[ DAMAGED :: ART ]

[ each student is assigned a cadaver ]

2010-12-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

[ I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW ]

2010-11-10T15:04:00.000-08:00

[ WE WATCH :: WE JUDGE :: WE LOVE ]

2010-11-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

[ BUBONIC :: PLAGIARISM ] 2010, digital photographs.

The character was the creature born from the destruction of the Black Jimmy. Born evil as her Mother - Miss Haversham desperate for a female child to nourish to hate men from her previous life of being jilted at the alter. The creature has killed another of her own kind, and seems unfazed and ambivalent of her act.
The reference of the image was taken from Joseph Beuys' "How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare".

[ BIRD ] 2009, oil on canvas.
[ DAMAGED :: GIRL ] 2009, digital photograph.
[ BIRD ] 2009, digital photograph.

The damage girls, Amy Winehouse's fight with Blake, Britney spears wearing no underwear and flashing, and Kate Moss taking coke are all the re-enactments of these girls actions in drag. These images were the starting point for "bird" photograph, while the title a reference to the nick-name give in Scottish language, Creating myth and humour while being morbid and mixing contracts are at the centre of my practice as an artist.

[ BIG :: BROTHER ] 2009, pencil on paper, 60 x 40cm, with
[ BROTHER :: BEARD ] 2009, mezzotint plate and print, 17 x 12 cm.

The drawing carries many layers of historical and personal the romanticist period in art - (romanticism is the idea of raw earth, for example highland Scotland, where bearded men live in the woods scavenging food and live rough) And i wanted to contrast that with having something and loosing it to.... having hair and the loose of also. The picture I used David when he was six year old - the year I was born... So its a drawing of my brother David , and my friend Jeniffer's hair condition alopica, and a self portrait .

[ BLACK :: JIMMY ] 2009, mdf, pine, gloss paint, fabric, cushion filling, 190 x 80 cm.

Jimmy's are the name given to the hollow double sided key stone shapes. The keystone carry's a long and important history with them. Said to be found in Salomon's death tomb architecture before this shape was found was all straight, it also is a key part to the Freemasons theology. While Jimmy's are opposite mirrors of each other from each end, they both fight in being one thing, both at the same time. The sculpture is a story about birth, creation from destruction. When the stones are fixes together side by side they count five, rigid and strong - but for a keystone to be hollow the structure is in fact weak and parcel to collide. Therefore if the key strength is weak the two sides would collapse giving birth to destruction and a new age of sometime new. To make the cycle / circle harmonious again another Jimmy needs to be created / born. Giving the circle another generation of life. The image of Botticelli masterpiece "Birth of Venus" 1485 was also a key reference to this sculpture. The construction also brings up stereotypes of male and female - the contrasting opposites. the making of the Jimmy's being the male construction of craft in wood. While the delicate stitching work of the fabric penises.

[ COCK BOX ]

2010-11-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

[ MAHA BYN ] 2010, pine, hardboard, mdf, gloss paint, 350 x 190 cm.

Maha Byn tells the story of regeneration, from one sex to the other. In the Freemasons to
become a Master mason the apprentice needs to speak the name of God; “Maha Byn”,
the death of the apprentice gives birth to a Master mason.

I made a mockett model of the first to play around with the skeleton of the structure before construction.

The viewer enters the gallery to find this hyper gloss finish alien construction, black on it's outer skin and white on its inner, with a Irn-Bru tartan kilt curtain covering its middle. You are met with an encapsulating entrance, there is a kilt which you need to unbuckle, on hands and knees, you crawl into the tight space to find black amercing you. A white light is seen in the distance , your eyes focus and adjusted to the light. To realize insulating the cavern is fabric phallus's hanging, pointing and prodding your space, mean while a film projected from inside the roof (of the top JIMMY) illustrates the story of rebirth. As the participant crawls towards the light of the film projector they suddenly are met with an alternate route and fall out from the erection; dazed, lack of strength in their legs and reborn.

[ FIBRE ]

2009-11-22T16:14:00.000-08:00

An exhibition of work by 3rd year Fine Art and 3rd Year Illustration students that is inspired by and made from textiles.

