Helen – Is there a specific reason as to why you were so drawn to the idea of the male gaze and the dominance of the male figurehead that drove you to create your work?
Ying – Despite your film being about your girlfriend and her dreams, what do you think it says about you and your relationship with her?
Rui – In working with your subconscious mind, what do you find intriguing about it?
The subconscious mind is important to me because it allows for me to recollect and attempt to understand what my conscious mind cannot. It also allows for me to have a better comprehension of my conscious mind.
In creating this project, I have had a diverse selection of inspiration, ranging from all sorts of different media including but not limited to, David Shrigley, Tracey Emin, Joseph Parra, Louise Bourgeois, and others. They have inspired me with both their content and their contexts, why they work as well as how they perform in their work.
In viewing my work, I hope to allow the viewer to further undergo a deeply personal evaluation of my mind and what crosses through it. I hope that by viewing my work, the audience finds an inner connection to what I am creating – Even if they don’t understand or care to acknowledge why or how, I hope to get across the idea that at the end of the day, despite all of our deep-seated issues, we are the same.
Because my work for this project is so personal and so evaluative, both in content and in colour, as well as construct, I think I am, in a way, conveying a woman’s perspective. There is something deeply critical and daughterly about the work in this project for me that I believe is not entirely overtly that of a woman’s work, but does convey it in some sense.
For me, as a woman, I believe that making work is about revisiting and deconstructing my past in relation to my development. Obviously both men and women can have deeply-ridden pasts, but I am a firm believer that women carry pasts so delicate and intricate to that of men – We embrace it more, whether for better or for worse, in an effort to constantly understand and question our selves and what it is to be a woman. Throughout time, it has always been an ongoing struggle for women in development and growth, and at some points in contemporary times, it still is.
Despite my work being about my development and growth as a woman, it is also about my development and growth as a person; as a human being. My target audience is not limited; If you feel connected and drawn to my work, then you are my target audience – You are who I’m identifying with.
‘Throbbing Pulse’, 1944:
“My work has to do with a defense against fervor. People are always in a rush. To do what? To do nothing! There is a kind of fervor that is completely meaningless. This drawing is a call for meditation…. I am an insomniac, so for me the state of being asleep is paradise. It is a paradise I can never reach. But I still try to conquer the insomnia, and to a large extent I have done it; it is conquerable. My drawings are a kind of rocking or stroking and an attempt at finding peace. Peaceful rhythm. Like rocking a baby to sleep.”
David Shrigley is a Glasgow-based artist that appears to work almost entirely within his subconscious. His work appears dark, humoured, and disquieting.
In working with my subconscious, 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. I am exploring the uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory that is my self, exposing the fear and inhibitions I have with it.
“Just a note –
Memories and stories are what holds our souls and lives together, binds us and heals us, makes us whole. Memory is the centre of our souls and our lives; the story is what makes it real.
So enjoy yourself and have good stories and memories.”
— Note from my grandmother to my grandfather.
Cleansing agents are substances, usually liquids, that are used to remove dirt, including dust, stains, bad smells, and clutter on surfaces. Purposed of cleansing agents include health, beauty, absence of offensive odor, avoidance of shame, and avoidance of spreading dirt and contaminants to oneself and others. Some cleansing agents can kill bacteria and clean at the same time.
There are four general types of cleansing agents, such as:
Common cleansing agents:
Thinking of ways to ‘cleanse’ my images..
From ‘Decorticate’ series.
– Concept of meticulously tearing/cutting/eating away at the image.