My week at DEMO

I was pretty excited to have this space for a week. Although family commitments and the Kings Birthday ate into my week, I managed to put in a good few hours every day. I had a few things I wanted to trial. I wanted to pursue the idea of putting borders on the work like you find in tapestries. I thought this might frame the loose threads idea well, however I realised that this brought the work into a literal realm that I didn’t want. So after a few attempts, I realised that this was not going to work.

I further tried to recreate the grid idea with ink drips. This did produce quite an intense lattice of vertical and horizontal lines onto which I could further mark and blur. However, looking a other artist work I noticed that there have been a lot of experimentation with ink in this manner. And the ink have a very bright primary colour tone.

So, I also wanted to make use of the floor space I had available which is very limited in my studio at Sunday School Buildings. It was cold so drying took longer and I had to bring a hairdryer, but I did manage to glue some fabric on large pieces of canvas. I experimented with dropping ink onto the MULL fabric, which has a medium weave. Previously I had noticed that the ink or paint would pick up on the weave and produce some interesting patterns, emphasising the waft and the weave. But that was on a fabric that had a slightly more open weave and it didn’t quite work this time. The ink drops did produce a grid but was not affected particularly by the fabric weave.

I had purchased some natural dyes to use on the first layer of the work. I had in mind that the initial layers would be more natural in colour, faded almost, and that as I added layers they materials used would be more vibrant. Still with the tapestry idea in mind, I noticed in books on tapestry that the back side would actually show the original vibrancy as the front face had faded over time. I mixed the dyes: madder rouge, indigo, Brazillian clay with gouache binder and water and it worked to give a dull natural colour to the primed canvas. Still need to work on this element.

After my meeting with my superivisors on Thursday afternoon, they agreed that the borders were not working particularly well. The large canvas with fabric and ink infusion and oil pastel was too literal and too colourful. Instead, they were more interested in the more muted unprimed canvas work that had fabric addition but no ink used. That these should be the base from which I moved forward.

On the whole, the experience was very enjoyable, regardless of the dead ends that I seemed to go down. I think that needed to happen and I needed the space to trial out these ideas. Although, I didn’t come away with any finished work, I returned to my own studio with a new direction.

The DEMO studio set up and detail of some initial works.

Work with borders that didn’t quite work and the ink grid and larger canvas with fabric and ink. I hung the work that I had done up to this point, including the work that I had presented at the April seminar, in chronological order.

Works selected to move forward with.