We spent a full day in the gallery exploring the space and coming up with ideas for the intervention on the 24th March. I started to explore the space as i usually would do - by looking for marks, imperfections and not even looking at the paintings themselves but looking at the space itself. I started to explore the space in my own way. I wasn't really interested in the paintings at the start and thought that the frames the paintings were in are too big and do not add to the paintings but distract from them. The frames for me are a piece of work in themselves. The paintings are better off with a clean frame or no frame at all so you would focus completely on the paintings.
I must admit that i was a bit lost at the start, i didn't know what i wanted to do in the space, it felt as though i was waiting for something to happen, something that will trigger me in a particular direction. I took pictures while some of the other students drew and made sketches looking very confident in what they are doing. I felt as though the gallery was too full with all the paintings and information, i felt as though my work anything that i would make did not belong there and i didn't feel comfortable actually interacting with the space and bringing something of my own. However i was interested in coming up with ideas from the space and see where they would lead me.
I like going to galleries however i always end up criticizing them for the wallpaper and the color of the walls as they again distract from the paintings. It ends up looking very intense in the room, a lot of information to take in with paintings being very close together as well. I feel overwhelmed sometimes and not relaxed at all.
I had a lot of ideas in my head which were unrealistic as they all required me to actually engage with the paintings physically which the gallery doesn't allow. So it was a struggle to balance my ideas with the practicalities. One of the ideas was that i wanted to draw on top of the glass though which i could trace some of the paint strokes with a white marker. It would not spoil the painting directly as it would be on the glass. So i did a little tryout just to see how it would work but on a printed version of one of the paintings:
It was a long day in the gallery, had one hour left to explore and suddenly when i entered a room in the gallery full of school children on a day trip to the gallery, i suddenly had a feeling that i really need to make some work with the drawings they were making in front of me! It felt right! So i started talking to the teachers to ask them if some of the children could willingly give me some of their drawings. I was surprised that some children were very excited that their work could be shown in the gallery space! While i was collecting some of the drawings i made sure i knew which painting they were drawing from, just in case i wanted to link their work with the original paintings.
I started to think about how the painters were all in the same stage of drawing once as the children's drawings that i was holding in my hand. That we all started the same way, slowly learning how to draw and then some of us developed our skills and made amazing paintings. I also couldn't help it but see how much more positive the children's drawings were. Children have a positive look at everything and therefore when they see a painting they cant help but draw everything in a more positive and light way. It is interesting how as we grow up we use more dark colors, compared to children who use bright and positive colors. Can't help but smile at their drawings!
I thought about why i was drawn to work with the children's drawings and realized that again i wanted to use the drawing because otherwise they would not be seen, as most of them would be binned or lost. I wanted for the effort of the children not to go unnoticed. I wanted for the drawings to be visible and appreciated. This appreciation of something that otherwise would not be see is very dominant in my practice.
So after collecting the pictures i had a week to come up with something for the 24th intervention. I had the drawings however i wanted to engage with the space too and the original paintings. One way that i did that is through Photoshop, by replacing the original painting with the child drawing. However it was on Photoshop and i would have been very happy if what i did though Photoshop i could have done in real life. But that wasn't possible.
Another idea that i had is overlapping the original painting with the children's drawing, by printing the children's drawings onto acetate and layering the two together. That is the idea that i went for at the end. However i didn't want my work shown in the same space as the paintings as they would get lost in all the wallpaper and frames and surrounding colors as they are black and white.
24th
I decided to place in the hallway on pillars in a square, facing each other. This is the idea i went for at the end:
~Ev
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