Development - Plan

Im going to try and develop both the skin, hair and body outlines using the research. The idea of communicating a part of identity through the piece...maybe mine; the glasgow school of art first year student?

I feel the face doesn't really need much more work..i like it the way it is!

The plan to start development is seperate the strands from the 'skinlines' so it's a bit clearer...

Primary and Secondary Research - Overview

After the research im still of the mind that i should stick with natural identity to develop into a final piece....

The main consensus of the research seems to show the idea that we all have similarities but also difference...thats what makes us individual...thats what makes our identity; just like i thought with my first drawings...

We all have fingers but never have the same fingerprints....
We all have hands but how many positions do you think you could get it into?? Visually, would that direct your thinking. Could it make you offended, welcome, hungry, in love etc....?

I'd like to develop a piece that visually speaks of these 'same but difference's' in our identity. Im thinking of how natural features can visually speak of these things......

Secondary Research - Miscellaneous

A link to PBS video productions...they have made a series about art in the twenty first century...one of the programs is about identity in contemporary art.

Here is a link to an exerpt from the video.
Here and here are images and artists that use identity from the program.

Another link to an article on a past exhibition about Identity in Contemporary Art. Explains how identity is used by artists....


Here's a Dove advert which shows peoples body's/skin, maybe trying to ask the question of real identity? ...a bit twee i know but does have a point...




(The rest of this post has moved into my Secondary Research section due to 'organisation'...)

Sculptures & Artworks from Northern Israel

Here's a group of photo's that i thought could be interesting to post.... Scultures and Artworks from my recent trip to Northern Israel.....Click here for a slideshow.

I think the main link to identity here is the way some of the photo's show the dilapidated buildings and gun turrets intertwined, next to nature. This seems to show the identity of the place/area/community really well. The idea of war being part of life...making it as natural as the tree's.

Click on the photo's to see more on my flickr page.




















Video Art by Marcel Duchamp




Not sure what its got to do with identity, yet....but i like it even if it is strange. It makes me look inward...making me ask questions about my own identity, the artists identity.... I think it deserves to be posted?

Here's some information about this kind of work...

Duchamp's Rotor Reliefs - Online Animation (you'll need a 'flash' plugin)

Duchamp's reasoning for this work

Secondary Research- Face - Artists, Concepts, Ideas etc...

Steve Aishman's Mask. I think this helps show different sides to peoples identity...His Website

Here's a video of a woman getting 'made up' for a picture on a billboard....says a lot!



Matthew Monahan

'Utilising many of the same concepts as his sculptures, figurative drawing, for Matthew Monahan, becomes a way to explore the body as a totemic entity: spiritual, biological, abstracted and shamanistic.' Saatchi Website...Bio on Artist. Another way to visually represent the face..



Untitled (Red Face)

1997
oil on paper
99 x 100

Secondary Research - Skin - Artists, Concepts, Ideas etc...

Bruce Nauman - 'Made sculptures based on the backs of objects or moulded from parts of his own body; also works concerned with the notion of hiddenness or inaccessibility, and neon pieces with words (sometimes more or less illegible). Since 1968 his work has consisted mainly of performance pieces, e.g. films of such actions as Bouncing Two Balls between the Floor and the Ceiling with Changing Rhythms, or corridors and installations involving a limited degree of spectator participation and exploring effects of parallax, audio-tactile separation, disorientation, etc.' (Rest of article) Here is another artist showing identity through his work..i think theis photo on the left fits in the skin section...












Here's an interesting link from an exhibition in Oklahoma......Skin

I found a woman called Shelly Jackson online; she seems to want to publish a story on peoples skin...intriguing.





Marc Quinn 'is often associated with Damien Hirst as one of the founding figures of the 1990s British contemporary art movement. Self (1991, Saatchi Collection, London), a self-portrait head made from his own frozen blood, was first exhibited in 1991 at the Jay Jopling/Grob Gallery and then at the Saatchi Gallery in 1992. At the Tate Gallery in 1995, the artist showed Emotional Detox: The Seven Deadly Sins, a group of seven lead casts of parts of his body which were made using the lost wax method. The pieces are reminiscent of the 'character heads' made by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt in the late eighteenth century. Quinn prefers to use his own body as a primary source, as it is free from the associations of implied relationships: 'the self is what one knows best and least at the same time ... casting the body gives one an opportunity to "see" the self' (conversation with Sean Rainbird, Tate Gallery, 1995).' Here is the rest of the article. I think the photo to the right should be here even though its made out of rubber....i find it quite creepy!

Secondary Research - Hair - Artists, Concepts, Ideas etc...

Karin Stack use's photo's of peoples hair in different stages of growth...once again shows how you can show different sides of people's identity just with images....I really like it..Click hair for website



















Doris Salcedo 'uses everyday domestic and personal items, such as furniture and clothing, and organic substances, such as bone, hair and animal fibre. These materials are brought together to make evocative works that address loss, grief, pain, memory, absence and mourning.' This seems to really touch on the idea of visualizing human identity....Here is the link to the rest of the article and more work.

Below is another intersting use of hair....Mona Hatoum's 'pieces are concerned with confrontational themes such as violence, oppression and voyeurism, often in reference to the human body.' Here is the whole article...



Van Gogh's Back 1995

Photograph on paper
image: 600 x 403 mm
on paper, print

Secondary Research - Body - Artists, Concepts, Ideas etc...

Spencer Tunick's work about the body...in my mind couldn't be closer to visually exploring natural identity. I think its hard to find works thats speak of 'naturality' as much as these....his website is here


























I find Frances Semples sculptures visually carry a lot of emotion and feeling...a communication of identity?




Tom Friedman. ........Untitled, 2004. Aluminum foil, wooden armature, lollipop, and colored pencil on paper, 60 x 47 x 30". Here is an explantion of the work...what can i say!



Antony Gormley....Sculpture for Derry Walls 1987 Cast Iron Three double figures: each 196 x 193 x 54 cm and a human wire thing ☺. His website.