Colour & Compositon

It took me quite a while to get into my summer project. When it comes to drawing from view I wouldn't say its really my fortay, i tend to look at things more for the lines and shapes rather than the overall look. So when it came to concentration on colour, i found it really hard at first to grasp how i was going to tackle it.  Regrettably i didn't have the most exciting of summers, due to a lack of money i found myself spending most of my time at home but luckily for me i live in Yorkshire so most days, dependent on the unpredictable weather, i would be out and about in the dales with my best mate (my dog!). At first i tried being quite realistic with my drawings but soon got extremely bored and realised its just not my style, so eventually started doing a bit of research to hopefully spark some new ideas and inspo. Thats when i thought back to the work of Lydia Cotterell, a recent textiles graduate of MMU who's work i came across at the degree show. I'd originally connected with her loose and playful drawing style, a slightly more abstract style that focused mainly of shape and pattern in appose to a solid representation.

So my summer project soon developed around the idea of connecting the realistic to the exaggerated. Using  repetitive pattern and bright colour to create illustrative and abstract representations of my activities.  

Manchester School of Art Degree Show 2015.

After unfortunately missing the chance to visit the degree show last year, I was really excited to attend. It was so inspiring to see the wide variety of work produced by this years graduates, as it gave me a chance to invision how my work could progress over the next two years. In my first year of study the importance of context was made very clear and it was easy to see how this was a major influence on the development and end product of the 3rd year students. Everyone had a clear vision and understanding of their practice and where it fit in the art world, something which I am really excited to discover and expand upon next year.

Below i have picked out two students whose work I found particularly inspiring...

Grace Davies:

Grace is a printed textiles designer for fashion, whose work specialises in trend forecasting and art direction. What I found most inspiring about Graces work is her unique styling and innovative use of material, her work for me was set apart from the rest, by having such a strong individual flare. She had  a variety of components to her work that played a part within a number of different pieces or photoshoots, allowing her work to achieve a unique 'handwriting'. This is something I hope to work upon in the upcoming years of my degree, something I feel will develop once I begin to understand the individuality in my practice and context. Grace works across a number of specialisms including print, fashion and mixed media. This is something i can relate to within my own practice and has inspired me to push this interest even more and to continually take advantage of the opportunities and facilities i have available within university.

Hannah Reynolds:
Hannah'c collection of work was one with which i felt i shared the most common interest with. Working predominantly with mixed media techniques, hannahs work derives from a strong body of illustration and mixed media samples.  Her development process accompanies many similarities with my own, strong linear work that draws from abstract form and unusual surface. What i have taken most inspiration from is how hannah then takes these illustrations and pushes there potential within the mixed media world, through sampling and thinking outside the bo with her choices of materials and processes

Leeds College of Art Degree Show 2015

Going, going, gone...

The textiles sector of Leeds College of Art focuses primarily on printed textiles and surface pattern design. I have visited the graduate exhibiton for the past few years and the show itself was where I originally found an interest and connection with pattern and print, so i was excited to go back this year and see how my views and interests had changed since starting university. The LCOA show never fails to deliver an abundance of colour and pattern, I loved seeing the confidence and unique styles of the students work and I constantly found my self reeling off ideas as I worked my way around.

Bellow i have selected two LCOA students who's work I found the most inspiring and relatable to my own practice;

Benjamin Craven;
What immediately attracted me to Benjamin's work was his bold colour palette and playful patterns, he achieves such a strong and confident aesthetic continually throughout his work and by working with a variety of different media there was a simple yet professional depth to his working style.
I particular enjoyed Benjamin's mixed media approach, where he used a variety of different wooden blocks printed with his designs, by adding this 3D element to his display it allowed the singular printed designs to come together to crate a larger scale piece. The importance of line and shape within Benjamin's work is a characteristic I can overlap with my own practice and since viewing his work at the LCOA i have come away with many new ideas and inspirations and a real willingness to push my use of colour and composition.