Exhibition continues 14th - 27th November
Mon - Sat: 9am-5pm
3rd Year Fine Art corridor
Level 5 Crawford Building
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design

'Homage to Eddie' is a re-creation in my selected materials of a gouache painting on book illustration "Tree Creepy" from the series 'Bird of the Devil' by Eddie Summerton.
The low-fi look echos my performances with these materials , keeping the look simple on the main elements I saw in the painting. This doesn't pretend to be a great piece of work, its just a bit of fun. Purely saying I appreciate Summerton's humor and morbid style of work.

The coving/cornicing scarf, rapping Venus is a long story of crazy thought process. Its all to do with the black and white hexagon structure. So rather than coving having this hard plaster look I wanted to make it out of something soft, weak and unstable. The exact opposite of what is needed for the rigidness of a key-stone from which it has been inspired by.
Theres also a tong and cheek to covered the Venus all over. Its taking back what the suffragettes and the gorilla girls did for art. Rather than attacking art, delete or cover, Shes been transformed into a topical Gaga Venus.

[ WHATS :: TO :: COME ]

2009-11-22T13:51:00.000-08:00

Artist as creator, author, maker and subject ( artist as art ).
Using personal experiences as the starting point amplified and exaggerated to tell a morbid tale of the artists human condition, narcissism, exaggerations, characteristics, sexual preferences and sexual history / adventures.
In the film contrasting themes of sexual confusion, man and woman as one - from hermaphrodite of no distinct sex to androgyny of man dressing as woman or woman as man. The paradox of the human condition. A theory of creation from within destruction tied in with love.
The references are all brought together through the flawed character - A twisted Haversham bird woman which comes about from a male word given in affection for there girlfriend or in my ethos, Going drag.
Bearded men drunkenly singing / ranting about the human condition, what its like to be drunk, a man and Scottish. The idea for the bearded men came from being taught about romanticism from a bearded man.
A hermaphrodite child born from destruction, mischievous acts running through out being more sinister - ending in death. The child covers their misdeeds. relating to the relationship between the young child and mother.
The film has not begun life yet as I need to finish the complete ethos of the story line, construction, costumes, artifacts, props, location, etc.
I need to quicken my process and procrastination. Yet working on lots of diverse projects such as drawing, painting, mezzo-tinting, sculpture and sewing progress will be slower which keeps motivation alive.

[ 1 :: 2 :: 3 ]

2009-11-22T05:52:00.000-08:00

An exciting and varied group of 25 artists from 3rd year Duncan of Jordanstone are taking part in this exhibition celebrating their penultimate year of art college.

Start Time:	Friday, 20 November 2009 at 19:00
End Time:	Sunday, 22 November 2009 at 17:00
Location:	WASPS Artists' Studios
Street:	Medow Mill, West Hendersons Wynd
Town/City:	Dundee, United Kingdom

123 Exhibition at WASP Studios Dundee

[ WORK BEFORE :: THIS BEGAN ]

2009-11-14T05:15:00.000-08:00

The female 'drag' photos; 'Winehouse', 'Britney', 'Kate'.
Using two TED.com talks, John Q Walker's 'Re-creating great performance' and Barry Schwartz's 'The Pardox of Choice'.
I used idolized celebrities that have had extreme fame and there public life's exposed. Having the media build there fame to such a high degree, being only human they slip-up damaging our persona of there character. I re-created these acts in question, performing with a photographer documenting the scene as they act as paparazzi. Using three different photographers for each scandal. In all , if we had low expectation then we'd have happier lives as everything would be an unsuspecting surprise.

NATURE AS CULTURE

I was interested in the human condition and used autobiographical story telling through the practice of performance art. Examining mother and child relationships as human nature, using my own cultural up bringing as inspiration. The characters I played were real people, generalized into hard hitting Glaswegian stereotypes.
Mixing the traditional with contemporary practices I was able to use two new materials - film and etching, to my repertoire of skills. Using classical themes of art into modern aesthetics such as tronies, I worked with traditional practice such as Etch-making into a contemporary ethos of edition printing, seen as a invention to have many of the same art works - for less wealthy family's to have art in their home. The aspect of poverty in Glasgow being the highest in Britain made me want to have a etching of a family portrait as tronies. The aesthetic of the prints were borrowed from Ken Currie's, ' Battle-field ' Etching that i purchased in the summer.

Fighting Bobby 2 min, 35.

