Joe Mangrum

I was looking at some artists who work outside in public for some encouragement to move outside too and found this artist! At the moment although i really want to work outside in public i don't have enough confidence, hopefully after looking at a couple of artists who work outside i will be more confident with myself. The most scary part of working outside for me is getting into trouble, however i have to try working outside as i believe that's where my art leads me at the moment. My fear needs to be overcome!

Joe Mangrum works with colored sand, making spontaneous designs in circular formation. 

"My paintings are influenced by an abundant world of undersea creatures, carnivorous plants emanating electrical impulses, a living mathematical amalgam and botanical geometry stemming cross-cultural metaphors from many years of travels around the world."

Mangrum takes his inspiration of nature which i try too but also from the everyday marks found around me. They can be both from nature and not and the way i work with marks are also inspirations from nature, particularly natural formations that have a set design and are perfectly formed such as seas shells and ammonites. Although they have a set design they have small imperfections but they are like human error perfect as that makes them unique. This links with the table top work, although i try and spin a paint stain perfectly in a circle there would be unevenness as well as the difference between each tracing of the mark and that adds interest and uniqueness to the work. This is because i allow "human error" to occur when in fact its just my interpretation of the mark each time i trace it and spin it. This also happens in nature. 

"...society divided from nature and compartmentalized into definable groups, disconnected physically, and spiritually from the whole." 

Yes i too think that society is divided from nature and need to connect more with the nature around us. I frequently go to parks, forests, beaches, sky, sunshine where i think i receive energy from and recharge. As well as gemstones, flowers, leaves etc. 

"It is no accident that they mostly follow a circular form, though I do not describe them as mandalas."

For me what Mangrum creates are not mandalas but formations that symbolize unity, endlessness and infinite nature of energy, inclusivity of the universe. That is why i too feel comfortable with the circle symbol and creating work that is circular. A lot of things around us are circular - planets, time, life cycle etc. And so by creating more circles they connect and become whole.

"My art is about interconnectivity and co-existence within the natural order of life"

~Ev

Group Critique! Loved it!

On Friday i had an amazing group tutorial! Loved every minute of it! It was very friendly, open and helpful for me to wrap up my thoughts.

I showed my performance piece that i have done on the board, talking about my mixed emotions towards it and how this piece felt different from the work i have been doing with the table top, although they had some similarities. The performance was more intuitive and less controlled in the way of mark making compared to the table top tryouts. However i still tried to control everything i could control because that is just me. I like to control everything. So Rory decided to give me a challenge to see how i would react when i didn't have time to even think about controlling what i do, So he asked for me to do another performance right there and then! I wasn't prepared for it and was a bit nervous, but at the same time i loved the idea of performing it for people who will share the experience. It was a test for me that i was willing to accept. I have noticed recently that i work well under pressure and that under pressure or when i am nervous, whether it be because people are watching or worry that i will do something wrong - then i produce better work! Work that helps me to understand myself better.

So Rory gave me 5 minutes to do the performance in which throughout i felt nervous but strangely enough they didn't think so. At the start of the performance i started really fast because of my nervousness, making marks quite fast with the charcoal sticks, but after a while i got into my own rhythm which later on when discussed everybody noticed too. I think rhythm helped me to calm down and be in the moment of performing. 

There was a moment in the performance which everybody felt, where i paused because i didn't know which sort of mark i wanted to do next. I knew that everybody noticed and for me that was a moment where again i realized that i am being watched, not only my mark-making but me too as i am part of the work.

So slowly i get more and more interested in performance and how it works for me. I am very happy how this crit turned out and the way all of us bounced ideas off each other. And the way that when contributing to the discussions of the other student i had something to say from my own practice, making links with my own interests and ideas and not just stating something in general.

~Ev

Performance tryout no.1

I have made a performance piece on Tuesday to see what sort of feelings i will get from it. Will i enjoy the process of making the performance and whether i like to be part of my art. Performance required my body movements and therefore i became part of the performance, part of my art work work. This engagement with my work i love, being part of work is something special! This is not the same as the tabletop work i have been doing but still interesting to see what really attracted me to try it. 

To be honest the first tryout gave me mixed emotions. As i constantly worried how this sort of performance can be shown. Do i film it while making the performance or is this sort of performance that people need to go and see in action? There more i worked the more i thought that i prefer for people to see it in action, because showing it on video will take away the experience itself from it. I would like my audience to experience it with me while am making the performance and in that way there will also be a link with them. 

I worked with colored pastels on board with both of my hands, with repetitive movements around me. Me being the middle point. It felt a bit controlled so next time i am planning to make it even more spontaneous and maybe visually asymmetrical as symmetry adds control in a way. The symmetry was added by me repeating the movement around the board before changing to a different one. I loved how the colors looked on the board and i don't think it would have worked if i made it on paper. The color of the board gives an earthy feeling to it. However although i loved working on the board it felt quite limiting in the sense that i couldn't work outside the board and was limited to that particular board size. The end result of the piece when looking at the marks you can see that in some places you can see it being extended. Maybe i don't like limitations? Maybe because this performance required my expression of movements and the board limited me at some points. Its not like the work i tried to make at Crosby beach where i worked with endless sand! However i fell in love how layer after layer of repetitive intuitive movements worked together, forming something special. 

~Ev

Tutorial, circles, performance and me!

So i had my tutorial the other day and i didn't know where our conversation with my tutor (Rory) would lead us in terms of my art, its always unpredictable and i always learn something new about my art just by talking about it and discussing it with other people. I was really excited for my tutorial and i wasn't disappointed! 