Katie Giles;
Katie's work was by far my favourite of the entire show, her innovative way of exploring materials and surface texture allows her overall designs to derive from an extensive development process, which really shines through in her final pieces. I connected with Katie's work due to her exploration of mixed media techniques and by viewing her collection as a whole it allowed me to understand how i could push my interest in 3D techniques even further. I have seen a variety of artists use resin within their work recently and by seeing Katie's work in person it allowed me to see how effective this technique can be, so is something i am eager to try out for myself in the near future.

UNIT X | RESEARCH | INITIAL DEVELOPMENT

INITIAL RESEARCH...

Throughout the beginnings of Unit X, my research has stemmed mainly from a desire to explore and expand my own strengths. Due to feeling relitevly uninspired by the organised activities provided, I began exploring and revisiting themes that had inspired me throughout previous units. I found myself drawing inspiration from architecture and obscured spaces around the city, spending time in Manchester and Leeds gathering first hand research regarding the theme 'pop up', particularly in retail.

          Selfridges, Manchester | A gender collection  Imagery from Manchester & Blackpool

When we were first required to share our ideas as a group, my main discussion encountered themes such as; perception, linear form, light and sound. By discussing openly as a group, I was able to discover who's ideas enhanced and balanced my own and eventually my Unit X group evolved, comprised of myself, Katie, Dominika and Bethany (THE SHINY SHOW!). Our individual research, although of different contextual starting points, all encountered a similiarty in the overlal theme, with a main intention of using light & sound to portray a message to the audience. My place in the group quickly formed with Katie, as the structural memebers of the team. The key points for us during the start of unit x where based heavily around the idea of creating a ‘walk in’ structure, a large scale build that the audience could engange with through light, sound and projection. 

Initial concept board

 First drawing demonstrating the dome like 'walk in' structure.

Gathering a broad variety of contextual inspirations strongly influenced the direction of my development at this point. I spent much of week one with a very open mind, extracting ideas from media and entertainment companies such as Moment Factory, as well as looking into the work of Fine artists such as Pipilotti Rist, who use film and projection as a means to create. My strongest source of reference at this point came from Giles Milers commission for Stella McCartney, which encountered many of the ideas we as a group had discussed and gave us a strong visual reference regarding our 'walk in' concept.  However, very quickly within the first weeks of Unit X, our development made a drastic change. As we discussed the aspects of our initially planned design, in terms of scale, health and safety and the accessibility to materials, we quickly realised that the excitement of Unit X had obscured our realistic expectations. 

So as a group, we decided that in order to involve ourselves in a project that would enhance our abilities, we needed to re develop a conecept that was realistic for our skill set, but that also allowed us to keep our original themes. Our project then evolved into a pop up structure, designed for a fashion based context. For myself as a structural team member, this opened up a whole new world of refrences and inspiration, I immediately felt more comfortable with the work and ideas I was producing, as I now had a more solid purpose to design for. 

Mood board to show the shift into a fashion based context

(Link to my pinterest board which displays further initial research)

https://www.pinterest.com/ginariddiough/unitx-fashion-visual-merchendising/

UNIT X | STRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Since starting university, I have developed a new skill set within the world of 3D design/mixed media. By Being part of the structural team within our group, I have been able to explore and expand these new found abilities, as well as taking on new challenges that have enhanced my knowledge and enjoyment for this specialism.

Contextual refrencing has been the key to my development process. 
At first, I stayed very closely to the profession of visual merchandising, ensuring that I had a strong knowledge basis towards what as a group we were planning to achieve.  Artists such as Sarah Parker, Cos & Nendo, Sam Hofman & Alexander Wang, all provided me with an exciting insight into the ways in which fashion can be displayed and began sparking ideas in which my original interest in architectural formations could come into play.
I began to realise at this point how important the connection between the garment and structure really is, so I made sure to converse with the fashion side of our team to share ideas. By doing so we were able to intertwine our references, resulting in the structure evolving from the charectistics of the garment and vice versa. 

Moodboard demonstrating ideas & colour palette 

Influential image regarding line and space |Bureau Betak.

