Yorkshire Sculpture Park Visit

Brain Fell

The visit to Yorkshire sculpture park for me personally was a disappointment, although I like the idea behind the park, letting you roam around looking at art work in a greater context than a gallery, being more open and free, the follow up in practice didn't quite work for me personally, the sculptures used where scattered in odd place, some in more ideal places to contrast with the work, but most seamed to be quite random placed and the actual work in majority was unsatisfying, and quite boring, but not all there were a select few that I enjoyed.

HaHa Bridge
Brian Fell
2006

In contrast to is surroundings ‘The HaHa Bridge’ adapts around it scenic background and fits in well, serving as both a piece of art, and a bridge, the sign post around the piece had no referral to its materials but stated it was created by Brian Fell in 2006, I quite enjoyed the bridge, although a simple idea, it made it interesting to walk over. 

James Turrel

Deer Shelter Sky Space
James Turrel
2006

James Turrel was established for being an artist of light, and is spoken very highly of, but to visit the deer shelter skyspace was unsatisfactory, although the design of it was interesting, the use or it was not, it was a large room with a foggy window in the roof and was very disappointing, the contrast between the interior and the exterior gave it some interest, the exterior fits in with its surroundings, like an old red brick building in a field but as you walk in the interior has quite a sinister appearance, the cold, narrow concrete corridors almost like a bomb shelter, or an entrance to a torture chamber, change the viewers mood in seconds

Barbara Hepworth 

One of the main exhibits on show at the park is the collection of sculptures by Barbara Hepworth, called ‘The Family of Man’, the sculptures each show a structure using several metallic contours moulded together to create a certain form, there are many of her sculptures placed throughout the park, and although the sculptures may enhance the mind to visualise the three dimensional form of the objects, and the sculptures where cleverly designed, they had me once again, uninteresting. I find them to be very monotonous and have no real stimulating value to them, they looked more like a decoration, rather than an artwork

Hans Josephsohn

The series of sculpture by Josephson on show in the open air of the park have caught the eye of many viewers, the pieces are made out of brass but have a look of organic matter, with the way this contrasts to the field and its surroundings it makes the experience of viewing are unrestricted, rather than being in a gallery as you have to keep noise to a minimum. However this does not make up for the poor aesthetic quality of his work, he attempted to create a series of abstract sculptures on the human form, but there a difference between abstract and idle appearances, although the sculptures may have had a lot of time put into them they still have the quality of clay which has been tightly gripped and placed on a concrete slab.

Jon Edgar

The highlight of the visit to the sculpture park, for me, was the exhibition by Jon Edgar, using terracotta to create series of portraits, and adding wire to those with glasses. The texture of his work creates an effect in which adds to the tone and quality. I'm disappointed that he was only given a small room for his work and other artist less interesting works where scattered around for miles throughout the park. Although it doesn't matter what way the art is presented, if the art work is good enough there is no need for the background to contribute to it.

Context:
 The way something is placed or located and effects the meaning.
The situation within which something exists or happens, and that can help explain it.

Immediate Environment:
 The location of the artwork what is surrounding the work when it is explored close up.



Although my opinions of the sculptures have been quite harsh, I mean no disrespect to anyone, my taste is quite old fashioned and doesn't fit in with contemporary, modern and abstract art.



source:
http://www.ysp.co.uk/whats-on/open-air/brian-fell
http://www.ysp.co.uk/exhibitions/james-turrell-deer-shelter-skyspace
http://www.ysp.co.uk/whats-on/open-air/barbara-hepworth
http://barbarahepworth.org.uk/exhibitions/
http://www.ysp.co.uk/exhibitions/josephsohn
http://www.ysp.co.uk/events/jon-edgar-a-live-portrait-sitting

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

From researching the Yorkshire sculpture park I have gathered certain information on the main current artists and exhibitions, Lucy and Jorge Orta.

