First Proposal Draft

Self Expressive Animation


Thinking back to when I initially started my Masters Degree, I intended to concentrate on revisiting traditional techniques like the painting and drawing I used to do before my under graduate degree but with a continuation of themes explored throughout my creative career so far.  These themes were always based around the body and it’s representation through different concepts of identity, figurative portraiture, philosophical ideas of what it is to be human (during my undergraduate dissertation), etc.

My first self negotiated brief allowed me to start to focus my practice and research and thus reduce the amount of different concepts I initially tried to involve in my work.  I gained an understanding at this stage that my ideas were starting to take the form of very abstract, self representative and expressive, reproductions of myself.  At this point I favoured drawing on film as with images of my skin and some brain scans, which was then developed and explored further in the second self negotiated brief with other traditional media for example, drawing with pencil and charcoal.

Now, as I embark upon the final stage of my work, I realise my main intentions are very much due to a self driven desire to experiment and create, partnered with my love for traditional techniques and wanting to ‘get my hands dirty’, along with a seemingly lifelong obsession with the figure and body as represented in art and imagery. 

‘’It is our function as artists to make the spectator see the world our way not his way.’’⁽¹⁾

(1) Joint statement by Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman; written June 7, 1943. Originally published in the New York Times June 13, 1943.

I now feel presented with the challenge of truly understanding why my ideas for animated pieces are so expressive.  The above statement by Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman, is a response to an art critic’s review of their work, though to me it suggests a purpose for why I am doing the expressive work I have found myself producing.

My intentions are really to invoke curiosity in the viewer, the same or similar curiosity I have for the themes and experiments I do.  I wish my audience to see the figure represented in interesting ways through animation that is not normally seen.  Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Barnett Newman were abstract expressionists, an art movement seemingly in reflected in my own work and potential ideas for this project.

Aim and objectives

·         My Masters Project will result in three separate pieces of experimental film with sound, based around representation of my body, displayed as part of my exhibition in September

·         Creation of a Masters Project Blog to show development of research and practice as I progress

Objectives/Problems to overcome

·         The films will need to fit together and themes will have to be clear and not confusing or conflicting.  I realise this will require very careful consideration and sacrifices may have to be made after discoveries made from progression of practice and research.

·         I wish to consider the possibility of an instillation of pieces of work gained from my methods for animation to display alongside, or separately, to the animated pieces.  If carried out, I need to fully explain why I have decided to do so.

·         My Masters project will mainly be a series of experiments from all three films and an exploration into themes that arise.  I then will need to focus research and enquiry into more specific areas.

·         As my work takes a more artistic and expressive path, I will need to fully understand relevant aspects of critical theory.  This is another main intention as an outcome from my project.

·         I want to consider why I am using myself as a subject, is it just for convenience or is there more to it?

·         I will need to consider what sounds will be used for my animation.

Three Ideas

1.       A stop motion animation showing full body marks of paint on full size bed sheets.

2.       A piece of animation displaying close up skin prints, derived from images of close up marks on dried pva glue that has been peeled off my entire body.

3.       A short, possibly looped film (possibly direct animation) using images of a brain scan (of my own brain) from one side to another.

The basis of my Masters project will be development of experiments for each of these three ideas.  The development will also include the consideration of how they will be presented and this will inevitably present a challenge as the themes, although similar, are different.  This will involve creative problem solving through practice and research.

The representation of the figure and in particular the nude has been a common theme in the world of art, historically and contemporarily, from prehistoric fertility idols to scientific anatomical drawings for aid with surgery in Victorian times.  I need to work out where my work sits amongst this vast collection of imagery and film.

‘Unidentified Operation’ - from WW1

Female Fertitly Icon

Yves Klein, produced similar work to what I intend to produce for my first idea.  He used the body as a paintbrush to produce a series of images of naked form. 

His series of works under the title ‘anthropometries’ were usually performance art based using subjects and spectacles.  His resulting images are closer to the imagery I wish to achieve in my animated piece.

Yves Klein, Anthropometry ANT 85

Whilst the end results are very effective, Klein’s work to me feels very objective.  My work will be very self expressive, hence using my own body as the ‘paintbrush’.  The way he has ‘used’ the women to produce the paintings, as seen in video footage of the performances⁽¹⁾, feels indirect to the artist, although the idea of having the subject itself forming the image is a strong theme seen in my ideas for films.

An artist who has used her own body as a subject is Jenny Saville.  I would like to draw attention in particular to her ‘Closed Contact’ series (a collaboration with Glen Luchford), where she squashes herself against glass to produce images of her own body looking almost deformed and misshaped.  This was a response of Saville observing reconstructive surgery, she wanted to represent the violence of what she had witnessed through her work, in the form of these abstract self portraits.

I admire the work she produces and how she represents herself in this particular series.  Jenny Saville’s approach is more about an obsession with self image and representation in regards to beauty.  This is admirable and evokes a powerful response in the audience and I would like to attempt to gain the same type of responses in my films.

Another artist and filmmaker who has driven and influenced me is Stan Brakhage.  His films are very expressive and use the technique of direct animation, the same technique I have used previously for self negotiated projects one and two and intend to use again during my Master Project.  It is clear in Stan Brakhage’s films that there is no narrative.  This is my intention for my films, and similar themes between my films and those of Brakhage are the experimentation with surface and medium, with no clear narrative. Yet, where my work as yet does not seem to have a clear specific theme, but a number of different possible ones, Stan Brakhage’s films usually explored specific themes of birth and death, sexuality and innocence, influenced by music and poetry.

I have attended an exhibition and series of talks at the welcome trust entitled ‘SKIN: EXPOSED’.  Upon reflection of the research gained from attending this I hope to find out where my work belongs and what I am trying to say.

To summarise, I do not want my work to be ‘art for art’s sake’.  I want it to have a purpose and a meaning.  As mentioned previously, I want the viewer to feel curious about the images I portray, though, the themes are important for this to be a success, so I can focus in on particular areas of my practice.  Through experimentation alongside research into themes I recognise (and recording them along the way via online blog) I will hopefully achieve my goals when displaying my work on exhibition in September.