Once we had developed a strong theme within our group , which revolved around the concepts of linear form, transparency and neon light, I decided to branch out with my research, with hopes to expand my ideas into new directions. It was at this point where I found my key image, that finalising the direction of my ideas. looking to various professions for inspiration, I was drawn towards furniture design and came across a particular so named ‘art furniture’ piece, created by Christan Hallerod & Johannes Svartholm.

Key image that directed progression | Furniture Design

What i extracted from this, was the concept of designing a structure that would be built from individual compartments, separate blocks and frame work that when brought together would create a structure devised of line, shape and space. 

(Link to my pinterest board that shows how my research progressed)

https://www.pinterest.com/ginariddiough/unitx-developed-research-lineargridshape/

With this new design concept in mind, I spent a number of days sketching up ideas and spent as much time as possible during the Easter break conversing with my team members, to keep them up to date with the new directions I was taking. In the final week of Easter myself and katie were able to meet up, which was such a plus for us as we were able to bring all our individual ideas and reference points together, to create our final structural design. This was the first time I have used photoshop to create a 3D based drawing, but will definitely be a process I will be using in the future. Creating digitally allowed us to achieve a three dimensional vision, something we were finding hard to achieve on paper.

                                   Final Design | Created on Photoshop

UNIT X | GROUP WORK | LINES OF ENQUIRY

Group collaboration is something I was quite sceptical about at the beginning of Unit X, even though I do enjoy working with others, I was unsure how such a project would allow each member too develop and explore their skill set. Luckily I have loved working with the people in my group, as individuals I feel we have strongly understood the important abilities that make a well functioning team. Although initially we all had a variety of different ideas, we as a group were able to decipher those ideas, knowing when to push something forward or when to leave it behind, which is a task I feel some of the other groups struggled with. My strongest connection within the team has been with Katie, who has worked along side me as the structural members of our group. Due to the fact that myself and Katie have become good friends since starting university, this has allowed us to feel immediatly comfortable with each others working styles, an important factor that has allowed us to extract the most from each others strengths.

The key developments within our practice almost always arose from the group critique/tutorial sessions we had. By openly discussing our development and plans with our peers and tutors, this allowed us to view our project from a external prospective, which helped to decipher flaws or complications we hadn't yet noticed. The crits that have taken place haven't always been so positive, there have been many that have left me deflated and de motivated. However, looking back now, taking on board the opinions and criticisms' only allowed us to expand the ideas that were our strongest. This constant input allowed me to develop one of the most important skills I have learnt within Unit x... to REFINE.

By breaking down our ideas and simplifying them, this allowed us as a group to get the most out of the process' we were undertaking, teaching us that it is more about the quality and specifics of the ideas you choose to pursue. Initially it was not so easy to come to terms with refining ideas, as a group we have encountered various struggles and at times we were brought to question ideas that had played a big part in our development.

The use of light has been a concept that has played a leading role within the development of both the structure and the garment and has also been a driving point for many of our ideas throughout the project. During a challenging tutorial in week 7, we were required to ask the question, What will our project be without light?? At first we were all very adamant about the idea of removing light from our project and it became very hard to envision how our project would evolve without it. However, I feel this once again demonstrates how well we worked as a team, we were able to take the negative and turn it into a positive, all by striping back our ideas and thinking of ways to overcome the issues. We firstly began by looking back at our original colour scheme, bright fluorescent colours that we had extracted from the illuminations and casinos of Blackpood and combined this with gathering new research and inspirations. Broadening our contextual references at this point became a really helpful tool,  gathering information from fashion, fine art and photography.It was at this point where we disovered we could still achieve the overall neon look that we had hoped for, just by going a different way about it. We began looking into the combination of neon paints to create contrasting colours both within the structure and garment prints and have been Inspired by the Spring/Summer 13' collection by Simone Roche, leading us to look into the effects of using laser cut fluorescent acrylic within our structure. 

