Project Objective and Subjective

Objective: Alot of emphasis on the education setting. Teachers being harped on about not being standard enough due to failing test results from students etc. Students dmemonized by media, titled as rebellious, bad, etc. School setting a place of discipline and punishment.

Subjective:  Currently I am going through a rather debatable in my opinion but to others a discovery awareness type thing.  I never knew my father, my mother has always told me he was a bad person, then my aunt came and informed that he may not have been. Mind boggled, headcase, spun out.

My work is representative of two sides. Two faced bitches, double standards etc. This ties in with education because as a University student there is a lot of emphasis that Australia (Darwin particularly) needs more teachers as we are low on staff. The education department has been cutting down teachers based on a notion of student to teacher ratio to better staff the schools in area's more incremental.

Who the hell do I believe?

So by this I have created a two sided image. Focused on students one side where they are in their school uniform looking like typical good students the other side is the students self representation (What they look outside of school) dressed casually how they like. Typically how they dress seems to make people believe that they are just kids, rebellious and nothing good going on.

Why did I choose students? They seemed to be unfairly judged and this is how I feel with the new discovery of my father I have come across. My mum seems to focus entirely on his bad side and never spoke a word of his good side, this is unfairly judged to me.

Like the discipline and punish notion. I feel I have been entirely disciplined to never think a good thought on my father. To go out and seek him my mother is punishing me with guilt. On an education side students are being disciplined to follow rules codes of conduct etc and if they were to not follow this they are punished wether it be detention expulsion etc.

Therefore I drew on a student's arms a series of barbed wires sweeping along the length of her arm. I added the effect of holding a chain in reminiscence of how lady liberty holds a torch high for freedom etc the student holds the chain, devoid of freedom they are equal to. The use of the ribbon on her arm is an added effect of delicacy, a very innocent gesture.

The satin stained rusty tool fabric is a deeper meaning of staining a delicate item. Done in by chains cut form it's freedom.

Piece one - A4 cut photo onto A3 cardboard paper.

Piece two - 20cmx100cm Ivory satin fabric stained rusty chain

Piece three - A4 photograph onto A3 cardboard.

Each was installed onto a wall at 163cm height from the ground roughly my eye height. Stuck up using blue tack to hold in place.

The first piece was influenced by David Hockney and his 'Joiner" art technique. Where he cut the original image into smaller pieces than stuck them together again with a rather ambiguous or abstract look.

Influenced by Laurie Anderson to add the satin fabric of artwork into my piece. She is known in her work to add these to compliment her atmospheric feeling of the art wether it be a mood of brooding etc.

The final art piece is my own self technique of macro photoshop. Instead of photographing the whole person I specifically chose to photograph part of her arm that had the artwork drawn on, as well as the chains in her arms and the school uniform etc.

I was inspired to do a artwork that focused on the educational side of things and took to look at the prison perspective to form a relationship between the two on of which is discipline and punish.

Working through Project

So I went away for the weekend to clear my head a little bit. Somewhat worked still a bit befuddled and headcase but I'm determined to finish this.
Whilst I was away I thought of how I could create another piece that had the same basis as the first one. Many Idea ran through my head. Particularly looking up things related to prisons. What struck out most to me was barbed wire and chains. Connects with the idea of discipline and punish. So I searched images of barbed wire and chains.

I began by drawing a few barbed wire idea's. An idea that hit me when I saw the tatto designs was that I could possibly draw these on my student model and take photo's. I also though about a rusty tools experiment I did when I was in high school.

 practicing on myself

practicing on myself

 Satin fabric soaking in vinegar

 chain soaking in vinager

Rusty chain on satin fabric

Practicing on myself

 Vinegar, chain and satin fabric for experiment

 drawing barbed wire losse sketches

Going off the prison idea I looked up chains and barbed wire images. Came across some rusty artwork as well as macro photo. One interesting thing I found was a tattoo design. An idea struck that I could draw along my chosen student barbed wire tattoo looking things. Another idea was to soak some chains in vinegar on a cloth and achieve a rusty tool image. Otherwise im going to try some freelance sketching drawing on paper.

One art piece I am trying to create is a rusty tool on fabric technique.  It is silk in vinegar place it in a plastic bag to soak and soak the tool in vinegar as well. After it has soaked place the tool on the fabric leaving plastic bag open as it allows air in which helps with oxidation then put a heavy object on top to press tool into material leave it for 48-72 hours and check it. My rusty tool chosen was small lengthy chain and an ivory satin fabric.

The tattoo idea I practiced drawing on myself first. Do not start with a thick text first, start small and add thicker as you near completion as it kinda bleeds out and becomes blurry. The student i initially took photographs of is my model for this and she will be photographed with the wired tattoos on her body with her school uniform. The tattoos will hopefully run down her arms into her palms and possibly draw some along her collarbone.

A later idea that I could write on her fists like prisoners have tattoos of pain and punish family etc. 

!!!!!!

Took many more photo's than this, portraits, full scale, close up's etc. These were just the more pronounced ones of the lot.
*Due to internet being cut I have to use my phone which is costing me greatly and very slow with uploads.

The Image I like the most is the close up shot of the student holding chains, within it you can see the school uniform, the tattoos, the ribbon on her wrist (A connection with my satin project if it works) and the chain I have gotten her to hold. Which are the key themes I want the image to have. As I already have a piece of the student alone I wasn't concerned too much about getting her face or full scale body involved.

The satin on silk project. Unfortunately did not come out as I had hoped but it did come out somewhat. You can slightly see bits of chains and there is definite rust staining the material. Probably need to use an actual rusted chain instead of one that wasn't. Despite this I still like the effect of rust staining the delicate satin material.

Beginning Project.

Initially I wanted to take a wide variety of photo's of different idea's for a project. One of them was to take a photo of the school building, alas most of the middle school buildings are separate small ones and there's alot of interference of trees and stuff. Reason why I don't want those in the image is because I was going to edit the image by drawing on the buildings in the image and apply edits such as flames or barbed wire etc to create a vision that middle schools are discipline and punish type thing.

Then came along a major milestone in my life that disrupted my normal daily activities. My aunt came and informed me of so many different things I couldn't contemplate that it completely spun my mind out. So whilst trying to deal with that, I have been trying to get through my artwork. Unfortunately all my wonderful idea's that were in my head I couldn't go out and do every single one of them. I did attempt my student photograph idea.

Went and took some portrait photo's of some middle school students. They are dressed in their school uniforms looking like typical good students, then they are dressed as their casual selves looking like typical bad students.

I want to somehow create a image that displays both of these in an artistic manner. One idea is to put both images on one with them blended together type thing. Print out both images cut out square pieces and mix and match the images together so they look like both on one!!!!

Experimented with the photos on photoshop and using the artists I have previously researched and incorporating their works. Fazed some photo's together but due to the scrappy look and immense time consuming it would take to get finer details i scrapped using photoshop.

I do however like this one.

The one that stood out to me most was when I cut the photo's into pieces and mixed them to create a mismatched image of the two differences. Followed through with this procedure this time cutting them finely. Also to create two pieces of work took photo's of a male boy as they are part of school not just females, didn't want to be reclusive but include everyone.

 Drawing lines on the images to cut measurements

 Best experiment chosen to forward for project.

Experiment

Experiment

Experiment

They turned out well despite a small problem I realized during process of making, the photo's weren't exactly alike, they weren't eye to eye in measurements despite this proceeded on and actually didn't mind it so much once the image was completed. Rather liked it as it gave a mirrored two sided, different two worlds, effect thing.

Plan to print them out and finalise it on an A3 black cardboard.