A Colour Box ( 1935) by Len Lye

I suggest you mute the music to focus on the animation.

The smallest printing company.

I just had to share The Smallest Printing Company. What a wonderful idea! Wish I had my own. What a great project to take on, give prints out to the public. I would roll my little company down the street and distribute prints to anyone and everyone.

More on Moire.

Tauba Auerbach prints, “Mesh/Moiré I-VI”, 2012

A lot of Auerbach’s art is about the tension between an almost total control over what goes into a process and an absence of control about the result that emerges from that process. She explores her system and process thoroughly, with thought and experimentation, and then when she’s ready, she lets go.

Auerbach created these prints by testing a variety of plastic meshes in which she has inked up and before running them through the press directing onto the paper. I am interested in her arrival of contrasting colours such as the orange and blue print shown in the photo above. Even though she selected contrasting colours, her prints combines the two to make something quite neutral. Naturally, with printmaking she works in developing her layers. The pattern is generated by the way they interact with each other. Similarly, I am currently creating work that deals with the way layers interact with one another. More on that on another post!

Read more at Ruins or Books
Also, check out Tauba Auerbach's website for your eyes to feast on. 

Color codification dot drawings by Lauren DiCioccio

Lauren DiCioccio's Artist's Statement

My work investigates the physical/tangible beauty of commonplace mass-produced media-objects, most recently: the newspaper, magazines, office papers and writing pads, plastic bags, 35 mm slides. These media are becoming obsolete, replaced by the invisible efficiency of various technologies. In some cases, this transition is a good thing- faster transmission and distribution of information, streamlined systems, openness to user input, less waste. But a hole is left behind by the disappearance of these everyday objects. What will happen when we no longer touch information? When newsprint does not rub off onto our fingertips? When we no longer write longhand? The tedious handiwork and obsessive care I employ to create my work aims to remind the viewer of these simple but intimate pieces of everyday life and to provoke a pang of nostalgia for the familiar physicality of these objects.

Crit discussion

Every time I have a crit, I like to review my notes and summarize it in a concise manner so that it is easier and clearer for me to see the main points as a whole before I make the next step towards my artistic trajectory.

Observations:
1) Colour- interplay of colour, tonal colour, combination of colours- how they interact with each other, mixing.

2) Printmaking- mirroring image, underlying of transferring images from one surface to another.

3) Transparency- Creates a distance between painting and surface.

Feedback from others:

The work is abstract, and there is a degree of control ( such as deciding where the paint goes). However, there is an element of chance when the layer has been flipped to create a shape merged with the layer behind it, resulting to an 'organic/ natural phenomenon'.

There is a sense of space from the lift.

Reminiscent of brain scans/ psychology tests. What do you see? Ideas surrounding perception (of colour)

It's Playful! ( A recurring adjective towards my work. ) with and element of mark making.

Deconstructing painting. Do I want to explore this territory? ( If so, how far?) Alternatively, I focus on colour and transparency.

Improvements/ Developments:
Possible way of shifting/ moving layers?

Research:
Painting is Modern [Book- ask Andy for publisher or author]
Installation and Experimental Printing by Tala, Alexia.  - See research document.

Weekend dose of printmaking

via Printeresting I found an informative short video documenting the art of printmaking called 'Ink'dlings- a printumentary' by Amy Caccamo. It mentions all the different techniques such as lithography, etching and Intaglio.

Watch here: Ink'dlings

Tauba Auerbach

I love Tauba Auerbach's mesh/ moire prints. The video above shows her artistic practice in progress! I've been noticing that my prints do not turn out clean with sharp edges and when I lay them over each other, there is a moire effect. I don't see it as an error but rather, an effect!

Wax & Foil.

In Progress.

It's like building a snowman, only you're dealing with the opposite temperature!

Scooping the wax from the edges..

Piling the wax to the center to create a pile.

So far so good! When the wax is at the right temperature ( not too hot) it's easy to sculpt.

Materiality as the Basis for the Aesthetic Experience In Contemporary Art- Christina Mills.

I've picked up some key notes and thought provoking quotes from Christina Mill's essay on Art and Materiality.

The research for this thesis focuses on how contemporary art, in all its various 

forms, functions via art’s material qualities or materiality. The objective is to 

ascertain the significance of materiality in contemporary art within the notion of 

temporal proximity and to establish the importance of the physical experience of 

works of art irregardless of whether the artwork manifests as an object, as in the case 

of painting, or as an experience as in performance art. The aim is to establish the 

fundamental relationship between the viewer and the work of art as it originates from 

material experience in all its manifestations.

Considerations of materiality can be universally applied in the aesthetic 

assessment of diverse contemporary art forms that range from traditional, low-tech 

media to conceptual, ephemeral works.

The artwork’s physicality, those aspects that can be sensed and verified by viewers, is a first 
consideration; physicality impacts content and, subsequently, meaning.

Plan of Action.

Finding out my new sensitivity to my materials now that I've become more critically aware of my drawing strategy. I'm going to try these options out in order to gain a better understanding for what will or will not work. I'm excited for my final piece!

