Artists – Karyn Easton

Apr 21

Film Mark 2

Exploring Alternatives – In my Film Production blog, I talked about how unhappy I was with my first film. Things haven’t got any easier. I still feel very poorly, but the perfectionist in me is not prepared to let this go. I absolutely ‘hate’ the first version of my film now! Unfortunately, I just seem to have such a severe creative block at the moment. One of the greatest challenges I faced was trying to come up with yet another script! At one point I thought ‘oh stuff it’ I’ll just stick with what I’ve done. However I just couldn’t do that. I went to bed feeling pretty ill and pretty down. They say that sometimes when you are facing a problem, your brain will help you to work things out while you are asleep. Last week in my state of feeling so down ‘my brain, my subconscious the universe, god’ or call it what you like came to the rescue overnight while asleep! This morning I remembered something that I’d long been aware of yet forgotten. This was the old concept of ‘The Eighth Day’. In some theological interpretations, the “Eighth Day” symbolises the day of resurrection or the […]

Nov 19

Epic Making Session

Yaacov Agam Inspired Work – Over many months now I have been wrestling with a myriad of ideas. In my Study Statement I was keen to develop a new form of hybrid human, digital and AI art. I also wanted to include an element of mystery and discovery whereby elements of the work were hidden. During my search for inspiration I came across two artists that particularly resonated with me, namely: Alexander Calder and Yaacov Agam. I particularly liked the idea of movement and mobile art seen in Calder’s work. Indeed I was so taken with his work that I went to visit the Tate Modern to see some of his pieces there. However, Yaacov Agam’s work really did inspire me. In his Artist’s statement he says: “My aim is to show the visible in a perpetual state of becoming”. I think this is a beautiful way in which he describes his work. However, I personally would liken it to, showing the visible in a perpetual state of change. Given the nature of the subject matter that I’m exploring, his work for me very much aligns with this notion of change as well as ‘becoming’. Below is a short […]

Oct 05

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Ai, Animation, Artists, Experimentation, Ideas, My Work, Patterns, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Tasks, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, ai, Animation, Artists, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, my work, Patterns, Problem Solving, Risk Taking, Tasks, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos

Grotto Print Ideas #1

Print Ideas & Adam Bridgland (Jealous London) – Today we had an interesting talk about the ‘Grotto Project’ formerly ‘Merch’. Adam Bridgland from Jealous London came along to share some insights and revealed a lot of useful information – see a selection of his slides at the end from the talk. I’ve just been looking at the deadlines and I’ve realised that I really do need to start moving on this. Some very interesting takeaways from the talk included answers to questions such as: what was a popular poster colour? What kind of images sold well? Adam suggested that blue was a popular colour and skulls, butterflies and cute cats seemed to do quite well. Unfortunately the human form, unless comprising a skull did not seem to fair quite so well. I’ve produced many digital images over the years, but the thought of choosing just one singular image to print has really made me think. I have some interesting macro photographs of oil on water hanging on my walls. One was bought by a large Australian advertising company, one hangs in the local hospital and one appears on an album cover. Even Adobe use some of my work. Therefore I can’t […]

Sep 24

A Mental Derive Part #2

Picking Up Where I Left off – Ever since my first mental derive, it was always my intention to recommence this particular project. now that the second draft of my research paper is nearing completion, I feel I am better able to return more fully to creative activities. Since part one of my mental derive, I didn’t totally abandon this project and I experimented with suspending some of the circles on a sheet of acetate between some thick heavy duty white elastic. Below is a gallery showing the results. This is a project I’d like to return to at some point, but I don’t currently have the correct materials. The acetate was far too thin and buckled under the strain of the elastic. Therefore thicker acrylic is possibly a better choice. The patterned discs/circles also had a habit of ‘pinging off’, so a better method of securing them is required. However, I do think that there is room to develop this project further. Moments in Time and Space Each black and white patterned circle/disc above, is a collage of many little moments in time. For this reason I wanted to trial another form of suspension. I am particularly […]

May 15

by Karyn in Artists, Culture, Galleries, Ideas, Photography, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: Artists, Culture, Galleries, Ideas, Photography, Unit 2 Blogs

MOCO

Modern Contemporary Museum – Barcelona – The MOCO was one of the first museums in Barcelona that I visited and it certainly did not disappoint! Below is a short video of my journey to the Contemporary Art gallery from the Hotel Barcelona. A short walk to the MOCO Moving with the Times Not only does the MOCO display static works of art they also display NFT’s, but more importantly they even have some artworks that utilise the power of augmented reality. Guillermo Lorca produces large visually arresting works. However these works take on a whole new life of their own when viewed through the MOCO’s very own augmented reality app called MOCO play. Initially, I hadn’t really taken much notice of the signs for this app, but then my curiosity got the better of me and I’m really glad that it did. Not only did viewing the artworks via this app add a whole new dimension to them, it also allowed the viewer to video record the experience in-app. Below is a compilation video that I made of the short augmented reality videos I made in-app. To say that Guillermo Lorca’s artworks really did come […]

May 15

by Karyn in 3d, Abstract Art, Artists, Culture, Food for Thought, Galleries, Ideas, Photography, Timelapse, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: 3d, Abstract Art, Artists, Culture, Food for Thought, Galleries, Ideas, Photography, Timelapse, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos

