Drawing 2

The plan for the first half of the year will be dedicated firstly, to the analysis of a chosen work of art, and secondly, an elaboration on the work. Choosing one work of art presented quite a challenge to begin with, but was perhaps made a little easier by my bias towards the colourful and painterly works of the late 19th century impressionists. The work of art that will form the basis of this exploration is shown below.

In consultation with tutor Kiri Mitchell, the following plan will hopefully guide me through the next few months. I will begin with gleaning as much info about the work via the library and the internet, such as what were Gauguin’s  intentions for how the work was to be read and perhaps find a contemporary critique of the work and/or examples of contemporary artists responding to or copying the work in their practice?  From there, I will attempt to unpack the work, considering composition, colour, scale, medium. Kiri suggested that it can help to ‘sit with the work’ for a while, and then consider how I might begin to insert myself in the work, and that each time I engage with the image I will gain a insight into the strategies and compositional decisions that have been made by the artist. Questions such as…How does colour effect the reading of the work? can be demonstrated by collage or coloured pencil. What happens if you turn the image into a cubist drawing, or replace each figure with a political figure…? The key will be to produce multiple versions.

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Research begins. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) my choice of artist has opened up an avalanche of reading material and YouTube clips that reference Gauguin and his works of art. Much of course, is directed towards his time in Tahiti, and much of this commentary seems very much skewed towards the controversy surrounding his sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl. But of course, this period of his life now impacts on how we might read his earlier works, Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ being one of them. Do we seperate the man from the artist? How are we to view his masterpieces when we are looking at the work of a pedophile (with our 21st century Western perspective)? Much of the information available to us today comes from other researchers and art critics who make the best attempts at providing us with an informed assessment/opinion about Gauguin’s life and work. Establishing his intentions for how the work was to be read, has become mostly calculated guess-work 130 years later. There is however, one text, his Tahitian journal Noa Noa, that I am hoping might give some direct insight into how I might go about answering this question.

With a focus on my chosen work from his time living in the village of Pont-Aven, North-West France, I have established that it is believed that the subject for his Yellow Christ is based upon an actual depiction of Christ on the cross, on display now, and at that time, in the Chapel of Trémalo. My attempts to understand and make a ‘copy’ of his work, begins with a closer look at his Christ image.

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My next focus was directed at the image of Gauguin himself, as he painted it. Much of the research I have read suggests that Gauguin’s self-portraits presented a carefully constructed persona to the art world, and that he as in fact highly adept at promoting himself. As is the case with Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ Gauguin often represented himself via a series of personae and alter-egos. In this work, it is not difficult to see some resemblance to Christ in his self-portrait. The images following are firstly a drawing from close observation of Gauguin himself, and how I might begin to translate this image with a Picasso’ish, cubist influence (which does remind me a little of Max Headroom, if anyone remembers this animated music presenter character from the 80’s).

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I began the next drawings by focussing on the entire work and simply drawing again, from close observation. When I spend more and more time looking closely at Gauguin’s work, paying close attention to the brush work, considering its application and how the layering of colour brings life to the image, I do feel a growing appreciation of why Gauguin is considered to be one of the great impressionist painters. In an account in his journal Noa Noa, Gauguin writes that one of his Tahitian neighbours Totefa described Gauguin as being useful to others because he could do things that other men were incapable of doing. This description not only gives voice to Gauguin’s artistic talent but in recording this interaction, reveals something of Gauguin’s lifelong struggle to feel truely understood as an artist of repute.

The second drawing is my first attempt to create a self-portrait that incorporates a number of the key elements that are present in Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ. I am there of course as the central figure. Behind me to my right, a simple white thrown bowl is displayed, while to my left, I have placed a larger, more organic hand-built form. I have used these two works to represent my need to, on the one side, ‘control’ the outcome of the work, and the other side of me which longs to throw caution to the wind and allow the clay to speak for itself.

At Kiri’s suggestion, the day began with a number of the drawing techniques introduced to me last year by Clive Humphreys, during a 6 day drawing workshop. The intention of these exercises being to free ourselves from as much of our long-held, pre-existing self-critic as possible. I started with some time restricted drawings from my self-portrait, one with my right hand, and one with the left (from Max Headroom to Homer Simpson Doh).

