LukeTomlinsonFAD: Week 1: Induction week

On our first working week of FAD we had two lectures, one demonstrating the use of a blog which I've been using from level 3 anyway and the other one was about hand prints and hunting. To elaborate on this it goes back to some of the oldest pieces of art in history. The two pieces are cave paintings from Chauvet-Pont D'Arc, one of colored pigments spat onto the hands of the cave people and pressed into the wall as acknowledgement that these people existed and were here in the world in a different point in time whilst the other was a cave painting of the animals that would be hunted in Neanderthal times which in a similar sense prove that they (the animals) were here at a different point in time.

Hunting

Handprints

With these two pieces in mind it asks the question of who the artwork is made for. Is the piece a hand print piece to make a mark on history to prove that you the artist created this and existed, or is it a hunting piece to show others of an event that happened or a message you want to convey to others. I took this notion into my two final pieces of last year, 'The Man Who Laughs' and 'Acceptance'.
My 'Man who laughs piece' is a hanndprint painting because it is a piece I wanted to do to show my skills and practice as an artist but something I wanted to produce for the personal pleasure of painting my image. I have reflected on my artwork to find meaning relating to myself behind it as a capture of time and personal feelings. The painting reminds me of dark times I have had in the past that are my inner demons and I have captured those feelings of my past into the painting as a reminder of how I could see some of my past and to act differently in the future. The 'Acceptance' piece is different however in that it is a parallel towards racism in the 50s exploring that point in history. It is a modern communication that the events of the Little Rock Nine happened and a reminder of how times used to be for those to reflect on it in times today, therefore this is a hunting piece. Some pieces can be considered both and with more thought I could class both as both hunting and hand prints when reflecting on why I create my type of artwork or my target audience and intentions, but this exercise shows the artist themselves how they perceive their work.


"The Man Who Laughs" Handprint piece

"Acceptance" Hunting piece

The task we as a group had this week was to create triangular murals based on the areas of Blackburn to be presented on the side of the new college building in a project by Blackburn Is Open. To do this we collected objects and photographs from the town (my trip taking me up to corporation park) and creating a patterned mural for the project. This gave us the opportunity to work as a team and get to know the group and the tutors. Here are development photographs of us putting the piece together. We used charcoal, soft pastels and collage.