'Sons of Sea' - Calendar/Book, Russia/Bristol,England

My work, 'Tidal predictions' produced earlier in the year as an illustration for the December page of the calendar, 'Sons of the Sea', for the above joint project which is being coordinated at the Bristol end by Sarah Bodman at UWE, is having a preview at the London venue listed below as part of the 'Prospero's Library' exhibition. The work outcomes from Bristol and Russian artists will at some point in the near future go on show in Bristol and in Russia.

The project was proposed and is being coordinated by Mikhail Pogarsky - www.pogarsky.ru - a Russian artist, poet, designer, amongst other things.

STUDIO 75 

75 Hebden Court, Laburnum Street

E2 8BG

www.studio75.org.uk

PROSPERO'S LIBRARY | exhibition of book art | April 29 - May 01 2011 

Friday  2 – 6 pm; Saturday 12 – 6 pm; Sunday 2 – 5 pm

'Tidal Predictions'

BABE at Arnolfini

Having not posted for a while thought I would put up a few things related to BABE.

 As well as having some of my miniature books, folded from A2 sheets with hard covers, on the UWE bookstand at the show I also made gained some inspiration from other contributors there and have followed up some links from their work (images below). Copies of my own books for sale were based on some of my earlier collage collections and a photo' record of abstract imagery from a Welsh coastline walk. Having made up the books for the show in a rush to meet the deadline for submission, made the foolish mistake of not photographing the finished books and as such have no images to post here! When I have made up a couple more samples I will photograph and post.

Some of the work that I was particularly interested in at the show was by 'Frantic Ham'. Collaborative and individual work from Francis Van Maele, based in Ireland and Antic-Ham from Seoul, South Korea. Their books, collage and screen prints, particularly those influenced by DADA and Fluxus wereinteresting.

Work by Bernd Reichert was a starting point for some further research which led me to the red dot project - www.reddotproject.org/ and the work of Reid Wood who uses both handmade/mailart and digital collage.

Also linked from this site was a German artist working under he name of Planet Susannia whose blog contains a range of inspiring collage which on first sight seem hand made but look more likely to be digitally assembled. This work is both visually strong in terms of image but also has a good sense of organisation and balance.

 Another useful link was sujak.com  - based in Korea - who represent various book art, printmakers and collagists.

' Frantic Ham'

'Reid Wood'

'Planet Susannia'

Digital developments and illustration

My digital collage is now developing and having taken inspiration from many contemporary illustrators, such as those discussed in recent posts, I am beginning to enjoy a new found freedom with the digital process. What I thought was to be avoided - to get me back into making things - now has a focus and purpose.

My most recent pieces build on the work of the previous post and there are some updates. I feel that I should now be considering the idea of illustration, ie not solely producing work for its aesthetic but also to consider content in order to communicate content.... eg story, narrative, song lyrics.So here are a few additional pieces, all the starting points of a series within a theme.

...some remain

Mexican Wine

Survival Car

In addition to this work, development of my website is now underway. Progress is good, although the frustrations of using Dreamweaver abound. It is probably my least favourite software program - even worse that Microsoft products!

Into digital 'collage'

Having found a range of further practitioners using digital 'collage' as a creative and illustrative medium I have begun to develop some of my own work along these lines. Whilst the images are digitally assembled I have aimed to ensure that the majority of the texture and image resource comes from my own collected ephemera which has been scanned in together with textures and 'distressed' surfaces that I have recorded photographically. This digital approach is not as much fun as the hands built collage but does allow for considerations of textures and overlays. Equally I feel that it would be all to easy to overwork images and create too many conflicting layers and elements in building the image. For this reason I have tried to keep the number of layers and elements used in the compositions limited. My initial exploration of the medium is shown in the illustrations below.

Initially I was resistant to the digital approach to collage. However, in response to my research into the work of others' and contemporary approaches to producing work of this kind for publication and editorial purposes, I felt that it was important to investigate my own creative responses using this medium. I am pleased with the initial outcomes and what is clear to me, is that without my initial research and experimentation with hand built collage over the last year I would not have had the same self-critical awareness in respect of image building with digital processes; my understanding of space, balance and aesthetic apreciation has come from getting back to basics.

'There were days when it was important to be heard on the radio'

'Some are gone... '

in progress

Further Artists research

After another morning of Library research i have unearthed some further contemporary artists/illustrators that are utilising collage as a starting point to their work. much is digital but has starting points in hand made collage and utilises aged ephemera. This visual inspiration is useful to me as I consider developing digital styles of 'collage to support the development of,  and offer comparison to my hand built work. Some of the artists that I have found:

Caroline Tomlinson who seems to utilise starting points of hand made developing outcomes with digital techniques. I like the balance of much of this work. The use of large areas of colour/textures to offset images.

Ian Caulkett uses cut photo montage with the addition of colour images and digitally drawn shapes

Jackie Parsons.. works in a similar way to Sarah Hanson, mentioned in earlier blogs. Looking at Parsons' web site I would say that she has developed a farther ranging set of styles than Hanson but there are clear similarities

Kerry Roper works in a wide variety of style ranging from digital collage in the sam vein as Sarah Hanson through bold photo montage, paintings and these mixed media pieces utilising bold Line drawings with distressed coloured backgrounds. This small selection does not do justice to her wide range of styles evidenced on her web site.

Lauren Simkin Brewer works with collage but also introduces line drawings copied from the collaged images. She uses photocopy transfers and builds work in a range of styles. The work has the compositional appearance of both Jackie Parsons and sarah Hanson's work with the added twit of the line drawings.

Walter Vasconcelos works with painting and mixed media. However in amongst he portfolio of work there is evidence of collage starting points like the above