Embedding horizontality – starting points for a project
By Felicity Truscott
Hurstpierpoint school visited the DLWP looking for inspiration for a new, major A–level project. The Elizabeth Price curated exhibition, In A Dream I Saw A Way To Survive and You Were Full of Joy, is a fantastic opportunity to be inspired by over fifty different artworks and their horizontal relationships.
In the exhibition, we discussed Price’s meticulous research method, amassing associations and narratives by combining objects and images. Looking at her initial inspiration, Paulini’s Necessaire and Henry Onslow Ford’s Snowdrift the concept of horizontality in art began to embed, we went under the cloth with Metzger’s Historic photograph discussing how it altered our perception of the work, its content and possible associations. We deliberately hung around work that repelled us aesthetically or disturbed us in other ways to see if time spent with an artwork was fruitful, testing whether we trusted our own observations sufficiently to reach any new association or understanding.
Back in the studio, Katrina Palmer’s New Stone text-based piece was the starting point for making work that associates with what’s been thrown away and layers compressed down beneath the earth to become rock.
Trying to influence our own states of consciousness and sense of horizontality were elements of our experimental physical action drawing. Students scooted over materials associated with the geological cycle and compression, ash and chalk and created abstract drawings built up over repetition.
For a contrasting sense of focus and detail, the students moved between animated physical action drawing and stillness carefully observing horizontal line in the landscape outside the studio by drawing directly onto the windows reproducing only the horizontal lines.
There was a variety of work and approach reflecting individual’s characters; students and teachers influenced each other and extended ideas. At the end of the workshop, we looked together at the work, discussing it and observing how just like In A Dream I Saw A Way To Survive and You Were Full of Joy putting together a combination of images can create a bigger story we are all part of.
Elizabeth Price exhibition closes on Monday 1 May.
Find out more about the exhibition… Posted by Laura Sayers on Tuesday 25 April 2017