Mid paper review- responses and feedback

After the crit, I've established that its the translucency and opacity of the wax on foil that is my main focus. I was given great constructive feedback which has made me feel more confident in my direction.

Henrique Oliveira

Though Henrique Oliveira works in a whole different medium. I admire how he can turn his primary material wood (plywood) into a whole new material entirely. Some of his work carry a heavy, cemented weight while other installations feel more active or as if the movement was stopped for a split second. It just goes to show how far you can push a material and create a whole new quality to them.

Materiality Installation.

Below are images of the work I presented for my mid paper review. Cranking out the work has paid off!144 pieces were displayed. I am pleased with the way it has been installed. See next post for notes from my crit.

Wax melting and solidifying.

My attempt to document wax melting in a sauce pan and drying onto one of my many foil pieces! I'm interested in the varying qualities ( opaque to translucent) of the wax as it goes through an alchemy process.

Material Thinking & Drawing Strategies

First initial notes

I'm starting to pick out and highlight drawing strategies to drive my work to it's final stage. It is important that I let the materials ( wax and foil) drive the artwork.

The Accumulation, Repetition and Systematic is what I am focusing on in creating my next body of work. I'm currently cutting out same sized bits of foil, crunching it or half crunching it, and dipping it into the wax before letting it settle. There is a sense of provisionality through the making of this work as I do not know how it will turn out.  Installing the work will play an essential role toward how my work will be received. My options are still open so for now, it's al about cranking the work!

Marco Maggi

Uruguayan artist Marco Maggi takes everyday objects such as photocopy paper, aluminum foil, apples, and parking mirrors as the foundations for his precisely-rendered sculptures and drawings. Using humor, wordplay, and a range of visual allusions, Maggi uses his meticulous processes to explore the relationship between information and knowledge in our contemporary world.

The medium, he has said, interested him not for its process, but for the way in which it provided a “threshold between two and three dimensions.” This formal interest connects directly to Maggi’s longstanding concern with the variability of knowledge—the way in which overwhelming amounts of information are disseminated flatly, deflecting introspection or focus.  By making works that are both subtle and meticulous, Maggi encourages his viewers to slow down and reflect upon each object’s details and intricacies; that act, of slow looking, is a political act that runs counter to the dominant tendency to look quickly and superficially.

Philosophy & Graphics + Philographics by Genís Carreras

 For quite a while now, I've been drawn to Genís Carreras's Philographics, where he combines philosophy and his graphic talents in order to produce simplistic designs- normally using geometric shapes. Now I'm no graphic designer but I enjoy the shapes, colours and how he's taken more complex ideologies and simplified it into an info-graphic.

In the first simester, I was working with a straightforward, dotted pattern which grew to be more complex when I added more layers of different sized polka dotted patterns. Seeing Philographics has sparked some new patterns shapes for me to print.

Here's more about his work.Genis Carrera's Philographics

Also, I'm still interested in materials that are transparent and reflective. This time around, instead of working with plastic, I'm aiming to work with perspex, mirrors and possibly glass if I can get my hands on it!

Wax + Foil + Gelatine = Disaster.

Okay maybe not a disaster, but the gelatine did not perform the way I had hoped. It occurred to me the other day that Gelatine would be such and interesting material to work with alongside wax. Since they both change/ solidify overtime.  Thinking more about the contingency between the two materials, I started to wonder "What if I poured hot wax into gelatine?" 

Covered a bowl with foil before removing it. 

The wax cooled down rapidly as I poured it onto the warm gelatine. 

After 3 hours, the gelatine was still quite soft and wobbly. I placed it in the freezer thinking that it may help. The wax and gelatine was much more interesting when frozen  because you couldn't quite tell what was solid or not.

Simultaneously, I did the same thing on a tray covered in foil. The gelatine did not solidify. Instead, it was a thick liquid. Feeling a bit hopeless, I got rid of the gelatine.

The result. Wax separated from the gelatine tray.

It's hard to tell in this photo, but there was some interesting texture created  you can imagine the wax cooling down as it was poured onto the gelatine.

Am I disappointed? Yes; but only because the materials did not respond the way I had hoped. On the plus side, I think I learned a lot more about the qualities of wax by pushing it boundaries with another material that acts similarly to it. Wax is difficult to control, especially when you mix it with gelatine. By pouring it into a cooler material, the wax cools down much faster, causing it to solidify at a faster speed.

Response to the little curiosities

After some thought, I found that the previous work that I made was leaning more towards the figurative, which is not what I want! I'm more interested in the delicateness of the wax as it peels of the foil, leaving me with fine, thin edges. As a step forward, I want to see how thin I can make my wax against the foil. Here's a video of me attempting to peel the foil off. It's difficult!

The result!

Making is Thinking

Making is Thinking is very similar to the Materiality drawing brief. After reading this article, I'm been more certain about the focus and purpose of this brief. Thinking through making is of paramount importance.

Making is Thinking explores distinct artistic practices engaged with notions of conceptual craft and intuitive industry. It seeks to collapse the persistent dichotomy between the practical and the intellectual, and presents a range of works that refuse the binary of concept and form.