The couple started their work in 2009 when on a visit to the recycling town in Cairo, Zabbaleen, after seeing the huge mounds of bottles that formed more of an organic matter in which the people of the town lived. With this they created a series of sculptures using the recycled water bottles, such as the ‘Diptych Cloud Chaises’. the chairs are function as normal chairs as show in the interview with  Bartolomeo Pietromarchi (link to interview in sources)

 

‘Diptych Cloud Chaises’
 



 

Zabbaleen (city of garbage)

 

 

 

sources:

http://www.ysp.co.uk/channel

http://www.ysp.co.uk/exhibitions/lucy-jorge-orta

Ernie Barnes

another great example of gesture in emotion is Ernie Barnes, although his work is more abstract, he uses the form of his subjects to tell the story rather than its tears.

'His effort'

Ernie has a very unique quality to his work, he exaggerates the features of his subjects to be slightly deformed, yet this accentuates the desired effect of his art.

 

'song of myself'

 

although he uses the gesture of the subjects to show it feelings, he also admires the faces and facial expressions to help. in song of myself, Ernie uses the facial expressions to show pleasure an comfort the subject has playing his guitar.

 

sources:

http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/ernie-barnes-1938-2009-song-of-myself.-33-c-36eb3f6151

http://erniebarnes.com/

 

 

Ryan Woodward

A great way of capturing emotion in an artist way is gesture; the figure can make the viewer more aware of the feelings of a subject as it shows its subliminal nature and the mental state, sometimes greater than the face could. A great example of this is Ryan Woodward, renown for his work with conte animated; he uses the gesture in a very successful way to show the subjects emotions without any need for detail with facial expressions.

 

sources:

http://ryanwoodwardart.com/

http://ryanwoodwardart.com/commissioned-works/amor-a-vida/

 

Van Gogh

Van Gogh is probably the greatest example to use as a representation of an emotional aspect, the various paintings he has crafted shows a varied range of emotions, racing up and down the emotional spectrum fleeting from the bright colorful images of the flowers, birds, landscapes and the vibrant starry night, to the dark dismal portrayal of the workers and strangers in a bar with ‘weathered faces lined in pain’ – Don McLean, Vincent

Even dealing with his own emotional problems he still managed to create his amazing selection.

Van Gogh has perfectly captured the emotion of a lonely man waiting for something or someone, he accentuates this by his use of color, blue being a cold color predominates the image and shows brings the feelings to light.

 

In a similar way with the last image, by once again overpowering the image using brown in contrast as a cold color, he also once again captures the intent of the subjects face and the idea behind the emotions it exposes.

 

Although he once again uses the color blue in this piece, he shows how the color can be used to show a positive effect, the contrast between the blue and yellow give a very warm feeling rather then blues intended cold.

 



sources:

http://www.vangoghgallery.com

http://www.artble.com/artists/vincent_van_gogh

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Woman-Who-Brought-Van-Gogh-to-the-World.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM

Vision

The theme for the year’s first project is 'Vision'.

I have interpreted this into the visual representation of an emotional state.  Using an artistic and psychological mixture to depict the expression someone or something displays, whether it is facial expressions, body language, or a mixture of the two.

Emotions are somewhat a cryptic behaviour, the scientific method of describing them would be to say that different chemical reactions cause us to act in different ways, but can also be explained with many psychological theories.

here is a list of emotions:

Affection, Anger, Angst, Anguish, Annoyance, Anxiety, Apathy, Arousal, Awe, Boredom, Confidence, Contempt, Contentment, Courage, Curiosity, Depression, Desire, Despair, Disappointment, Disgust, Distrust, Dread, Ecstasy, Embarrassment, Envy, Euphoria, Excitement, Fear, Frustration, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Hatred ,Hope, Horror, Hostility, Hurt, Hysteria, Indifference, Interest, Jealousy, Joy, Loathing, Loneliness, Love, Lust, Outrage, Panic, Passion, Pity, Pleasure, Pride, Rage, Regret, Relief, Remorse, 

Sadness, Satisfaction, Self-confidence, Shame, Shock, Shyness, Sorrow, Suffering, Surprise, Terror, Trust, Wonder, Worry, Zeal, Zest 

(all emotions have hyper-links to Wikipedia description)

Trying to interpreter the emotions will prove both difficult and interesting, but hopefully I will be 

able to effectively represent them in a distinct fashion.

During the course of the future projects I will be staying to my strengths and for the majority of the time will be drawing and painting, but I will also attempt to use a wider selection of different mediums.

sources:

http://alleydog.com/topics/emotion.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion