Assessment Task 2 - Conceptualising your own work

Lucy Foskett

Malcolm Mosley

Word count: 578

For one of my workshops this term, I choose to do 2d Surface Design. One of my projects during the three week rotation was to create our own up to date tableau I was really inspired by Timorous beasties whilst doing this project.

A toile de jouy is a type of decorating pattern consisting of a usually white or off white background on which a repeated pattern depicting a complex scene generally of an idyllic pastoral theme. The pattern portion consists of a single colour, most often black, dark red, or blue. Toile is most associated with fabrics (curtains and upholstery in particular) though toile wallpaper is also popular.

Timorous beasties is noted for its surreal and provocative textiles, one of its creations is the Glasgow toile, at first it looks like a vista on early 1800s wallpaper, but when you get closer to it, it shows a story almost of Glasgow during the night, where crack addicts, prostitutes and homeless are against the tower blocks and scavenging seagulls. I think my work is very similar to Timorous Beasties toile de jouy the only difference being is that mine is not portraying drugs, sex and prostitutes yet mine is showing my life and the things I enjoy doing. I find when you look at mine from a distance as just a piece of design work you don’t look at it as someone’s life and what is happening within, until you come closer and inspect it, then it is when you begin to see that it about a lot more.

Beasties work is printed textiles, doing printed textiles still allows you to be able to draw/paint freely and lets you be quite loose and able to create what you want. Timorous beasties have huge facilities which allow them to make made to measure fabrics, wallpapers, windows, grave stones and ceramics. A current design they have been asked to make is made using flock which is difficult because you can’t use much detail.

What I like about them is that there creating toile de jouys from today’s era and not trying to recreate Elizabethan ones like a lot of people try and do. A famous toile de Jouy is called the peacock amongst the ruins this had huge influence on the Glasgow toile and they very much look the same apart from depicting different times and places. Lots of different things influence Beasties works not just other toiles. Iron work, shapes, compositions and images all influence them and this is were I feel I can relate to timorous beasties because I feel a lot of my work is influenced through shape, pattern colour and natural objects and I enjoy combining these things together to make a piece of art work.

I began making my Tableau by drawing out silhouettes of all the things I enjoy doing or do in my life, such as walking my dogs, living on a farm, going out partying, driving to college, and me and my boyfriend. I then got some silhouettes of trees and flowers and added them to my drawing. After completing the drawing I took it to be scanned onto the computer. I manipulated bits, added colour and made things stand out, I went through lots of different outcomes but this one was the best. I’m really pleased with this piece of work that I have created and Timorous beasties has influenced me in a lot of other work since making my tableau.

           

Lucy Foskett

Pair 3 Boccioni; Giacometti

November 2010

Tutor: Malcolm Mosley

 In this Essay I am comparing two works of Art both of which are sculptures.  Firstly I am going to describe both works of art separately considering their context as well as their formal elements and then I am going to compare and contrast the two.

 The first piece of work is the sculpture unique forms of continuity in space by Boccioni (appendix 1) which he made in 1913. Umberto Boccioni was an Italian painter and sculptor and studied art through the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. Boccioni decided to become a sculptor after visiting various studios in Paris 1912, Boccioni died from being thrown from his horse during a Calvary training exercise and was trampled he died at aged thirty three.

 The sculpture is bronze and is polished to a shining gold colour, the sculpture is smaller then adult life size and near the size of a five year old child. It is free standing and you can walk all the way round it. The figure is kind of an abstract expression showing speed; it has no arms and a featureless head and is wearing a helmet over the face. The hefty thighs and big chest suggest powerful muscles, the figure is much like a machine rather then a man.

 My second chosen work of art is the sculpture La Foret (appendix 2) by Giacometti which he made in 1950.  Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Alberto was born in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and was the eldest of four children he has also always been interested in art.

 Alberto attended the school of fine art in Geneva, and in 1922 he moved to Paris to study sculpture. This was where Giacometti experimented with cubism and surrealism and came to be one of the leading surrealist artists. The larger his sculptures became the thinner they got. I find his sculptures almost disturbing and quite creepy looking.

Both Boccioni and Giacometti’s sculptures are of figures, both of which are quite strange and disfigured. In Boccioni’s sculpture the body shape is all unusual looking and has a helmet covering the face, the sculpture also has no arms. I find Giacometti’s figures quite stick men like and until you look at them closely you can’t see weather they have any arms or legs. I feel Giacometti almost makes his sculptures look quite easy to make.

Boccioni’s sculptor was made from plaster and was never cast into bronze in his life time. Two casts were made in 1931 another two in 1949 and another eight in 1972. Giacometti’s sculptor of Le Foret was painted Bronze, his last multi figures compositions that were made represent Giacometti’s most sustained themes that he was pre occupied by in his life; sexual difference, urban space and the structural conditions of vision. As Boccioni’s lived such a short life after being killed in the world war this sculpture represents how he helped to define the nature of Italian futurism.

With both the sculptures they have quite a bit in common as they are both very unusual and disfigured, they represent different things but are both amazing defined figures that have a lot of background.

In conclusion I think that they both pursue what sculpture is and how different and wide ranged it is. My favourite one is the Boccioni sculpture because of the way it looks so unique, I really like the different shapes and how its been made compared to Giacometti’s sculpture I find his very unusual and not very attractive to look at.

Words: 600