Barcelona Trip

Time to Unwind and Return To Blogging – The last 3 weeks have been incredibly busy. At work this is the time when we are preparing students for their art exams. However, for me the biggest task and time consuming activity is the production of the end of year film. There are more details about this in the blog post ‘A Temporary Distraction’. I always enjoy seeing the wide variety of work produced by our students but assembling it all into a coherent narrative can often be quite challenging. After nearly completing the film, luckily I was able to take a break in Barcelona. My students were now on a reading week, so it was the perfect opportunity to get away. This blog is a record from the start of the trip in England, to the return journey and most importantly everything in between. Sunday 14th May – Morning Sunrise The weather started off well enough and as we drove off to Bristol Airport we were greeted by a lovely sunrise. Unfortunately my camera was packed away, but I did manage to capture this iPhone shot. Apologies for the poor resolution. What Greeted us at Bristol Airport Although […]

Apr 18

Zoom Session 22 (Sukie Sagoo-Reddy)

Emerging Dialogues Through the Positioning of Textile and Visual Arrangements – I would really love to visit the college more often to do many of the workshops on offer. I often find myself thinking, if only I had my time over again? Therefore, whenever I get the opportunity to participate in any kind of workshop, be it online, or face to face, I’m always really excited. This week was certainly no exception! For a long time now I have been working both photographically and digitally in the flat 2d world of screens. However this week it was all change. Sukie Sagoo-Reddy ran a thought provoking/food for thought workshop with us today. She took us through her Powerpoint presentation that was packed with both information and tasks for us to complete. As usual I screen shot some of her slides as I find this a useful way of storing information for future reference. I think that I will definitely be revisiting this. Alongside Jonathan’s zoom session about the concept of a derive and the Processing Programming workshop, Sukie’s workshop also has to be one of my favourites to date. I don’t think that I’m particularly good at 3d but I am […]

Apr 04

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Ai, Ai Chat, Animation, Artists, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, My Work, Photography, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, ai, Ai Chat, Animation, Artists, Experimentation, Food for Thought, Ideas, my work, Photography, Unit 2 Blogs, Videos

Time of the Signs

A Physical Derive – Shortly after we had our Zoom Session 18 I decided to try out the concept of a physical derive. My DSLR camera was at work, so I headed out armed with only my smartphone. I had no preconceived ideas about where my walking or my thoughts would take me, I just decided to physically wander. On reaching the end of my street I was greeted by the huge sign for our local Funeral Director plus a plethora of road traffic cones and more signs around it. I began to wonder about signs? At first I thought about taking photographs of purely negative signs, but then I thought, what about information overload? Even in a short walk to the end of my street I had already encountered many signs packed with information. I began to wonder what the ratio would be between negative and prohibitive signs and more positive and informative signs? Brixham is a small town and in my opinion ‘rammed to the rafters’ with signs, would a busy city centre be better or worse as a comparison in terms of signage? Then I began to wonder if there was a correlation between the variety and […]

Jan 10

Vilde Rolfsen – Inspired Work

Beautiful Destruction – For a few weeks now I have been wrestling with ideas for my research statement. Ideally I would like to integrate some form of current affairs or pressing agenda into my work but I wasn’t quite sure how to approach this. I then remembered a shoot I’d done a little while ago. I stumbled across an artist called Vilde Rolfsen. I found her plastic bag landscapes absolutely fascinating. Not only was her idea clever it was also visually very appealing. Her images are certainly creative. There’s just something special about taking such a mundane object like a plastic bag and transforming it into an amazing landscape. Below is a small gallery of her images. Vilde Rolfeson – Plastic Bag Landscape Responses to Vilde Rolfeson I felt that Vilde Rolfeson had produced something truly unique. However, inspired by her idea I wanted to use her imagery as a base to experiment further. I was also keen to incorporate elements of animation and time into my experimentation as this ties in heavily with my theme. Most of Vilde Rolefson’s plastic bag imagery is light and bright, therefore I decided to take a slightly darker approach. I wanted […]

Jan 03

by Karyn in Artists, Books, Culture, Food for Thought, Galleries, Ideas, Lectures 0 comments tags: Artists, Books, Culture, Food for Thought, Galleries, Ideas, Lectures

Dean Kenning Lectures

Summary of the Dean Kenning Lectures Term One Below are short summaries of the Dean Kenning Lectures that began this term Oct 2022. I will document these on a termly basis and include relevant slides. The Art and Politics of Statues 18/10/22 – This was the first lecture at the start of the term. I think that the key takeaway here was that sometimes it isn’t always appropriate to ‘hijack’ someone else’s cause because it could be seen as self serving self promotion. The case in point was the Marc Quinn ‘A Surge of Power’ (Jen Reid) erected 15th July 2020. Anti-racism protesters in England pulled down a statue of a 17th-century slave trader while demonstrating in solidarity with the US Black Lives Matter movement. Quinn surreptitiously erected the statue early on the morning of 15th July 2020. Although this would seem like an act of solidarity on his part as a white male, it raises questions about the true motivation behind it. Was Quinn simply trying to use a political situation in order to further his own career? Would it have been better to have community art erected instead of art from a white male already making a […]