SERENDIPITY | Laser cut acrylic to be included structure

UNIT X | THE BUILD

During Week 7 of Unit X, myself and Katie took a few days out of uni to get started on building our structure. Luckily, we both have family members in the joinery profession, so being able to take advantage of the materials and process' available to us has been a massive help. My boyfriend allowed us to use his workshop to construct our frame and with his guidance we were able to take a front seat in the making process, allowing us to both gain some really valuable experience in larger scale construction and design. The day went really smoothly and it was great to see our design translate so well into its 3D state. The most challenging bit, apart from getting to grips with using power tools! was adapting to the structure as it developed. Although we had calculated original measurements, it was important that we continued to view the structure from a free standing perspective, which ended up being a really vital exercise. The measurements of the structure soon began to alter, as we were now starting to see how our separate frames would look when placed together; in terms of size, space and stability. 

Painting Process | Colour Palette | Achieving a neon look with fluorescent paints.

Being in charge of the structure within our team has been a hard task at times, as we have been working on such a large scale, there hasn't been too many opportunitys to sample or test. Our work has simply had to develop and evolve from the tasks we have undertaken. I think this is why we enjoyed the painting process so much, as we were able to experiment more with different combinations and colours. I am really happy at what we have managed to achieve with our structure, I do feel we took on a big task but I believe this was always our intention from the start, to push ourselves and our abilities!  

UNIT X | FINAL REFLECTION

Looking back on my progress and development throughout Unit X, I do believe that this has been my most successful project since starting university, however, there are still areas that I feel could of been improved upon. The lighting for us as mentioned before was a massive element within our work. I feel that as a group, if we had spent more time experimenting with the use of light, or exploring ways we could of adapted the structure to cater for its properties, i believe that collectedly we could of discovered ways to overcome the issues. Unit X has massively helped me to broaden my practice, I have been able to explore my strengths and undergo new experiences, that I feel have allowed me to understand my ways of working, a positive I expect will be really helpful as I enter my second year. One personal strength I believe has improved within this project is my abilities and engagement with research. Usually once my ideas were set and my development on track my research would usually take a back seat. Unit X has encouraged me to be continual involved with my research, which has resulted in the work I produce to be constantly changing and evolving, due to new sources of  inspiration. 

PE Task 2

During my time in print, I focused on developing my work through an interior context. One of my main sources of inspiration came from print designer Lucienne day, who's abstract, organic prints captivate a beautiful hand drawn style, with repeat pattern and fine line. These qualities where ones I found easy to relate with my own practice, as drawing is a large part of my development, I wanted to ensure that these characteristics laid prominent in my own designs.

Overall I was very pleased at how my motifs translated through screen print, I feel that the majority of my samples achieved a detailed, natural aesthetic. My main primary research evolved from subject matters such as crystals, pottery fragments and animal influences, so I tried to ensure that my motifs, compositions and colour palette worked together, to create an organic flow throughout my collection.

Print Design by Lucienne Day

One of my screen printed designs

After conducting my initial research within my mixed media rotation, which mainly excelled from an interesst in line quality and natural curve, I decided to focus on 3D fashion as a context. Iris Van Herpen provided me with my strongest source of inspiration, her magnificently crafted 3D printed designs  captivate the body, made up of the most fluid and detailed lines. This was one of the first times I had explored this means to create, so to learn about so many new designers such as Jenny Hsu and Matija Cop, allowed me to discover a whole new realm of developemnt possibilites for my practice.

The concept of curve became my main reference as my ideas progressed, working towards creating my own designs that wrap around the human form. I worked with a variety of materials such as wood, leather and paper, comprised of both hand and laser cut samples.  My paper work resulted in my most successful designs, which I feel was due to the manipulative qualities of the material, allowing me to bend and curve the structure, acheiving a free flowing yet futeristic concept.

3D Fashion Piece - Iris Van Herpen

One of my favoured paper mannequin samples

For the final three weeks of sampling, I decided to stay within mixed media. Developing my work from the word 'Duality', I began focusing on the term 'Positive & Negative'. My practice evolved towards a contextual theme of Gallery Space work and I began to translate my ideas through the technique of collage. Looking for inspiration, I came across Anna Higgie, who's extensive collection of collage captivate a strong optical aesthetic, using bold cut out shapes with intergrated bursts of black and white pattern.Continuing my search, I aslo drew refrences from fashion photographer Chris Nicholls and Illusion artist Vicor Vasarely, by broadening my contextual refrence points into a variety of specialisms, this allowed me to develop my ideas from different influential loacations.

