Critique

Work being critiqued: https://www.laurensimons.art/post/install-and-abstract-1

Artist recommendations:

• Isa Genzken

• Lily Vanderstocker

• Nicholas Party

• Charles Ray

• Hague Yang

• Charlotte Posenenska

Comments:

• Construction of boxes.

• Building materials.

• Plywood and screws.

• Construction very visible; in a way that furniture and architecture tries to hide all the fixings, whereas this is all exposed and we can see the screws and the inside of the objects.

• Very fresh.

• Structured but theres also an element of fragmentation.

• Not an ordered presentation.

• Abstract structure compared to the columns and beams that structurally support the architecture of the space.

• Relates to an idea (facial blindness) done wisely, how they join. I know that they relate and don't relate, it's like that fracture.

• Like a jigsaw puzzle or building blocks.

• Works from all different angles, no matter where you are, you see a different part of the drawing, in a different part of the story.

• Opened up to the viewer to talk about it.

• Gestalt - A gestalt is like seeing the whole of something. A thing in the round. A kind of psychological term but you also get it a lot in discussion of early minimalist work. The idea of a whole thing, a complete thing.

• Work kind of denies the gestalt.

• Pared back, simple colours.

• Washy look.

• Mind.

• Opportunities to go further with each individual part.

• Playing with the idea of a traditional gallery presentation, and making the plinth a canvas.

• Can imagine the works stacked high.

• More effect on the body.

• What happens if you change the solid right angle structure and change the shape? Maybe hinges? Less panels on one? More panels on another?

• Child like colour.

• Age regression.

• Could paint on the surfaces of children's building blocks, and build a structure into the gallery space.

• Mention of flashbacks and memory of childhood.

• Storage / containment.

• Plywood is full of faces.

• Becomes surrealist.

• Trace faces that you can see already in the material.

• Playful.

• Figurative sculpture.

• Would it be stronger if you cant see the inside?

• Balance the structure so they don't look balanced.

• Extend drawings onto the wall and the floor would change the relationship between the object and the painting.

• Viewers were drawn to the work that had the legs jutting out of the structure and onto the floor.

• Viewers enjoyed the slight numerous and playfulness.

• Can we make this more uncanny and strange?

• Push this further.

• Make them more standardised in sized. Opens up more opportunity to mix and match in the future.

• Lego.

• Potential for audience participation.

• Thinking about the fragmentation and the changing, you move, and then the image is slightly different again, you could enhance all of those things.

• More simple arrangement could work better.

• Feels like they [images] are going to start moving.

• Images could move in the space.

• Moving image.

• Images floating around.

• It feels like stop motion.

• Stop motion / movement.

• Stop motion in the whole space. Could you use something suspended or something spinning. Something moving on it.

• Light and the colours you use, particularly the CMY colours you use, if you were shining lights at different angles, or the lights change, it could alter the perception of what you're seeing.

• Lighting / colour interaction.

I found this critique to be really interesting (and to be honest, quite a shock) as there was quite a lot of mention about movement, stop motion, lighting, light projection, etc, which felt more aligned with some of my previous works for a few years ago which utilised lighting effects to actively chane the image of what the viewer was seeing. I have tried to avoid this type of work for a while now as I wanted to see my work grow and develop, and try different and new things. These comments have got me questioning whether or not I look into somehow combining my current developing ideas and work with this (or another) form of lighting projection.

How could I do this?

Does it work contextually?

If I did look into doing this, how can I make the light project feel like it is a part of the work and not just a tool?