Context:
European society has been marked by an increasing division between making and thinking that dates back to the industrial revolution. With the decline of urban guilds and rural cottage industries in the nineteenth century, and the subsequent mechanization of labor, workers were separated into blue- and white-collar jobs. Today, our education system privileges the creation of flexible “knowledge workers” over those with practical skills or manual know-how.

It is possible to trace a similar division in art since the beginning of the twentieth century. With Duchamp’s introduction of the readymade in 1913, the focus of avant-garde artistic practice shifted away from technique and the process of making to the transformative power of the artist’s vision. This saw the flourishing of conceptual art and the movement that Lucy Lippard famously labeled the dematerialization of the art object, culminating in Lawrence Weiner’s 1968 Declaration of Intent in which he announced that an artwork “need not be built.” For Weiner, thinking is making. Nevertheless, today artists are still making physical artworks and engaging with tangible materials. In our increasingly dematerialized world, how are we to engage with materiality? How might thoughtful forms of this insistence on making relate to our supposedly post-industrial society?

In recent years, craft has been held up to epitomize an alternative set of social values in the face of industrial production, global capitalism and mass consumerism. Yet this idea of craft is broader than that defended by John Ruskin or William Morris at the start of the previous century. Incorporating many elements of Modernism and informed by postmodernism, it offers a radical way for rethinking questions of work, both within and beyond the artistic field. Many artists are turning to this expanded notion of craft as a paradigm for making that seems to fuse previously oppositional positions – such as the trace of the artist’s hand and conceptual reflection – and are exploring its potential for reconsidering broader questions of production.

Cara Barer

 Cara Barer is known for her works involving book photography and sculptures. To me, she is focusing with the materiality of the object rather than the figurative or even aesthetic qualities that the book may hold . She doesn't rely on the the pages to inspire her creativity. Instead, she works with the durability of the book by bending its limits.  I would love to try something like this out with wax and foil.

These photos originate from her website.

Little curiousities

Notice the litte bits of fine glitter? It's foil that been broken down and mixed in with the wax.

Some bits of foil are harder to peel off than others.

Wax & Foil

First pour of wax onto a tray lined with foil.

Building up layers

Wax heated onto a pan. The gold bits were from the candle.

Done and left to cool down.

Wax removed from the foil. The gold bits come from the outer skin of the candle.

Notice how the wax has picked up the textures from the foil!

Drawing Notes

Thinking through making points:

- Wax melts while foil does not. However, when foil is heated in a pan, it breaks down into fine glitter.

- Wax can be very delicate. The slightest impact against another surface can chip the wax.

- The foil peels of the wax fairly easily unless the foil is crumbled.

Area of exploration:
Using wax to bind/ fuse/ join with foil. Looking at how they support each other.

Ideas/ elements to incorporate in the experimental process:
1) Using foil as an object and wax to mould in and around it.
2) Heating wax and pouring into a mould made from foil.
3) Repetition
4) Gravity and time. How they affect each other using wax.
5) Lay a flat sheet of foil, pour wax, peel- in order to get textures
6) Foil rocks- wrapping foil and dipping into wax.

How It's Made

How It's Made: Aluminium Foil

Skip to 1:30

Decorative Candles! Not only is this video fun to watch- Wax must be at a state where it is not too cool or warm in order to shape.

Rebecca Stevenson

Rebecca Stevenson graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2000 with an M.A. in Fine Art Sculpture. She mostly works with polyester resin and wax. Her pieces combine incredible detailed and colorful flowers with traditional portrait busts and animal figures. Stevenson sculpts plant and animal forms as if there is no separation between the two.  I am amazed at the forms of wax that look organic as if they have grown themselves.

Wax, resin 45 x 51 x 41cm

Wax, resin 70 x 45 x 50cm

Studies in Material Thinking (SMT)

 'As a developmental process, drawing is useful in revealing relationships and potential connections.' -
Nancy de Freitas, Editorial: Materiality of Drawing/ Thinking, Volume 4

SMT's current editorial is titled Making, materiality and knowledge in creative research.  It was interesting to read about the role of the maker who shares knowledge about the material thinking experience and process. ( The article links to different specific articles written by the maker themselves.) It has made me realize that the is no right or wrong in choosing a method or system when approaching a new material.

Richard Serra's Verb List

Richard Serra's Verb List include various action words. Serra described the list as a series of “actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process,” and used it as a kind of guide for his subsequent practice in multiple mediums. The list has helped me think about alternative ways to approach my material.

Richard Serra. Verb List. 1967–68. Graphite on paper, 2 sheets, each 10 x 8" (25.4 x 20.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist in honor of Wynn Kramarsky. © 2011 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Visual diary: Foil.

Initially, I started a notebook for my drawing paper but having gone through some making processes, I found that I was moving too fast a pace to jot down everything onto a book in a systematic and organized way. Having my DVR ( Developmental Visual Record) in a blog format allows me to switch things in order if I need to. Additionally, I may include a video of my work in the making.

Below are the first responses to my selected material: Foil. Click on the images to expand them. They are a bit blurry.

These experiments were inspired by Richard Serra's Verb list which you can also find on my Drawing Research page.