Bill Riley

Today we heard from Bill Riley who regards himself as a painter, who does not really like painting at all. He feels as though film 'does it better'. Riley likes to push his work, and asks himself what other processes and materials can be used to influence what the audience/viewers see, feel or experience.

After the lecture we went to the Te Tuhi gallery in Pakuranga and viewed an exhibition called "Modern Science". I found it extremely interesting to see what has been regarded as modern science. I found most of the pieces were moving image, shown with projectors and televisions. Even though I was enjoying the show, I could not help but think "why are we here?, This has nothing to do with Bill Riley's work" It was not until I got home after the gallery visit that I realised the show did connect to Riley, and quite well.

The exhibition was about pushing boundaries and stepping outside the known lines of the particular practice. Alex Monteith was one of the artists showing her work, she had a five channel piece of air force trick planes, practicing their routine over the beautiful countryside. The cameras were assembled on the back of the planes so you could see behind each plane, and the tracks that were being left by the smoke. This created an amazing effect, when the first plane was out in front creating a formation where the other four planes followed there was a layering effect in each screen, all different to the other ones. Similar to the work of Riley. Rileys' layering technique is done by casting paint onto a large sheet of glass, letting the paint dry until it is flexible enough to pull off in a big sheet, he then cuts it to the desired shape or form.

The point I'm trying to get as it Riley is a painter who paints in a non-painterly way. He still uses the mediums of a painter, but the processes he uses are different. His work and the way he makes it, is a 'modern science' in itself.

Fran Allison

Today we had Fran Allison come and talk to us about her practice as an artist and her collaborative work with a group called 'Weeds'. A collaboration is where you work jointly, especially in literacy or artistic production. Allison is a jeweller who, along with three others, formed a collaborative art group called Weeds.

Collaborations are becoming more frequent in artistic disciplines, they are sometimes seen as a production line of art, as inplied by the essay 'Production Lines' by Irit Rogoff (www.collabarts.org).

I think that working in a collaborative art practice could have some major upsides. The idea of a group of minds coming together to brainstorm for one project seems like it would have a far better chance at coming up with the most amazing ideas, rather than just one person. A group of artistic minds is always better than one singular one. Allison spoke of a collaborative group called 'Workshop 6' this group sounds to me like the royals of collaborative art thinking. In 2003 Workshop 6 has an exhibition called Tin Years to symbolise their ten year anniversary of the collaboration. This symbolises how well a collaborative group can work together to produce some beautiful works.

Working in a collaborating group would definately extend your practice and broaden your knowledge of the specific area you are working in. I would like to be able to regard myself as a designer, as that is the discipline I want to pursue. I wonder if being a designer I could work in a collaborative group? The more I think about it, it becomes more obvious that I always will be. Once finished this degree and I have a job as Graphic Designer (hopefully) I will be working for clients and addressing their needs. I will have to work with the clients, other designers and the company I work with. (One day my own :D)

Working in a business where you are completing jobs for clients, you will always be working in a collaborative group. Mechanical Enginners for example, work with the designer, the enginneer, the client, the testing companies, and all sort of other groups of people. Therefore automatically making them (or yourself) part of a collaborative group.

Richard Orjis "More photographs in the world than their are tricks"

When I think of high culture, the first that comes to mind is money, and that in order to have a piece of high culture art you need to be so filthy rich that you do not know what to spend your money on anymore. Stereotypically, a bald, dumpy man. Smoking a cigar. With his cosmetically enhanced trophy wife latched on to his left arm. I believe that High Culture arts are usually literature and visual arts, mostly paintings. The older works, that date back to the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians et cetera, seem to be the most sought after works in High Culture. The ideas of ancient art works and wealth seem to go hand in hand with one another.

Pop culture on the other hand seems to be the art that fits in with the times. To me pop culture is a never ending, ever changing cycle. When I was ten the pop culture was the Backstreet Boys, Tights with a foot strap and a fluorescent pink scrunchy, now its the skinny jeans, hip-hop music and sleek straightened hair. Pop culture is also what the person finds interesting to their self. In today's lecture, Richard Orjis spoke about a magazine, I believe it was by Andy Warhol called Interview magazine. This magazine focused on pop culture. Basically made for you to rip out the pages you wanted, and to dispose of the rest.

The pages being ripped out would change, depending of the movement of pop culture at the time. Also by ripping out the page that attracted you makes the piece of art personal to you as you are singling it out from all the other works in the magazine. this is a representation of what you enjoy and take inspiration from.

