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| 'Pilgrim Fathers' 2011 |
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| 'Oh, Solon' 2011 |
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| 'Queen Elizabeth' 2011 |
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| 'The Revolt' 2011 |
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| 'Although beaten in open battle' 2011 |
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| 'Columbia' 2011 |
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| 'British Lines' 2011 |
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| 'Capitol' 2011 |
Volume Two.
Volume One.
After my set up of the books didn't work as well as planned, I decided to experiment with different ideas, choosing a different way to represent each book. For Volume One I just decided to take some initial photographs of the pages and images to see how they work.
Books and chairs.
After cutting the books I had to decide on a way to display them, as they need to be opened and experienced to see the lack of images and negative spaces throughout each book. I decided to show them with some of the images so that people would understand that they have been removed and that the books should be looked through. I tried to create an environment so that people could take time to experience the work.
Newnes Pictorial Knowledge.
Newnes Pictorial Knowledge is a set of ten educational illustrated books that was published in the 1950's. The editors state in the preface to volume one that the intention of the books were to be full of images to help educate children. Enid Blyton relays a quote from Alice in Wonderland.. "what is the use of a book; thought Alice, without picture or conversation?" And so I decided to take away this purpose and see how effective the books are as objects without the meaning they were originally intended for. These were some test images I took of the books.
Continued object set up from last year.
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| 'Set Up 2' 2010 |
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| 'Set Up 2' 2010 |
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| 'Set Up 2' 2010 |
Using objects last year.
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| 'Set Up' 2010 |
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| 'Set Up' 2010 |
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| 'Set Up' 2010 |
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| 'Set Up' 2010 |
Cut outs by Keren Dee.
Keren Dee is a former Wimbledon student :) and exhibited as part of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries last year, which I went to see. She uses postcards of other artists work from museums and galleries and creates new assemblages by cutting and collaging them together. She invites you to "consider a new perspective and way of thinking." They are playful and appealing and I think they work wonderfully, especially as a set in the series how they were displayed.
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| 'Postcards' 2009 Series |
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| 'Postcards' 2009 Series |
More from last year.
So, after playing around with cutting out the images that were already there I moved on. I wanted to create a story through cutting. So I used a very basic comic or sketch layout (images with borders) by cutting the negative space and let one or more basic figure in each. So that on each page there is a slightly different image of a male figure, alone and simple, but when you read all the pages together, or any number of pages it is completely different, as the mass of figures come together too. This is a rough image I took before I exhibited.
After the first book, I cut up another in the same way, although it was a much smaller book with thinner paper, which was a lot more difficult to do but worked just as well in the end. I ended up putting them both open on floating shelves for the exhibition. I also sewed together the cut out pieces from the book, to try and create a vice versa of the book and I hung these just above to show the insides and as an attempt to show a clearer idea of narrative.
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| 'Cut Out' 2010 |
All in all though, the books themselves are much more successful than the stitched pieces.
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| 'Cut Out' 2010 |
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| 'Cut Out' 2010 |
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| 'Cut Out' 2010 |
So here's some older stuff.
Just starting I guess with putting a couple of things up from last year. I play with books and images, cutting out pages and pictures to create new identities for second hand and found books. Here's a couple of fun photo's I took when I was fooling around with different ideas.
I just collected a lot of different books, looking especially for illustrations dotted within them.
I don't know much about music, but I know that a baritone is a male vocalist. So here I used some images (from Lorna Doone) to try to tell a different story by trying to create a narrative on the pages with the male characters I cut out.
Here's another Lorna Doone image with the postcard book again.
Although these are 3D creations, I find that they are more successful as photographs than as pieces in themselves. Also it means I can play around with the images and don't have to settle on one idea.
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| 'What I wanted to be when I grew up' 2010 |
Above is a kind of humorous, kind of sad image. The boy in the portrait is Edward VII or the then Prince Albert, that I took from a magazine about Royals. (The actual image is currently in the Royal Collection at St. James Palace.) Anyway, I was playing on the notion of careers and aspirations you have when your younger; dreaming of being an astronaut or a pilot, yet here is a painting of a young boy dressed in a naval outfit already showing that his life will be one of servitude to the country. Not surprisingly being dressed like this for portraits he grew up wanting to join the military, but ironically wasn't allowed as heir to the throne. So the one real career that he could realistically have as a monarch to be was denied to him. Ouch. Although I can't say being King could've all been that bad.
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| 'Baritone Songs' 2010 |
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| 'The Space Race' 2010 |
Although these are 3D creations, I find that they are more successful as photographs than as pieces in themselves. Also it means I can play around with the images and don't have to settle on one idea.
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