Mainly concentrating on the depiction of bold shape combined with optical line, I extracted my primary research from Architecture , with the buildings and structures providing me with an extensive pallet of line, shape and space. My collages began to develop from the layering and combination of individual ideas and designs, comprised together to create an image of overlapping detail, shape and space.


Collage by Illustration Artist Anna Higgie

My mixed media Collage - 'Duality'

Final 3 weeks of Sampling-Mixed Media Week 3.

For my final week within this project, I have continued to explore the process of collage, as well as creating digitally drawn designs that I plan to translate on the laser cutter using harder materials.

I have really enjoyed the freedom that this last three weeks has given me, working with collage has allowed me to portray abstract and free flowing qualities throughout my work, characteristics I really enjoy but don't always give myself a chance to express. When viewing my current work as a whole during our weekly crit session, I decided to  take a step back and create collages simply by layering 2 or 3 elements together, and focusing entirely on the cross over of the lines and shapes. This was a different way of working to what I had done in the previous two weeks, however it allowed me to see elements in my samples that had sometimes got lost when i created my more busy, multi layered collages, creating a diversity within my collection.

(Simple 2-3 element collages)

My laser cutting session isn't until the end of the week on Friday, so I will just have to discuss my plans! Extracting some of my bolder designs from my collages, I have began creating drawings that I will translate through the laser cutter. I mainly want to use the cutter so that I can expand my material choices, using textured and harder surfaces such acrylic perspex and thicker fabric. Once I have my laser cut pieces, I plan to combine these with my other material samples, hopefully having the time to create a series of new collages.

I am actually quite sad that this project is over, as I have really enjoyed the work that i have produced and can still see many avenues that I could expand into. The techniques  that I have learned not only in these last three weeks but in the whole of the sampling unit, will definitely be processes that I will re-explore in the future. 

Final 3 weeks of Sampling- Mixed Media Week 2

Throughout my second week I have focused my practice on the development of collage, continuing to use architecture as a basis to expand and extract from. After my tutorial on Tuesday with Julie and Mark, I went away feeling very refreshed and enthusiastic about the possibilites and direction of my work. It was suggested that I begin looking at expanding the idea of collage, lifting it away from just paper and beginning to think about working in a more three dimensional way. This was a process quite foreign to me at first, but as we began to explore my ideas, I could begin to see how the introduction of harder materials, 3D shapes and laser cut samples, could begin to achieve a very unique response.

My first step after the crit was to begin gathering different materials and create a variety of 'prototypes. I began to view my foreseeable collages almost as a jigsaw,  a piece of art slowly built up through independent pieces and shapes, which i felt linked in well with my development focus of 'Positive and Negative'. Using hand cut techniques i began to translate the variety of shapes I had extracted from my primary research, introducing new materials to my samples such as cardboard, printed acetate and black electrical tape. 

My original plan was to book two laser cutting sessions, one this week and one for the following, in which I would develop the ideas I had created throughout my collages, using harder material choices and focusing on achieving solid measurements and bold shapes. However when i went to book, I was disappointed to find out that there was only one session left available next Friday, at the end of the project. This has unfortunately stunted my flow of ideas, as with my laser cut session being so near to the end, i have had to focus my attention back on the possibility of hand cut techniques and how i can still achieve the qualities and design ideas i had planned. 

Contextual Refrences.

Anna Higgie

While beginning my contextual research, Anna higgie is an artist who's work has embodied all the qualities i have been looking to represent in my own practice. Her collage based pieces where my main source of inspiration, Higgie uses a strong combination of bold shape, optical patterns and reflections of identity within her collages, aspects that related strongly to how my ideas have developed since investigating the word duality. What I hope to be able to extract from the inspiration i have gained through Annas work, is the connection of shape, using a variety of line qualities, materials and photographic sources to intertwine singular ideas and refrences into one collaged piece.