With the work that we saw from Orjis' collection i would think of his work at popular culture. I think this because of the photographs he has taken look like they belong in a fashion editorial or used for advertising in a magazine, in saying that I do not want you to think his work is of a poor standard, because it truly is not. His photographs has a darkness about them which are truly exquisite and really show off his talents as a "photographer who likes to be fictional" Orjis' works have a certain darkness to them, which stems from his Roman catholic background. He works with Religion mixed with Pop Culture, which reiterates my idea of relating Orjis' art to pop culture. Grant spoke about how the materiallity of the images is important. Orjis' work is dominated with black, which absorbs all light, so everything is present but invisuble. Which is a rather intersting thought. What is in the work that we do not see? Intricate deatiling? Hidden Meanings? Subliminal messages?

Even though I see Orjis' work as pop culture, and think it would work well in an editorial magazine. I also think it would fit well into a gallery, and could be regarded as High Culture because of the dark feeling it has to it.

Rebecca Hobbs

Today our Bachelor of Visual Arts, year one leader came and spoke to us about her practise, Photography, and how she uses a technique of developing ideas, to further her practise and to push her work up to that next level.

Idea development plays a major role in my practise, and something I have only begun to start taking seriously. Through my last two years of Secondary School, and now in my first year at University of Auckland, I have been told by my teachers and lecturers that I need to go more in depth with my work. Whether it be in art design, theory based subjects or in my practise at university. This is the main reason I use idea development.

By using idea development, not only does it allow me to go more in depth with my ideas and responses, but it also pushes me to break the constraints I have set in place for myself. Like Hobbs, I choose to use a brainstorm method to try and source key words from my initial idea. It helps to create more options for me to play with when resolving my work.

I feel research is extremely important in an art practise. Although it is important to come up with your own ideas, it is also good to research artists with similar interests. Not only will that artists work be interesting to look at it can help to inspire your own ideas and designs. I constantly find myself looking at designers and anonymous street artists. David Carson, Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, Banksy, Faile, Paula Scher and the list goes on.

I think that research is important to Hobbs. Today she talked to us about the path she takes when researching her work. She talked about how she liked to generate the idea of a family tree or whakapapa when doing her research. Finding the Grandparents, parents, siblings et cetera of the central idea. This was the research can stem out and branch off to many new ideas, which can help extend further practise.

Like Hobbs I find myself going off on wild tangents, one thing I find difficult with these is keeping them under control. Hobbs says to "always be critical" and ask "how does this relate to my idea".

I find the 'x-factor' in researching my favourites artists work. I find that my researching artists with similar tastes to my own, I can produce work that I feel is of a high standard. Which for me, and i am sure others as well, is quite difficult as I am my own biggest critic.

Bepen Bhana

Bepen Bhana told us he came from a design background and that students work is often influenced by their tutors, he also talked about artists that were of interest to him. During Bhanas lecture we watched an episode of The Apprentice UK, where the task was to try and sell as many art works of an up and coming artist. I really enjoyed watching this, not only because i am a reality TV freak! But also because it talked about the art sales, and the way they were being sold. The main issues of this task were what the teams chose to exhibit and the way they went about marketing the art, neither of which were done very successfully which showed in the profits made.

The two teams, Stealth and Eclipse, chose the work that was most aesthetically pleasing to them, not necessarily the ones that were cheapest or most likely to sell. Which probably was not the wisest decision. The idea of the task or 'challenge' was to see who could sell the most works and make a profit. I think the teams missed the point completely. By choosing aesthetically pleasing pieces the work was able to be appreciated but many viewers could not afford to buy it. The teams should have chosen the works that they thought would sell the best, in terms of price and the reality of them being hung up in homes and work places. The lip gloss series by Elizabeth Hoff, (www.elisabethhoff.com) were expensive and eccentric, the colours, glitter and size of each piece were quite overwhelming and were not a very good choice of art for this particular challenge. The pictures were more editorial looking, rather than fine art.

Another issue I felt the teams faced when completing this challenge was the selling strategies that they employed, one team going for the 'hard' sell approach, one team going for the 'soft' sell approach. Personally I don't think there should be either. I feel the art should speak for itself, and also I definitely do not think that the artist should be in the gallery trying to push a sale either. It is off putting and would make me feel rather uncomfortable. If you did not like the piece of art that the artist was trying to sell to you, what would you say? "I'm sorry, but I feel this art is a complete waste of space and a five year old could achieve the same outcome" ? I think not. A gallery space is set up in a way where the art complements each other, purposefully done to try and sell the art. This should be the way a gallery is run.

It is also important that the person running the gallery know the meaning behind the work, not so it can be forced onto the person viewing it, but if the viewer specifically wanted to know about the piece they could be told the truth. Not like a male member of one of the teams who thought it would be a good idea to change the meanings behind a body of work, simply because they did not like it in the first place. Like I said before art should speak for itself. The viewer should be permitted to read the piece and draw their own meaning, without figures and sales people jumping down their throats.

