Big time

May 13, Studio

Beautiful Sunday Unofficial Group shots

I took some sneaky shots while Niki was directing you for group photos.
These make me emotional already... You're the stars in the universe!

Title of our exhibition:

ACTION : REACTION

Irene suggested a brilliant idea. I think it'll suit to the works you are making in general. What do you think?

Workshop on Patterns with Devon Knowles

Some pictures from the fisrt workshop on patterns with Devon Knowles on Feb 19th. You remember the patterns from nature (fractal), movie (repetition of time in "Groundhog Day"), music ("We're in the money" from the movie Gold digger) and so on. Sorry I didn't upload them right away. We were about to move from free 2D pattern drawing to 3D. Continue this work when you have some time, and make use of the idea in your art.

Workshop with Raymond Boijoly, April 1

Language and Art

Raymond Boijoly often uses language in his art, and highlights the details of quotidian elements in our daily activities. For the workshop, Raymond suggested to write a word that just came up to our mind on a folded newsprint with colour markers, but veeeery veeeery slowly so that we get "bleeding effect" from marker pens.
I found the process and the result really interesting. Let's come back to this project to finish when we have some spare time for the next couple of weeks.

who made this brilliant word?

Some mail art exercise at the end. did you mail it? 

Art of Participation

Maurizio Anzeri-to Adam

Information source: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/maurizio_anzeri_giovanni.htm

If any of you're interested in embroidery and the use in contemporary art, there is an article is in Elephant magazine issue 9. 

Maurizio Anzeri Giovanni 2009 Photographic print with embroidery 51 x 41 cm

“I’ve been collecting old photographs for a long time. A few years ago I was doing ink drawings with them and out of curiosity I stitched into one. I work a lot with threads and hand stitching, and the link to photography was a natural progression. I put tracing paper over the photo and draw on the face until it develops. Sometimes the image comes straight away, suggested by a detail on a dress or in the background, but with the majority of them I spend a lot of time drawing. Once the drawing is done, I pierce the photo with a set of needle-like tools I invented and take the paper away; the holes are obsessively paced at the same distance to convey an idea of geometry. When I begin the stitching something else happens, drawing will never do what thread will – the light changes, and at some points you can lose the face, and at others you can still see under it.”

Elliott Louis gallery Floor plan

FYI. This is a floor plan of the gallery we're going to show our works. The gallery is going to be shared with Arts Umbrella's end of the year exhibition, so it's not all for us. This means we'll have some restrictions on the space and installation as it's a private commercial gallery space, but nothing to worry yet plus it'll be a great exercise for you all.  I know some of you wanted to see the space. Feel free to visit during the gallery opening hours. 

www.elliottlouis.com

Erica Stocking's workshop on private/ public space

I believe we all enjoyed the workshop lead by Erica Stocking last Sunday on Public/private space. This is what we did.


We started with locating us and determining breadth of site together from our body, Arts Umbrella, Granville Island, Vancouver, BC... the site that takes in to account a certain level of “public”. Then we took some time to wander “site” to get to know it, and then discussed what we found out. I realised how little I understood about the building I was standing in!

Do you remember this valuable formula? I also mentioned the exactly same thing on our first class with an example of candy stacks by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Check if you're applying this to your final project. Start from yourself, and consider this artwork is for the audience to see, and what formal actions you're going to take to make it happen. 

For the second half, we brought an object from the 'site' and described it just like Erica gave us an example with her purse on its personal, formal and social side of the object. (personally that's from her friend, formally it's black etc., socially it's a vintage bag which reveals the person who owns it etc.) Then, we chose one of the description and locate it somewhere in public space. This way, you practiced a mini-version of 'site-specific' art. 
(I introduced the term 'site-specific' also on the first day with my work shown at Dr Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden. Remember?)

Examining a delicate leaf and writing things down in the shape of the leaf. 

 Everyone found something very interesting whether it's banal or unique that I didn't notice it was in the room such as this broken microscope. 

 Teresa's sharp eyes on the recycling bin. 

 Blended in

Now the objects are located and it's time for a group critique. I wished we had more time!

An iron found its new home by Blake.

I have my favourite quote from Erida of that day.
"Notice what you pay attention to, pay attention to what you notice."