                            

Chris Nicholls 

Fashion Magazines May 2013 issue, hosted an amazing editorial by Fashion Photographer Chris Nicolls. The high contrast lines and shapes Nicolls expressed through his photos and editing offered me such a strong source of inspiration. I have begin to see the extent of how effective the simple idea of positive and negative can be, combining and reversing black and white to create almost optical like pattern. This is an idea that i feel can relate really strongly to my architectural research and i plan to experiment with translating and representing the shapes extracted from my photographs with this approach. 

Final 3 Weeks of Sampling Unit - Mixed Media Week 1

For the final three weeks of Unit 2 : Sampling, I have chosen to continue working in Mixed Media. Looking back on the work I have already completed in this specialism, has shown me that there are many elements of my work that have progressed and expanded, due to the opportunities and possibles presented by Mixed Media. I would like to use this next three weeks to continue this new creating process, to see if mixed media could be a potential future for my degree.

From the list of words provided, I decided to investigate DUALITY....

'an instance of opposition or contrast between two concepts or two aspects of something'

My initial research led me to narrow down the idea of contrast, focusing my development process on the concept of  'Positive ad Negative'.  In conjunction with my early contextual referencing, I began conducting primary research, mainly in the form of photography and drawing. Using Architecture as a main focal point, I began extracting ideas from my surroundings, looking at the variety of different shapes that are creating either within a buildings structure, or when buildings begin to intersect or appose each other.  In response to my research i began conducting a series of drawings, mark making pieces and collages.

(Onsite drawings of architecture around Manchester)

 (Developing idea of positive and negative shapes through collage)

After gathering inspiration from artists such as ; Anna Higgie and Chris Nicolls, I have begun to explore the possibilities of collage in more detail. Using strong shape and line extracted from my original photography work as well as adding ideas from external influences and drawn line. Since beginning to explore the possibilities of collage this has sparked many new ideas which I plan to pursue next week, increasing the scale as well as introducing new materials into my work. 

(Two final collage pieces responding to positive and negative)

Mixed Media - Week 3 Review.

While in the final week of my mixed media rotation, my attentions have focused mainly on creating samples that illustrate the connection between my ideas and chosen context, 3D/Sculptural Fashion.

Working with a mannequin, i have been able to create a variety of different samples that elevate my ideas and finally illustrate their purpose. After the previous two weeks using paper as my main source of material, it soon came to be a process i favoured and began to excel in. When i finally became to realise the manipulative properties of the paper, i was able to begin exploring and creating interesting curves around the body.  The past three weeks has been one of the first times i have explored the possibilities of fashion, so for me, working on a mannequin and exploring my ideas through a fashion context has been a completely new experience, one I have throughly enjoyed and hope to explore further in the near future.

During our final week we also had the chance to book another laser cutting session, i decided to take this opportunity to experiment with scale and different materials. Using a variety of different leathers i created samples that explored how my design would work when reduced in scale....

Although i enjoyed the properties of the leather, especially the reverse side where the burn marks from the laser had altered the surface, the miniature scale didn't represent the line quality as well as i had expected, due to being so small, when layered together the samples got lost within each other and there was no definition amongst the curves or edges.  If i where to have had more time I would have liked to have created large scale cut outs using the leather, as like with the paper models, i feel that the leather could have been well manipulated and would have begun to introduce new colours and textures to my designs.

Mixed Media - Week 2 Review

Throughout the second week of mixed media, I have spent my time  refining my ideas for our laser  cutting session, as well as creating more thought after 3D sculptural pieces.
After gathering a body of contextual reference work and initial drawings, my ideas started to become more original and more relatable to my initial reference points. While continually experimenting with paper, I began using the technique of layering, cutting simple shapes and then overlapping the stencils, creating a variety of different lines, as well as interesting curves and shadows. Due to the fact that my drawings where simple, this allowed me to recreate the cut outs quickly and i could  begin to visualise how these shapes might react when made of different materials or manipulated in different ways.