Fighting Bobby is a story of a young Glaswegian tee age boy, who has recently befriended a local gang. ''Fighting Bobby'' documents, a visit from the police to Bobby's home. Straight talking Mary invites the men in, to find out there visit is about her son. Confused and argumentative Mary tries to pin point the blame away from her son Bobby. We are left unsure of the outcome, only Mary's glassy eyes stair out the window.

'Mother', Etching.

''Mother'' is a character from ''Fighting Bobby'', Bobby's mother, Mary. Mary was a Govan child and shows the scars from her up-bringing. The character shows the personality of a woman we all know in our own lives. Developed as a character that emulates, 'ugly' as a theme such as Leonardo De Vinci's "Grotesque Heads".

'Madonna', Etching.

Madonna is the character from "Fighting Bobby", his sister. We view Chantalle as a 17th Century Neo-Classical dutch tronie. With the added layer of also being a pregnant Glaswegian teenage ned, A modern day Madonna with child.

SOURCE.

I made another video but I'm still working on it but its called , "MUMMY DONT DIE" Me and my mother performed in it speaking french in thick Glaswegian assents. Both of us hadn't a clue how to pronounce anything so it added the juxtaposition of hilarious and bewildered. It was about a young girl who is discovering her sexuality - Her mother reveals that She is dying and in bereavement the daughter tries to kill herself.
The reason I made this was because me and my mother are morbidly obsessed with death and 'what would happen' if one of us died. There were several reasons for the french speaking dialogue, I wanted a ambiguous story where your more focused on the character's reactions and facial expressions. Not knowing the language fluently - we thickened our Glaswegian assents to make the language broken, So if a french speaking person was to watch it they would understand the dialogue. So to help the french speaking - I put on french sub-titles.

BOOK

I made an Marina Abramovic - Rhythm 10 type performance named '' SLAP IN THE FACE [ ROSS IS GAY ] " Laying out ten books on various subjects; Bullying, Dyslexia, Feminism, Queer Theory and Literature. I sat behind the books awaiting for the first whack to the face by somewhere from the audience and such people would follow in on the performance. I never told anyone the level of volume or pressure to use, but I told one or two people what to do to start it off. The performance was about how I only read art books, So when people talk about there favorite book it's a hard thing for me to take that I don't read literature. Which made me link themes that exclude one thing from another or I'v felt has excluded me from certain groups.

ACT OF VIOLENCE

Following with my interests in the human condition and using my own autobiographical experiences, amplified to tell a story of extreme violence through the practice of painting, performance art and video. My intention is to examine acts of violence - physical, sexual and on reflection - mental abuse.
Drawing reference from the Renaissance battle scenes as well as contemporary themes such as 'drunken adolescent fights' spun into a more horrific performance of 'gang rape'.
As well as exploring the context of violence, the act of violence we have as artist is a powerful subject, making Anti-Portraits in such a phrase - portraits that the viewer is given every element for a direct connection with a sitter minus one key component, ripping away the eyes. Blinding the sitter from emoting with a subject - Delete the eyes and the viewer is left distant and un-stimulated, echoing the mental repercussions of the assault paintings. Mixing the traditional / historical reference with contemporary practices / themes, will leave viewers stimulated even if the work is about having a distance with the art or a indifferent effect of not wanting to know.

The aesthetic I am looking for is a modern Neoclassic grandeur and overall glow about the paint - for the large scale fight / rape paintings. Additional produce a series of A5 scale anti portrait paintings which are investigating silence, mortality as well a violence, and orgasm. The idea for the process was a detailed mono-chrome under painting with opaque colour splashed on top primarily the colour scheme of red and blue - reflecting the under layer like tracing paper.

UNDERGROUND

UNDERGROUND

I was also in an art exhibition event called ''Underground'', doing the student thing and having a art event in a car-park.
I did a performance from the same theme - act of violence, Making an instillation in the middle of the car-park of an artist's studio - made from transparent plastic I slashed windows echoing the performance of slashing away the eyes of my A0 self-portrait. The performance related to Joseph Beuy's ''I Love America, and America Loves Me'', Tracey Emin's ''Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made'' and Paul McCarthy ''Painter''. But it was more in the ball park of frustrated artist in studio with people watching - So I spat paint towards the audience and started a intense manic. Destroying my studio ending the performance by coming out the instillation and doing a lap round the car-park in 5inch heels.