Artist research

 Nick Mann

I find Nick Mann’s mural work really captivating due to it’s narrative quality. Each of his paintings depict a complex and all consuming tale in a somewhat psychedelic style. Mann’s mural’s are detailed, colourful and otherworldly. I strive for my paintings to harbour a similar quality, particularly a narrative one. Mann’s ability to create an entire scene with a story with a surrealist essence is exactly what I’d love to do in my own personal practice, therefore I will be closely observing his work for inspiration. 

Artist research

 Dan Isaac Bortz / Jbecauze

Dan Isaac Bortz’s work is endlessly fascinating to me. I am incredibly excited by art work that is rich in colour, abstract and figurative in style. I adore Bortz’s personal style in which he paints and draws people interacting with the space around them, I’ve not personally mastered my own niche artistic language just yet and this is something that really matters to me. Seeing Bortz’s individual style motivates me to find my own. I plan to create large scale figurative scenes of people interacting with one another and I want to find my own abstract aesthetic, like Bortz. I will continue to explore his work and take inspiration from his visual style. 

Artist research

Erik Minter

I find Minter’s work massively inspiring not only because I find his work aesthetically engaging but because of his technique. Minter has mastered the ability to conjoin figurative and pour painting (see second reference image). The way Minter has manipulated the materials to flow in a certain direction and form a figurative shape is what I plan to master so I find his work extremely exciting and motivating. I also want to learn how to combine spray painting and gradients with paint pouring, both of which Minter has captured in the works referenced below. I will study his work more closely as I attempt these styles in my own practice.

Continued research

It's very important to me that my paintings harbour a tale, a message or a meaning of some sort. With out this, I feel alienated from my work and as though it doesn't contain a part of my being. I feel a personal obligation to communicate with the viewer through the visuals in my work in order to portray a deeper meaning through the incorporation of symbolism. It feels incredibly empowering that you can say something so loudly in your work with out using any interpretable words, with out being directly quoted all while maintaining your absolute privacy. In order to do this, I wanted my paintings to feature symbols that I have attributed certain meanings to; as though I have created my own alphabet or artistic language. I have always been incredibly drawn to the Eye of Horus as a symbol, initially because I found it aesthetically beautiful and eventually, as a result of deeper research, because of its meaning. 

Researching the Eye of Horus led me to wonder about ancient Egyptian and Greek mythology as a whole, and what other symbols might retain extensive meaning that I might relate to on a personal level in regards to my back story and the paintings I wish to create.

Areas/ figures I researched included: 

-Medusa

-Egyptian goddesses and gods and their back stories

-Anubis (Black dog symbolism and god of the underworld and dead spirits)

-Sphinx statues and temples (protection and worship)

Artemisia Gentileschi - Judith Slaying Holofernes

Judith Slaying Holofernes (1612-1613) by Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi is a huge inspiration to me and my practise due to her effervescent courage, mite and strength in response to the harrowing trauma she faced as a young seventeen year old woman in Rome.

Gentileschi's story mirrors my own in several areas and because of this I feel a deep connection to her work and her response to her trauma as an artist. 

Gentileschi was often at the mercy of misogynistic idealisations and patriarchal systems, dimming her potential as an extremely talented baroque painter. The piece that most stands out to me and touches me on a deeply emotional level is ‘Judith Slaying Holofernes’, many art historians believe the painting to be a direct vengeful response to Agostino Tassi, who raped Artemisia Gentileschi in her own father’s home.

After Agostino Tassi didn’t fulfil his ‘promise’ to marry Artemisia, Artemisia’s father took Tassi to court, where Artemisia was subject to gruelling torture that lasted over a period of several days. The belief was that if Artemisia stuck to her version of events in spite of the harrowing pain she was subject to, then she must be telling the truth. Artemisia succeeded in enduring the torturous pain she was forced to undergo and Tassi was found guilty and was sentenced to flee Rome. However due to the misogyny and patriarchy that ran through out Rome at the time combined with general lack of education and awareness surrounding traumas such as these, Tassi never carried out his sentence, and him doing so was never enforced.

 "Painted after the trauma of her rape by Agostino Tassi the year before in 1611, Artemisia depicted the assassination of the Assyrian general Holofernes from the Old Testament by the Israelite heroine Judith. Many feminist critics have interpreted the painting as a form of visual revenge following her sexual assault and more recently the painting has been praised for Gentileschi's achievement in portraying strong women."

  

"Judith, as painted by Artemisia, is full of rage. She is not serene or delicate. She is not posing or unsure. She is angry, certain, and out for blood. Everything in her expression and her movements is full of force and intent. It’s the little details like his hair between her knuckles from where she’s gripping it and the forceful twist of her wrist on his sword that she’s taken. To her rolled sleeves in her incredibly fancy dress. And it’s not afraid to be gory to. Perhaps this is tame by modern standards of blood and gore but for the time it’s very bloody and violent. Supposedly the violence was too much for the first owner who kept it hidden for some time (allegedly). I think it’s important that while the focus is Judith doing the act, her maid is not passive in the violence. She’s holding him down with just as much force as Judith. And unwavering to, despite how we can see how Holofernes was trying to throw her off before he died, his hands still limply in the air. The maids full of as much determination as Judith is. Judith’s dressed up for this to, in a fine gown with her hair done up. This is likely part of the ruse Judith set up before she got Holofernes alone, but I like the detail none the less. That she’s dressed up for this murder." 

"Following the trial Artemisia married a little-known Florentine artist by the name of Pierantonio di Vincenzo Stiattesi, and left Rome for Florence shortly thereafter. There she had five children and established herself as an independent artist, becoming the first woman to gain membership to the Academy of the Arts of Drawing in 1616. Artemisia returned to Rome in 1620, beset by creditors after running up debts, and she remained there for 10 years (except for a trip to Venice in 1628).

From 1630 she settled in Naples, where she ran a successful studio until her death. She briefly visited London in 1639, perhaps to assist her ailing father on the ceiling painting of the Queen’s House in Greenwich (now at Marlborough House in London), but was back in Naples the following year. The precise date of her death is not known but a recently discovered document records her still living in Naples in August 1654."

Desired outcome

 As well as harbouring a desire to fine tune my painting skills in regards to both liquid and figurative painting; it really matters to me that the paintings I'm going to render act as a therapeutic tool for me to vent my pent up frustration as a result of the injustices I have faced through trauma and tell my story through my own personal artistic language. In my sketchbooks I have dozens of roughly sketched and annotated painting ideas that I jotted down during my PTSD episodes that I was too unwell at the time to create. 

This academic year, it is my mission to work towards getting closer to being able to bring those images to life through painting. This will help me on a deeply emotional level by being able to confront these dark experiences and turn them into something (hopefully) beautiful, this transformative process will aid in my recovery by allowing me to turn dark to light and put these chapters of my life to bed. I can proudly look at the works I have created, knowing I lived and breathed the pain that went into the paintings and was solely responsible for the metamorphosis of my emotions, turning pain into pride. 

The painting ideas I am working from in my sketchbooks are incredibly ambitious in relation my current technical painting ability, but creating these images means so much to me and I feel a need to prove to my past self that I can bring these images to life, as a kind of 'F you' to my trauma and to aid in improving my self esteem, both as an artist and a human being. 

In order to improve my painting skills, I plan to create a series of nude figurative studies on both paper and canvas (as I want to work on both these surfaces for my larger planned works and need to learn the nuances of working with these materials). In conjunction with this, I will be practising my fluid art techniques and tightening up my paint pouring methods by exploring a range of different techniques which again, I will carry out on both paper and canvas.