Receiving my Crit review is an important part of the journey of my project, the feedback (both positive and negative!) can help so much in developing my work and the next steps I could take. I had my Crit on Monday the 15th of March with Gino, along with a couple other of my fellow students. I had chosen to show these 7 images (attached below) as the work I had produced so far in my project and let the others analyse and draw conclusions from –

I began with 2 images of my original circular canvases, the very starting point of my project, then added in one experimental piece I created as the beginning of using weather as a tool. I then included three alcohol ink art pieces I felt were my most successful showing my progress, and finally the most recent piece I had created which combined both oil paint and alcohol ink. I felt like these 7 pieces showed my journey and would be interesting to see how ‘the audience’ and Gino would react.

Overall, most of my ideas were deciphered from my pieces, such as Turner acting as an influence for my first canvases as well as centring on how I apply paint and the concept/process behind my work being the focus. The weather, specifically the clouds and skies, were pointed out as the muse for my paintings which is correct along with how my alcohol ink art pieces are much freer and carry a different atmosphere with them.

A few observations that I had not thought about were also mentioned such as the circle canvases acting as a ‘point of view’, iris of the eye or fish-eye lens looking out onto the landscape. Gino stated that they almost looked like optical illusions with a distorted perspective which I had not intended but liked the idea of, also the use of muted tones represented the colour schemes of the earth. Literature and poetry were also said, which was one of the very starting points too, however I decided to move away from that throughout the project as it wasn’t playing a huge role in helping development.

The contrast between the oil paintings on the circular canvas and the alcohol ink art did throw a stone in the thought process as the link and progress between them was difficult to figure out (which I wasn’t surprised at due to how different the pieces are). However, the main idea was that the alcohol ink was much less restrictive and created a ‘less obvious’ depiction of the weather. This was great to hear as it was one of my aims along with the concept behind it changing too.

Some of the points I could focus om to help develop my work included –

  • Giving back and forth to nature, so painting/inking then allowing the elements to take control, then taking it back and reworking into the piece and allowing nature to take over again etc.
  • Blurring the edges of my canvases to recreate what the human eye actually sees from the pupils, the shapes (e.g., an oval with blurred edges).
  • Collaborating with other weather systems, posting my art across the world (however this is not something that I could do feasibly but posed an interesting idea.)
  • Paint outside of the canvas, exploring other options like expanding onto gallery walls and floors linking to the weather’s uncontrollability.

These ideas were so helpful in discovering what direction other people would take my work compared to what I had in my head. I wasn’t exactly sure how to develop my work so was relying on the Crit to help my project progress and thankfully the ideas and thought process allowed this to happen. The key idea I fixed onto was painting outside the ‘canvas’ or board of which I am working on. This may imitate the vastness of weather (stormy skies, huge landscapes etc.)  but also, the breaking of the patriarchy and escaping the restrictions women have been placed into, really picking apart the concept behind my work rather than it just looking aesthetically pleasing.

I also requested to have a tutorial with Jamie after my Crit as I still felt as though I needed further push for my project to start developing the Crit ideas. He mentioned how I could play with the idea of power control within men and women specifically and involving a controlling element into my work e.g., a shape or a stencil. The main idea I am excited to combine with the thoughts from my Crit is allowing the randomness only to happen in a specific area (symbolising a controlling relationship – ‘free’ but not really free). Linking with my Crit, I could expand upon this by breaking free onto gallery walls possibly using masking fluid and other mediums to block of these certain areas.

Overall, my Crit proved incredibly helpful to the progress of my projects so far, listening to what other people perceptions and ideas of my work were as well as hearing what next steps I could focus on – I can’t wait to begin exploring!