work together as a cohesive series.
 I explored psychological descriptions of isolation and loneliness and brain stormed the issues surrounding patterns of behaviour.
From these key ideas I then identified words I felt could be used to associate those thoughts and feelings
I used pinterest to collect lots of images that aligned to the theme of isolation and loneliness.
I want to create individual symbols which people can identify their own emotions. Although a person may not be able to describe initially how or why they identify with a piece I wanted the work to evoke an atmosphere and feeling that could resonate with them.

I developed the piece traveler as I was interested in the relationship of someone feeling lost, running away, or running towards something unidentified. I used the image of a deep sea diver as someone who explores unknown terrain but is also very cut off from everything around them.

 I am interested in art theory and took influence from Wilhelm Worringer (1881-1965) Abstraction and Empathy. The essay was written as a doctoral thesis in 1906 which was subtitled 'A Contribution to the Psychology of Style'. I was struck by some of the passages in the essay which resonated with the theme I have been exploring and trying to capture.  I wanted to create an abstract image which has symbolic anchors to help guide the viewer into certain directions of thought. There were two sections in this essay that stood out to me:
'Not that primitive man sought more urgently for regularity in nature, or experienced regularity in it more intensely; just the reverse: It is because he stands so lost and spiritually helpless amidst the things of the external workd. because he experiences only obscurity and caprice in the inter-connection and flux of the phenomena of the external world, that the urge is so strong in him to divest the things of the external world of their caprice and obscurity in the world-picture and to impart to them a value of necessity and a value of regularity. '

'...In the urge to abstraction the intensity of the self-alienative impulse is... not characterized, as in the need for empathy, by an urge to alienate oneself from individual being, but as an urge to seek deliverance from the fortuitousness of humanity as a whole, from the seeming arbitrariness of organic existence in general, in the contemplation of something necessary and irrefragable. [...] Popular usage speaks with striking accuracy of 'losing oneself' in the contemplation of a work of art.'
(sources taken from Art in Theory Harrison and Wood 1992)
The work needed to be open to interpretation enough so that any person can project their emotions onto the scene they are observing.  I want the place to feel unknown and with a tension without appearing overly threatening or chaotic. 

Once I had an image I was satisfied with, I edited the piece so that it could be printed onto fabric. I chose a printer called Contrado because they have a fabric called 'Scroll Paper Fabric'  ID:1963 which is really good at holding the ink without bleeding or fading and flexible enough to work without tearing the print itself.
 
Once I had the image from the printers the sewing into the piece took roughly three months to complete. Below is a step by step so you can see how it was all put together!




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