With time limits of 3, 2 and 1 minute (including A5 and A4 sizes), another set of fast sketches have brought forward drawings that reveal what it is that I have chosen to include and, perhaps more revealing, what I have left out. Is this simply a time issue or does my subconscious show itself? In the 1 minute sketch, why have I not drawn the thrown vessel when a single arc might have referenced it? Does the fact that I have made a dominant feature of my eyes and focussed on the direction of my gaze, reveal any underlying aspect of my psyche?

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Thinking about the simplicity of the 1 minute drawing above, together with the idea of applying a cubist approach to the work, I took a number of shots of my portrait from a range of views and rearranged them to ‘disrupt’ how I see myself. Perhaps another starting point for some 1 minute sketches that may feed in to a tentative plan I have for constructing a self-portrait in clay, presenting the ‘control’ and ‘release’ of my personality.

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From the images above I attempted to draw a more complete head while incorporating the facial features as arranged in the photos. I placed the altered image that I thought might show my two-sides into my copy of Gauguin’s painting. While I am yet to be inspired by this approach, my next step will be to add colour to see if this brings forward any further iterations that might work for me.

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After some research into the portraits painted by Pablo Picasso, I have attempted to further simplify the image above down to fewer bold lines. The image on the left maintains the two sides of my creative approach, with the organic ‘Brickell bottle’ form remaining as a rounded object. The image on the right adopts more of a ‘Picasso’ style. In this drawing I have provided some overlap between the two ‘faces’ or sides and squared up the bottle form. In the third image below, I have combined two hand-built forms that I constructed last year, which also reflect a merging of my ‘control’ and ‘release’ approaches to making. Might have to live with the images for a day or two and choose one to take forward. Next steps will be to add colour.

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In the image below I have used charcoal to draw more attention to the two sides of my personality and to give more emphasis to the three-dimensionality of the objects in this composition.

The image below accentuates the two halves with the use of colour. I have referred back to the colours used by Gauguin in his Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ, while maintaining a white-walled ‘gallery’ perspective for the ‘control’ half. The colour of the ‘Eye-ball Pot’ I constructed last year (and have yet to glaze) is based my glazing intentions, once I have tested my choices and hopefully found a couple of glazes that might work for me.

With the idea that drawing is a tool that can be used to inform our ceramic work, thought I would ‘draw’ my self-portrait copy using clay. I found it quite challenging to use pencil and paper to explore how different planes might connect and intersect, and to consider how the work might look when viewed from different points. The image below shows a preliminary step intended to explore both the concern with planes and intersects, as well as the ‘control’ and ‘release’ approach to clay construction.

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The first of the two images is the outcome of a controlled build on the left side of the face, with the right side formed with a 5 minute time restriction. The second image of the right is the same piece with some minor ‘adjustments’ to the ‘release’ side, simply because I could not restrain myself.

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Have spent some time going over my research and attempting to bring all the pieces together, ‘inserting myself’ into Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Yellow Christ, 1889-1890. If I am to be the subject of a 3D self-portrait, what would this look like? Incorporating the assumed juxtapositions of ‘civilised and savage’ with my own struggle between ‘control and release’ may be best achieved through imposing control over the construction method and releasing to the aesthetic finishing of the work through a more spontaneous process such as raku. My introduction to the 19th century impressionists by way of Picasso and cubism is reflective of who I am now and the visual art that I have been particularly attracted to, and perhaps influenced by. This could be referenced in my work and bring not only an emphasis to the ‘direct gaze’ of myself as the artist, but also apply an abstraction to it that refers to my search for balance between the confidence and uncertainty I bring to my practice at this stage of my ceramics journey. Colour choices for the work should also ideally refer back to Gauguin’s self-portrait and attempt to bring both a bold confidence and a degree of chance to how the finished piece might be read as a self-portrait of myself. The following gallery of images begins with a drawing that brings all the parts together, followed by the construction process to finished greenware. I have added a colour palette of raku glazes that I think might work for this piece.

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Bisque firing went well. Next step is to glaze black sections with 3 thin coats of milky Toms Black engobe (a recipe obtained from Penny) and fire to 1120C. Dunedin block course only 1 week away, so better get this done asap. Image below is the vessel with an application of Toms Black engobe before heading off to the kiln.