I decided to pursue my layered motif idea in the laser cut session, I now had the chance to change up my material choice and create samples using harder surfaces. I really enjoyed my time in laser as this was the first time i had ever used the machinery. Seeing my designs translate through the technology, sparked an array of fresh ideas and has led me to look into sampling with different material options such as leather, woods and a variety of papers.

(Laser Cut Sample using MDF Wood)

After my laser session I had time to reflect and envision how my layered samples could now translate into a 3D Fashion context. Looking back to my contextual references and initial starting points it was clear to me that the idea of curve was very prominent in my work, my ideas led strongly to creating a structural piece of art that moulds and works with the natural curves and edges of the human form. I began working with collage and abstract fashion illustration, imagining the variety of bends and arches i could achieve when working on the body.                                 

Contextual Refrences

Artist: Iris Van Herpen
Source: 'Fashion Futures' by Bradley Quinn

Since starting my mixed media rotation I have spent a lot of time researching into the area of 3D/sculptural fashion and the artist Iris Van Herpen, is one who has showed me the magnitude and beautiful possibilities of this means to create. Herpens' body captivating garments are created using the technologies of 3D printing, capturing the most profound shapes they take the idea of fashion to a whole new level. What I find most endearing about Herpens' work, is her unique ability to take something so foreign and mould it to entrance the body of the wearer and the minds of the viewer. Even though the garments are made using a state of the art process, her work never looses that delicate line quality, the hidden detail and personal flare, aspects that I wish to achieve when translating my work into the 3D world.

Aritist: Noriko Ambe

Source: www.norikoambe.com

Noriko Ambe's 'Linear actions cutting project' is what Ambe describes as her life's work. Time, precision and impeccable detail result in these captivating paper creations. Each piece is created from individually hand cut sheets of paper, stacked together to create surreal, beautiful structures of curve, depth and line. What draws me most to Norikos work is the line quality within her pieces, by using negative and positives shapes she creates shadow throughout her sculptures, achieving such beautiful and organic shapes. I have recently began to experiment with the effects of layering in my own sampling work, using curved shapes and cut out lines to achieve a sense of depth within my ideas.

Artist: Matija Cop
Source: http://www.designcatwalk.com/matija-cop/

What I found most inspiring and interesting about Matija Cops work, is the processes he uses to create his body captivating garments.  Each piece in Cop's 'Object 12-1' collection is made from  laser cut foam pieces, which link together without the use of stitches or glue.  Each garment is made entirely from one single 'mechanism', that is then repeated and connected to create a series of  art fashion pieces. Using the body as his canvas, Matija works around the body, creating garments with sweeping curves and ever-changing edges. This is a characteristic i would like to evolve my own practice in this unit, creating curves and contours by connecting my individual laser cut shapes, this trail of pieces can then be introduced to the body by manipulating flexible points within the samples.

Artist: Students from the Pratt School of Art & Designers from Ralph Pucci Industries.
Source: http://www.ralphpucci.net/editorials/Paper-Pratt-And-Pucci

I first came across this collection of work when researching into the possibilities of 3d paper techniques and it gave me a big inspirational boost regarding how far paper can really go. The collection consisted of several paper garments,  that had been created as a collaboration project between students at the Pratt School of Art and designers for Ralph Pucci. One of my favourite pieces from the collection was the one pictured above, a paper spine made from interlocking paper pieces, similar to the technique used by Martija Cop. What i find most common in my research and interests is this idea of curve, garments working there way around the body. I am looking forward to the stage in this project when i can start working with a mannequin and see how my ideas translate when on the body.

Artist: Hannah Soukup

Source www.hannahsoukup.com

What struck me most about the work of Hannah Soukup, especially the artistic neck piece pictured above, is the elegance she achieves in her work. Even though rigid in structure and created by the use of high tech 3d printing, the curves and intimate lines she creates are truly admirable. Despite the material, her creations resemble an idea of flowing liquid, balancing on the human form. When i review my own drawings and processes, i place a high importance on detailed line, what i aspire from Soukups work is her ability to intertwine fine detail and it not get lost within the piece.