So i started to talk to Rory about what i made throughout the holidays (photoshopped marks) and the week of uni (working with the marks on the table). I was explaining the idea behind it and why i chose this and not something different. I started talking about what is important to me and throughout Rory questioned everything i said making me think deeper into WHY i chose what i chose. For example why did i choose to spin the mark in a circle, why same distance? WHY it is so important to me to do that? And then suddenly out of nowhere i said "I like to be the center point!" That was an eye opener! Every explanation that i gave before to the questions above where right but not as strong as this one! It felt so right! It explains a lot of things and a lot of my decisions regarding my work! It also made me think of why i want to be the center point? its not just about the circle itself but maybe because i feel more protected when surrounded. When i repeat a mark in a circle it grown and grows out evenly and in layers, adding more and more protection for the middle point and i feel like i'm the middle point. So maybe that's why it also leads me to performance, my work in a way is performative. I will experiment towards performance and being the center point of it soon! I am very excited as i am slowly but surely on the way of understanding my art!

~Ev

Mandala, nature, marks and process

Throughout the holidays i have been making work involving stains and marks. Because i couldn't physically work on the table top that i wanted to over the holidays which had a lot of paint stains, i decided to take pictures of the table top and work with the marks using Photoshop. Because the table is circular i intuitively decided to work with the marks and repeat them in a circle too. For me a circle is a very strong sign! It links in with astrology, mandalas, sun, space, and also is a protective symbol. For me the circle also represents life cycle, time and infinity which i focus on! So the more i worked with the marks and repeated them in a methodical kind of way the more i thought about mandalas. What are mandalas, what they are about and where they come from. 

Mandalas are used for meditation purposes allowing the individual meditating to become one with the universe. A Mandala represent wholeness, a cosmic diagram reminding us of our relation to infinity, extending beyond and within our bodies and minds. The Hindus were one of the first people to use a mandala as a spiritual tool, but the mandalas most individuals are familiar with, are ones made by Buddhists. The mandala is primarily use as a form of meditation to gain knowledge from within.

These are some of the Photoshop experimentation that i did using images of the table top! I added some color to them based on the color of the original mark that i decided to repeat.

I love how a table full of mark and stains which are messy and unorganised and just left there to sit on the table, can change to something beautiful with a purpose and form something special, showing the beauty of the original mark that was used. The interaction between me and the marks is what really interests me. A mandala not just made by my imagination but using the physical information to work with my decision of which mark i will choose and how i would like to repeat it. Each mandala in return becomes something unique and hard to replicate. 

This is my further experimentation but this time drawing onto acetate and working with the real table top.

White pen on acetate

Although i try and repeat the mark evenly each time, so it looks visually symmetrical you can still see some human error in them because they are done by hand. Process of actually creating them by hand is very important to me. Looking at the photoshopped piece i realise that i don't really consider them as work but something that i have made to pass time while i didn't have the opportunity to work with the actual table top. It allowed me to experiment and think more deeply into why i enjoy producing work that requires my hands. The photoshopped pieces of work although engage with the marks on table visually, they don't engage physically, it allows less human error to occur which i believe the most important part of actually engaging with the paint marks. 

Because the paint marks are not perfect and very spontaneous i feel as though my interaction with them cant be perfect too. This led me to think of nature and natural formations in nature which have symmetry and repetitive patterns which still aren't perfect visually. Looking into nature formations such as sea shells, snowflakes, stones and each one of them isn't perfectly formed. There are some "errors" that happen naturally and allowing these "errors" to occur in my work it shows my human error and links me in with nature, life and existence. So these imperfections in my own work just show the beauty of human error and that's why i consider physically produced work beautiful and not work that is made digitally. 

My next step will be ordering some see- through perspex the size of the table top and then working with the marks from the middle point out using a white pen or tippex pen. Working my way from the middle point. Very excited and cant wait to start! The process will be very repetitive but that's the beauty of it. I will listen to some spiritual meditative music to accompany my journey! Will help me to get the best out of the process and will allow me to really concentrate on the marks and circle!

~Ev

Performance - footprints/ hand prints

Back in uni! New semester! Full of energy! Lets go!

So recently i have been thinking about making some performance pieces outside, based on the sounds i hear and the environment around me. Express what i feel through the way i move and the colors i choose. So i thought of trying out some performances with footprints and hand prints! Mainly focusing on the sound of the wind and birds - natural sounds but also include the sounds of cars and people. Dipping feet and hands in paint and then just leaving marks in a repetitive, methodical kind of way, expressing sounds as they come and trying to see a pattern in the sounds that i hear around me. 

After thinking of experimenting in this direction i decided to go and search what performances or pieces of work are out there which link to what i am thinking of doing. I found this interactive piece of artwork that i fell in love with! It interacts with people and environment at the same time, making people rethink their use of cars and encouraging people to walk. 

Giant Footprint Tree in Shanghai Promotes Walking

Sponges soaked in green paint were placed at either end of the canvas so that every time a pedestrian walked across the intersection, a trail of fresh green footprint "leaves" were added to the tree giving the pedestrians a sense that they were contributing to a healthier environment.

I love the scale of this work as well as the way it invades the everyday space in an unusual way. You wouldn't normally see artwork on roads and that's why it really captured my attention. It forces people to interact with it and think about their input into the environment. This piece you cannot ignore. I love how simple, clever and effective this piece is!

The performance piece that i am thinking of doing doesn't involve other people contributing to my performance but it does include them in the sense that they would see the journey, the process of me making the performance and in turn might see the connections that i have made with the sounds around me. The performance will be a big circle of footprints and hand-prints that express my reaction to the sounds. A circle is a very important symbol for me, its shows unity, infinity, cycle, movement, time and life, and by responding to the sounds around me this way, such as birds singing, cars moving, people talking i want to show that life is repetitive, ongoing and that we are all united.

Tony Orrico a performance artist that i have talked about in my last post gave me an idea for this performance piece, as well as the Listen project done weeks ago. 

~Ev