Abstract Art – Page 2

May 19

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

MNAC

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya – While I was visiting the Banksy Gallery one of the guides told me that I really needed to visit ‘Museu National d’Art de Catalunya.’ He explained that this was an amazing gallery and a ‘must see’. He was not wrong! The museum is set high above Barcelona and the views are breathtaking! Luckily I had my DSLR with me on this trip, so I decided to take lots of photos. My memory card was pretty full so I had to be a little careful about wasting frames but I managed to shoot everything I wanted. The building is very imposing! In fact everything about it was imposing, including the security and guards. After a relaxed and friendly visit to both the Banksy (they actually made me a coffee), and the MOCA and MACBA museums, I was left in no doubt that one false move and I’d be in serious trouble. One guard shouted at me for just holding a bottle of water – maybe he had heard about the ‘Just Stop Oil’ protests in the UK and thought I was about to throw it over a painting or something? I duly complied and the […]

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 […]

May 06

A Temporary Distraction

The Annual College End of Year Film – Each year for the last few years I have been invited to produce our college end of year film. It’s a long and quite complex task because it has to really showcase our department. It needs to appeal to parents, staff and students alike. Unfortunately because it is such a massive undertaking, my research has had to go on hold for a little while. However in a couple of weeks I am due to fly out to Barcelona, so hopefully I‘ll have plenty of travelling time to catch up on my studies. In the meantime, I thought it would be interesting to document my film making process. Each year I write all of the script, edit all of the video and use character animation software to enable animated characters to read the story’s narrative. Often I also need to shoot my own video in order to help with the story and to fill in any gaps. In fact I’m responsible for it all! Over the last two years I’ve used a character I named ‘Horace ‘Boris’ Hedgehog’ (trust me, by watching the previous 2 films, his name becomes clear), this year it […]

Apr 20

by Karyn in 3d, Artists, Food for Thought, Lectures, Unit 2 Blogs 0 comments tags: 3d, Abstract Art, Artists, Food for Thought, Lectures, Unit 2 Blogs

Jyll Bradley

Monday Guest Lectures – Jyll Bradley – I feel really privileged to have encountered the work of Jyll Bradley through the ‘Monday Guest Lectures’ slot. Here is a short extract from her about page on her Jyll Bradley website: About Jyll Bradley “Born Folkestone, UK, 1966. Lives and works in London. Jyll Bradley makes installations, films, drawings and sculptures. Her work first emerged in the late 1980’s within a cohort of artists interested in combining the formal vigour of Minimalism with ideas of identity and place. Light has been a constant protagonist in her practice, from her early photographic light-box installations to her work with fluorescent plexiglas. Her work often pairs organic and industrial materials, reflecting a desire to bring together different aspects of self – for instance her rural childhood and urban adulthood. Bradley’s work frequently engages with site and the creation of new spaces. Her acclaimed public realm commissions – including Green/Light (for M.R.) for The Folkestone Triennial and Dutch/Light for Turner Contemporary – reference generative structures such as hop gardens and glasshouses, expressing what she sees as the practical, spiritual and emotional work involved in growing a sense of self, place or community. Bradley’s sculptures have increasingly become sites of […]

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 […]

Mar 12

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Ai, Artists, Collaborations, Exhibitions, Galleries, Low Residency, My Work, Videos, Zoom Meetings 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, ai, Artists, Collaborations, Exhibitions, Galleries, Low Residency, my work, Videos, Zoom Meetings

Zoom Session 19 (Low Residency)

Low Residency Part 1 – This week there wasn’t a formal zoom meeting due to preparations for both the Interim show and the Low Residency. There won’t be a formal zoom session next week either as this will be right in the middle of the Low Residency. For this reason I have decided to dedicate both zoom session slots to documenting both the Interim Show and the Low Residency. Part 1 will cover the Interim show Private View and Low Residency activities covering Thursday 9th March until Sunday 12th March. I will cover Part 2 next week from Monday 13th March until Thursday 16th of March. The Interim Show (Thursday 9th March – 6.00pm-9.00pm) I was really excited to be travelling to the Low Residency in London. I’m not the most confident of travellers, so I was lucky to have my husband accompany me. We left my car at Paignton boarded the train and headed off to our change at Newton Abbot railway station. Once we arrived at Paddington, we bought some lunch and then set off on the new Elizabeth Line heading East towards Abbey Wood. Our actual stop was Farringdon. We departed the train […]

Mar 05

by Karyn in 3d, Abstract Art, Experimentation, My Work, Sculpture, Zentangles 0 comments tags: 3d, Abstract Art, Experimentation, my work, Sculpture, Zentangles

A Mental Derive

Taking a Mindful Wander – In our ‘Zoom Session 18’ Last week we talked about the concept of ‘Derive’ or ‘taking a derive’. I hadn’t heard of this concept before and therefore I really wanted to explore it further. I decided that I wanted to experience both a mental and physical derive, so I have produced 2 blogs on the work resulting from my wanderings. The results from my physical wanderings, or should I say physical derive can be found here. Each week usually on a Tuesday evening and after the weekly zoom session I produce little drawings which reflect my mood. I used to draw them during my the zoom session but I became increasingly anxious about missing important information so it’s now solely an evening pursuit. However, although I hadn’t realised it at the time, my little drawings were actually a form of mental derive. Therefore I decided to use these little ‘derive drawings’ as part of a larger mental derive. For many weeks now I have wanted to move my work into a more physical 3d realm but I wasn’t too sure how to achieve this. Last week I had a failed attempt to produce some […]

Feb 28

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Epic Fails, Evaluations, Experimentation, Photography, Problem Solving, Videos 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, Epic Fails, Evaluations, Experimentation, Photography, Problem Solving, Videos

Failure

Reaching a Plateau – Up to know I feel quite lucky because I’ve generally quite like most of my experiments, but for some reason this one made me really recoil! I hate everything about it – even a dabble with Ai couldn’t convince me otherwise. I don’t think I can remember a time that I’ve been so disappointed in anything that I’ve done before. I also need to stay away from Pinterest – the more beautiful artwork I see the more self critical I become and it’s not helpful. I feel now is the time I need to take a step back. I need to reflect on what I have done so far and consider what my next steps might be. As per my outline plan ideally I should be doing more research right now and I tend to agree. Over the weekend I decided to try my hand at paper sculpture. It’s something that I’m incredibly interested in, but I’ve never really had time to explore it in any meaningful way. Below is my journey into this medium and some of the results from it. I just can’t get excited about it at all. However, I always like […]

Feb 25

by Karyn in Abstract Art, Collaborations, Drawings, Experimentation, My Work, Patterns, Photography 0 comments tags: Abstract Art, Collaborations, Drawings, Experimentation, my work, Patterns, Photography

Let’s Get Physical

Exploring the Physical – I have spoken a few times now about my desire to move my work into a more physical form. Starting this process has actually been quite difficult for me. However a few weeks ago I was given a wonderful opportunity to change all of this. One of my fellow students Shirin Majid was embarking on a really exciting project and asked our WhatsApp group if they would like to participate. She explained briefly about her idea and I felt that I would love to join in. Shirin had made some postcards for us all to complete. Her design would be on one half of a side and we were to finish the card by adding ours to the other half of the side. I am a massive fan of abstract art and Shirin’s work is certainly no exception. She produces strong bold colourful geometric shapes that really resonate with me. When my little postcard finally arrived (delayed due to postal strike), I was super excited! Just like everything life soon got in the way and it took me a while from receiving my card to completing it. One of the biggest problems I faced was […]