Abstract Feelings.

Experimenting expressing current feelings, channeling them towards art, using various materials: acrylic paint, wax, hot glue. The piece has a lot of texture and depth, with no clear subject, this is for the viewer to decide.

Assessment: Installation, Video and Prep Work in Studio

"A messy desk shows a tidy mind.."

Christmas, what a stressful time. Never knew how stressful it could get until you stopped enjoying the lazy days off school and started working in the real word, cramming everything in, and arranging visits to a million people!

Back to the art work. Even more stress.

I had been looking at other ways of visually showing stress, struggling to represent how I feel. I shut down and tend not to do anything. Looking around me for some inspiration in my pokey little flat, I see my results. Nothing has been done, no housework, washing, cleaning, sorting etc. Everywhere is a mess. This inspired me to trial an installation piece for my assessment, simply by leaving my studio in the mess it was in whilst preparing and pulling my hair out for the deadline. I took photos of my flat, which I would have been happy to display as pieces themselves however I decided to take this further and bring the chaotic state of my mind from my flat to my studio.

A catch up...

Before Christmas, I had a talk to a tutor about my work who basically told me to explore how stress can be shown visually in different ways (other than the clenched fists). I tend to make work personal to me, so began to think of what I do when i'm stressed and how I show it. I made a list of things in my journal and selected a few ideas to try. Firstly, I tend to have a really bad nights sleep, constantly tossing and turning, unable to escape from my stressful thoughts. I created a stop motion video of how the covers and pillows typically move around the bed when I have a restless nights sleep.

The video, for some reason uploaded with a fault, however, I use this in my favor and feel the distortion adds to the experience of viewing the video, creating an almost stressful experience for the viewer.

I then moved on to think of a 'meltdown', when I really don't know what to do, I feel isolated, and seem to just break down. I experimented by freezing objects in ice, therefore when the ice is melting, it reveals the objects. I used a biscuit wrapper in a bag to trial this technique, and found it worked quite well, therefore I created a larger piece incorporating various objects relating to stress, such as food and sweets (eating too much), a cigarette end (smoking) and wine corks and bottle tops (turning to alcohol). I only managed to photograph the piece completely frozen as it was then submitted for assessment, and was therefore left to form and melt by itself.

The photos are not the best, I admit, this is a pint to work on in future, however, the turkey tray was something I had a hand to hold the water and objects when the piece had melted. I enjoyed encapsulating objects and isolating them in water, something that I always have. I plan to carry on using this technique, however developing my ideas further, and possibly experimenting with isolating objects in clear resin.