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With work carefully bubble wrapped, boxed and firmly held, headed for the airport for my afternoon flight to Dunedin and this years block course. After getting back to the hotel on Tuesday night (after a very enjoyable beer with my fellow ceramicists at Emerson’s), only to be confronted by the ‘very loud’ Covid alert, the pressure was on to get this glazed and raku’d before an earlier than anticipated return to Auckland. Fortunately OP was back in action on Thursday, and so with an early start I managed to ‘release’ my Gauguin/Picasso inspired self-portrait to the raku kiln gods. The process itself was very exciting (if not also a little frightening), very hands-on. While some cracking has resulted from what I suspect may have been a too rapid climb in temperature during the heating-up process, I believe the overall result from this process has elevated the work, and indeed, resolved any remaining reservations I still held. Definitely keen to repeat this firing method again when the opportunity arises.

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Semester 2

Having researched the work of William Kentridge, I decided that I would like to explore the concept of narrative. I have chosen my studio as the setting (given that I can control this environment) and plan to tell a simple story by using clay and my interest in figurative work to construct the participants in my narrative. I will use chalk and blackboard to draw as many changes to the scene as possible (taking a photo of each seperate drawing) and then adding each photo, in sequence, to iMovie in the hope that this produces a small fluid video. The narrative I wish to tell centres around the joy of sharing one lifetime (this does assume we only get one), the impermanence of all things, and the notion of rebirth/renewal. Adopting the classic children’s book narrative of the real ‘observed’ and the imagined fantasy ‘unobserved’ world that may indeed surround us (what really happens when we close our eyes or the lights go out?), I hope to use clay modelling, chalk and blackboard, still and moving images to bring life to this narrative. Blackboard preparation below, now completed.

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To establish the starting point of the narrative, my wife Karanne captured the primary image of me at the potters wheel, referencing an art studio as the setting of the story. This image was then progressively cropped until the wheel becomes the location of the narrative itself. From that point, I should be able to begin the physical construction process and draw this from the actual work, rather than from a photo. It will take approximately 13-14 different drawn images to get to this starting point. With what might be a considerable amount of drawing involved, I am planning a minimal detail/maximum number of drawings approach, to help complete a small fluid movie file. The images below show the studio setting and ‘zoom’ to the point at which the real narrative begins.

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The first photo to chalk drawing below. The challenge will now be to attempt to draw the next images in the same style to hopefully keep the movement appearing to relate to the same setting.

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After attempting to draw the second image in this first series of ‘zooming in’ shots, I found that it was really difficult to essentially re-size all of the components in the frame. To help with this, I have edited the first image to achieve this initial phase. Hopefully the next images should not present the same degree of complexity? Well soon find out. The edited series of images below. The final close-up will become the site for the main narrative.

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After creating each of the ‘zoomed in’ images above, my lovely wife Karanne (who has more experience with iMovie) suggested I use the Ken Burns effect tool to create a smoother transition from the far away shot, to the close up. So much easier and FAR less time consuming. Once I had settled on the close up, I needed to re-draw the wheel-head image and include a block of clay from which my first character would emerge. frame by frame. The images below show the first few drawings to date.

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Another session of clay modelling today, using my developing figure as a model for the next couple of drawings in the series that I am intending to add to my iMovie project. Two more drawings today.

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After a few days away from Waiheke, and what must have been a poor job of wrapping my model in plastic, looks like I will no longer be able to manipulate the figure sufficiently to set the position I am after that would allow me to make an observational drawing. A few minutes of surgery has thankfully repaired the breakages, and a little rehydration to use the last vestiges of plasticity, and my figure has assumed what I intend to be the final position for this player in my narrative. I will need to reform another figure as a stand-in to allow me to make a few more drawings to bring my idea to a satisfying conclusion.

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Continuing on with another clay model to aid in my next set of drawings, I called in my photographer (Karanne) to capture a pose that my model was unable to maintain. Drawing from a photographic image will hopefully not result in too much of a difference between the two observations.

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Another set of drawings completed over the last few days. In the absence of clay models for this stage of the project, I am drawing with only minor references to previous drawings, to help maintain some level of continuity. At some point, I am anticipating Karanne and I will become the models for the final set of drawings, with camera timer set to auto capture the positions we adopt when becoming rotating dancers.

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Another couple of drawings now completed to bring this series of images to a conclusion and to complete the narrative. The clay models have been placed in their final positions, with a park bench yet to be constructed on which they will be seated. I have managed yet another first for me and completed an iMovie project to bring all the individual drawings together. In yet another first (really showing my age now) I have created a Youtube channel and uploaded this video file to it with the link to this video below.

The players in my narrative below.

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