Galleries e-mailed
by helen608
- A side, B side Gallery, Hackney
- Other Gallery, Dalston
- CGP London, Canada Water
- CAA, Southwark
“…a polka-dot has the form of the sun, which is a symbol of the energy of the whole world and our living life, and also the form of the moon, which is calm. Round, soft, colorful, senseless and unknowing. Polka-dots become movement… Polka dots are a way to infinity.”
Kusama’s work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes of feminism,minimalism, surrealism, Art brut, pop art, and abstract expressionism, and is infused with autobiographical, psychological, and sexual content.
This project took on a personal approach for me in the form of the self portrait, both in literal and figurative terms. I decided to concentrate solely on what drives me and my practice – My self and my mind. In working with my subconscious mind, I am allowing myself to rid my self of any inhibitions, thoughts, tyrants; anything. I am literally just doing, and using that concept of ‘do’ to control my work and to see it through, not limiting myself to any materials, resources, or manipulations. I am exploring the uncomfortable and the unfamiliar territory that is my self, exposing the fear and the inhibitions that I have with it.
The subconscious mind is important to me because it allows for me to recollect and attempt to understand what my conscious mind cannot by itself. It also allows for me to have a better comprehension of my conscious mind. In relation to this project, I believe that making this work is about revisiting and deconstructing my past in relation to my development as an artist thus far, and I am willing to explore that through this practice.
In relating my research towards my project for this term, a lot of artists I looked at mostly interested me in their theory of practice as opposed to just their final imagery. A lot of the work that I created, especially that of my drawings and my writings, was almost if not entirely created by myself without attempting to reference anyone else – Any other artists. However, after creating some sample imagery, I found that my research fits in almost perfectly well with what I was creating, in attempting to further understand my practice as well as allowing to further develop it. Tracey Emin’s work is completely uninhibited; She allows her life’s events to unravel themselves into what she creates without too much critique or structure to manipulate it. I particularly found what she is perhaps most known for, her drawings and writings, influential to my practice for this term. Another great artist, Louise Bourgeois, influenced me with her ‘Insomnia Drawings’ that she created between November 1994 to June 1995 – 220 drawings and writings created to help the artist fall asleep. The repetitive, yet complexity of this work again aided me in my own drawings and writings. Joseph Parra is an American artist who creates abstracted, manipulated portraits of individuals through the process of screen printing and charcoal drawings. His intricacies in his ‘Braided’ series interests me deeply; Here we see the individual restricted behind this ‘mask’, of sorts, that has been created for them, creating an almost silencing factor to the portrait, the intricate ties of the braids ridding the portrait of identity and worth.
To Helen,
Does your thought of man’s gaze has anything engage with Anima and Animus?
To Ying,
Have you found out any exact identity of you from your friend?
To Killian ,
As what you mentioned on your work, I agree that a work can perform how a person work on his/her work. However, have you ever thought about whether there is anything you do on intention while being watched by audience?
My work is about exploring myself by Jungian’s self psychology which focused on 3 key words consciousness, sub consciousness and unity. I made a contrast between two different types of images: a well staged constructed pictures and one taking by sub consciousness to compare the different states of my mind.
According to Jung, the “self” is realized as the product of individuation and a process of integrating one’s personality. I wanted to visualize and exam the term of Jungian’s “self” to help me conscious of the ego that reflected by my sub consciousness. For example, I made a whirlpool that I dreamed about which represent my earliest memories and state of mind flowing around and around reaching the state of my mind of now. This is supposed to be my sub consciousness when I fell asleep. However, I use my conscious mind to record and replay the exactly same scene of my dream to find the hiding emotions and ambitions that I had not yet recognized.
As a result, I found out the consciousness and sub consciousness are not easy to compare but dependent on each other. As far as I understand how both conscious and unconscious mind work together, I can use their combined power to achieve my personal growth. In addition, seeing the reflection from both my sub consciousness and me within the unity shall help me to process a self-development.