If I were in one of the teams, Stealth or Eclipse. I would have chosen the most cost effective body of works and also the most realistic works to sell. The horse collection by Tim Flach (www.timflach.com) were exquisite, and you would not need to have a love of horses to appreciate the beauty if the pieces.

Dion Hitchens

When undertaking a public art commission you need to be prepared to invest your time in more than just the making of the art, there are contracts, council permits and public liabilities to think about. Undertaking a public art commission can be rather stressful. When doing a private art project it is more personal to the client and also the maker, because the art piece needs to tell a story which is personal to the client. The artist also needs to invest time in getting to know what the client is about and why they are wanting this particular piece. There are similarities in both cases, like sticking to the guidelines of the client, and not putting personal influences on the pieces. The artist is being commissioned to do something, and therefore needs to abide by the guidelines set for him or her.

The participants in each case of work, whether it be Public or private, need to be taken into consideration when designing your piece. In a public art project you have to think about the people of the area, to make sure you do not offend any one and to make sure your piece is 'environment friendly'. You have to go to the council, to get permits for your work. Banks, so you can help get funding for the project. Also as the artist, you need to make sure that you can take on the workload that is being offered to you, to ensure you do not let down the client(s). In a private art commission there are not as many parties, but you still need to make sure that the relationship between the main parties (Artist and Client) is a trustworthy one and that the client will pay the deposits so you (the artist) does not have to rely on banks, contract and all the legal stuff that comes along with a public art project.

The narratives in each type of project, usually stems from a story about the land or its people. Hitchens gave us an example of a Public art commission he did in Glen Innes. The narrative from the piece was from a prophecy from a local iwi, about the return of the Kotuku (Herron) which use to pull canoes up the river (Cycle of the Moon), Hitchens also said he does a lot of Māori culture based works. The narratives develop depending on how the artist and the people involved interpret the story.

The public narrative needs to be something that is directly related to the area in which the piece is being built or the area surrounding. The narrative needs to be something everyone from the public area can relate to, so there is no bias, and the piece can be there for the community. A private narrative, is much more personal to the client and also the artist. The artist needs to draw as much information from the client as possible, so to make the narrative of the piece as true and as meaningful as possible. Hitchens says he draws inspiration from life and that private art commissions are much more interesting than public projects, as he finds it interesting to use someone elses personal narrative.

I feel the same as Hitchens, in relation to using someone elses personal narrative. It would be a great honour to be asked to create a piece of work for someone, but also having them tell you a story and allowing you to interpret a meaning of your own, to create art from would be an extraordinary feeling.

Steve Lovett

"A place or collection containing records, documents, or other materials of historical interest. Often used in the plural" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/archiving

I understand archiving to be preservation of History. Whether it be documents, objects or memories. Archiving is something people subconsciously do on a daily basis.

I see Steve Lovetts work as an archive, because of what i think Lovetts work is about. His work is mainly based around culture, identity, people and heritage. Which all relates back to himself, his life and how he was brought up.

Raised by his mother, a single parent in Ponsonby in the 1960's. Lovett is the first in his family to go to University, let alone art school.

These factors among others come through in his work.

Being a gay man, Lovett feels he needs to translate things. Being told one thing, but feeling another. An example of this in his work was the piece 'Holding the Man'. When first viewed the pieced was praised and love by many, however, once people began to read the work and realised the true meaning, the work was discarded into a sculpture storage room. I find this hard to understand. 'Holding the Man' visually appealed so so many but because of what the meaning was, the piece was removed. the politics in art come to the foreground, and you notice that art is not just accepted for what it looks like in an environment, but also the information the piece is giving to the people viewing the piece. the Social information becomes important. I think this is important to Lovett. To create conflicts in his work, to make people think and identify their own meanings for the pieces. Not to let whats is 'politically correct' be his boundaries.

I think that there is always an autobiographical element in work of all artist and designers. Whenever someone makes a work it has to stem from somewhere. Whether it be a thought, emotion or object, the artist or designer has felt or seen. The ideas behind work all have personal connections to the maker, as they are all decisions made by them. Therefore all work has been personally influenced by the maker.

Making a work that could be seen as a documentary of my life appeals to me as I feel I have a lot of interesting things I could express through art, and that people of my age or older could easily relate to. Eating psychologist, parental cancer and moving to another city away from everything your ever known. However I feel that if you want to make work of an autobiographical element you need to be able to release all information and emotions behind the piece, which can be difficult. However, making a piece like this appeals to me, because it would allow me to talk through art, rather than verbally expressing the information and emotions out loud.