Oliver Reed

Oliver Reed

 

A couple of weeks ago the artist Oliver Reed came into college and gave a presentation on his past and upcoming works.

 

Out of all of Reed's works I liked his 2012 painting "Thicket" the most. This was created using oil on board.
I love the eerie atmosphere in this painting. Almost like you've just been chased through a wood by shadows and ended up stood in a  static position, looking around and have found yourself gazing upon a darker part of the hedges, wondering what may be lurking in that shadow. I think all the elements in this whole piece work together to create the eerie atmosphere. At first I felt it was just because of the darker patch in the centre but now I can see. The lighter, misty colours and other more dead looking plants around it give off a mysterious feel and somewhat a rather calm element in the background. It is when the darker shadow is formed you really start to feel worried, almost as if something is going to jump out and attack!

Sam Cornwell (photographer)

Sam Cornwell-Photographer

Sam Cornwell is a well known photographer and astro-photographer. He won astronomy photographer of the year 2014 with the picture below.

Venus Transit, Foxhunter’s Grave, Welsh Highlands by Sam Cornwell

 He uses many different cameras but when asked what camera he favoured he replied, saying he preferred the use of disposable cameras. The fact you don't quite know exactly how they will come out. The idea of no editing or digitally removing anything from the image.

I really like his wet plate collodion photographs. The sheer realistic and three dimensional look of the subjects
in the photos which are created by such a simple device. My favourites are of the roses. I think mainly because of the actual shapes in the photo and again, its incredible three dimensional feel.

For more information and works by Sam Cornwell visit- http://samcornwell.tumblr.com/ 

Magazine front cover- Animal Testing for Cosmetics (Sculpture)

 

 Magazine front cover- Animal Testing for Cosmetics

 

This piece was actually for a unit at college not so long ago! We were given the task of presenting a magazine front cover to the class at the end of however long we had, cant quite remember. I tackled this in a rather different way to others.. At first I did actually have the idea of a flat, normal looking magazine front cover but when I came across pictures of an animal testing protest that was held in a shop window it changed my ideas completely. To the right: The woman is strapped down, force-fed, shaved, humiliated and a whole load of different, ungodly acts are

carried out on her. All to raise the awareness of animal tests and how the animals are actually treated in the labs. I loved how hard-hitting this was! It wasn't just a sheet of paper saying, Animal Testing is WRONGGG! or BAN ANIMAL TESTING! This was straight out there, drawing people in! If no one ever knew what animal testing was or what it was like in a lab, they sure as hell knew now! I wanted my front cover to be like this. I wanted it to make you pause and look closer. I wanted to leave the viewer with at least a little more of an idea of what it was like for such animals in a lab and in this case, rabbits. I was at my end of year art exhibition and I made sure this was definitely in with my other work! I did see a lot of people taking a look at my sculpture but stayed back and just let people make their own mind up about my piece.

 

I made the rabbits out of air drying clay (not the best idea, as they are way too easily broken! Especially with the fragile ears) and then covered the clay in cotton wool which was slightly coated in water mixed with PVA glue. I used inks and watered down paint for the blood in the piece and the shredded paper which you can see to the left and in both cages, were actually papers from old animal testing essays and sheets I used to plan out such essays. I felt it was a nice touch, even though the viewer wouldn't know what it was, it was still there. I really tried to stick with the idea of making this a hard hitting piece so the attention to detail was a must! I even added urine stains to the cages and rabbit droppings scattered around the cages. The idea for the droppings came from a rather peculiar place.. a milkshake ..mhmmm. I was sat in class one day and took a drink of the milkshake I had bought the day before.. oh.. my.. god! Seriously I don't know what rabbit faeces actually tastes like but I bet it's got a strong similarity to that chocolate milkshake! At the same time in class a girl was putting paper in a blender and placing the pieces into water. It got me thinking.. I wonder what would happen if I put the milkshake in the blender then added water? So I went for it! The results were perfect! Exactly what I needed. The consistency was perfect and well.. it looked as it should. I let it dry out and as we all know.. if you leave things like that out for too long in an environment it shouldn't be in, it will go mouldy! People said throw it out but I felt it added more detail to the sculpture. These rabbits have been left in a cage for a long time, only ever been let out to be tested on then thrown back in. These cages have never been

cleaned so the dropping will in fact become clumped

together as they fester in the cages. In the end I

 ripped off small pieces of the moulding paper, rolled

 it up into small dropping like balls and painted then

 with a dark brown acrylic leaving only some big chunks. To the right: Probably the strongest part of the whole sculpture. A rabbit being cut open with its ribs showing and the blood everywhere! When you see the entire sculpture from the front you can see all the blood which has poured out and run down the sides. I used slightly different coloured inks to resemble older blood stains from past rabbits. The knife- made from air drying clay and acrylic paint on top. An error which worked in my favour was when I filled the rabbits body with red ink, I didn't think it would come pouring out but it did! and soaked completely into the rabbits head (cotton wool). I actually think it shows more brutality towards the animal and that's exactly what I want to show!

