First Semester Assessment Post

Over this year my artist practice has developed to be more mixed-media based. Both the making process and the use of detail are important aspects to me in my work. My work covers themes relating to nature, animals and how I can represent them, and the use of natural and man-made materials. I aim to create contrasts and interesting relationships with imagery in my work and as I have always had an interest and respect for animals, I wanted animals to be a focal point that I could develop from. I have then tried to cover and combine themes such as the wild and the domestic while experimenting with scale and materials.

'Ready-mades surround us in nature: Beauty, symmetry, and proportion are everywhere, usually pretty close to home.' -Jackie Knott.

I liked this quote from artist Jackie Knott as I feel that she summed up a good reason for why nature is such an appropriate topic to be used in art, it has many ideas to offer and important, interesting things to see and draw attention to.

I have tried to experiment in my working methods this semester and as a result have looked at artists working in a variety of mediums. Animal endorsing artists Olly and Suzi, Barbara Norfleet and Britta Jaschinski have all been very useful for me to research as they base their work around similar ideas to what I want my work to reflect. I have looked at other artists more for their techniques such as David Mach's collage works and Xavier Vielhan's animal sculptures. John Stezaker's collages have been a big influence on me when testing out collage as I like the illusions of facial features he often creates and the method of combining only a couple of images at a time.