 

It was almost time to hand in the piece when I had yet another idea. You cant see what it was like but before it had the bin inside: to the left. It was just a box (symbolizing the counter to which the animal was being tested on). I felt like something was missing and it just came to me while using the gloves that people in the labs will need to throw used gloves/equipment away. So that's where the idea of the bin came from. The excessive amount of blood and gloves etc. were used to convey the idea of rabbits being tested on repeatedly and not only the four rabbits in this sculpture, but many more! The tissue soaked in red ink was used as a visual scare and also to show life-threatening amounts of blood loss to the animals.  

 

Not forgetting that this is supposed to be a magazine front page, I added the 'Title' of the piece to the side of the sculpture.. "Ban Tests on Animals for Cosmetics". At first there was only a mirror sat in the corner, just adding a spherical shape to the otherwise fully square and rectangular sculpture but then I noticed something. The mirror reflected perfectly against the side of the 'counter'.. it was quite bare and the idea pretty much came to me straight away for what could fill the space. I like the fact that the mirror makes you look even closer to the sculpture and when you come at it from the side and see the backwards text, it draws you in because you feel the urge to understand what it means!

 

In conclusion I feel my magazine cover was strong in its overall look and I was happy with my outcome. I wanted to show the viewers how animals are treated in labs and just show the pure brutality carried out when animals are subject to such tests. I feel like I did in fact succeed in showing these points!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mother and Child- (Divided) 1993, Damien Hirst

 

Mother and Child-  (Divided) 1993,

Damien Hirst

 

Glass, painted steel, silicone, acrylic, monofilament, stainless steel, cow, calf and formaldehyde solution

Two parts, each (cow): 1900 x 3225 x 1090 mm | 74.8 x 127 x 42.9 in 

Two parts, each (calf): 1029 x 1689 x 625 mm | 40.5 x 66.5 x 24.6 in

 

 

Okay, so in class we were given the task of going away and searching for a work by the well known artist Damien Hirst. We had to find a piece by him and write a report on it..

 

While scrolling through works of his I was hit by "Mother and Child". There was no question, I had to take a closer look! Its true though. If you come across a picture of this you genuinely cant help but want to know more! I guess because I had done a little sculpture myself in the past, it made me a little more intrigued as to what it was about.  

 

Hirst is known for using animals in his works like in his piece, "The Immortal" where a shark is similarly preserved in a box like structure filled with  formaldehyde solution and "Away from the flock" 1994 where yet another animal (a sheep) is preserved in a tank as it were.

 

"Mother and child" consists of a female cow and its young calf, both split directly in two and preserved in two tanks (each) filled with a formaldehyde solution. According to critics of this piece, Hirst is exploring the ideas of death, ordering the death. My first thought on this (before looking a little more in depth) was the idea of being separated forever, maybe using the animals as a metaphor for humans in some way? It is said that the animals begin to decay before the exhibit is over so they have to be replaced. Which leads me on to my main question...

 

Are these animals killed for the piece, or have they died from natural/unknown causes?  I strongly believe in animal rights so to see a young calf and its mother killed for art completely turns the tables on how I'd feel about this work. When I heard that they replaced the decaying animals I began to believe more in the fact that they are just killed for the work. I mean, its not like he could just wait around for a mother and calf to die? Especially if his exhibition was already underway. People would disagree but I feel that it is just a series of unnecessary deaths. I don't care what anyone else said. Slaughtering animals for art? No. This piece is just a spectacle of human supremacy over all animals and cruelty, more than a piece of art. Imagine it was a human mother and her young baby, cut right down the middle and preserved in a see through tank! He'd most likely be jailed! But because it's an animal its okay? Why can't he use animals that have died naturally or even better, make his own!

 

I did in fact like the look of this sculpture AT FIRST. It is extremely eye catching and in that sense, works well for the use in galleries, exhibitions etc. I struggled to understand what he wanted us to think about when looking at his sculptures. I guess my thought is that an animals life and death doesn't have any value compared to a humans? The fact he has the animals killed for this use is quite unsettling and doesn't sit well with me unfortunately.