29 March, Framing and portfolio, painting.

Finished my draft exhibition proposal and I'm really happy with it. My 250 word statement is easily understandable, starts from the beginning and is should encourage conversations. My proposal has a couple of elements of engagement as well as the visual paintings so yeah. Happy. . and receptive to feedback and changes obviously, but it's a better start that I thought I'd be making when I didn't have a plan and was just hanging paintings. There's some really interesting installation and performance happening this year so I didn't want a white wall and a nail.

So.. (no doubt this will change because I overthink it) .. 249 words for the 250 word artist statement:

Lorna is interested in how women and the maternal have been impacted by the human desire to dominate nature.  Could this control have impacted what we recognise as a family unit, normal domestic life, and our relationship with nature?  

To create these artworks, Lorna has looked at a historical co-existence of belief systems, exploring traces of social behaviour from the 17^th Century. At this time apotropaic marks (often referred to as witch marks) were commonplace.  These protective marks were carved in or around the boundaries of homesteads to prevent evil from entering.  At the time that they were created, ‘cunning folk’ with nature-based beliefs were under pressure to embrace a new way of life. Recluses, strangers, and anyone that didn’t appear normal or caused distrust were at risk of being accused of witchcraft.

 

Lorna is interested in how we read visual language and if this correlates with historical events, and if we acknowledge the impact of this time on our contemporary way of life.  In her artworks, Lorna’s paintings feature iconography in the form of apples, witches’ hats and apotropaic marks to explore our societal family norms, in particular the role of women in the home.  Often working with print and mixed media to explore the process of planning and composition, Lorna deploys a range of artistic approaches. She references photographs to identify subjects or situations that can be redacted and recreated to form oil paintings. Her intention is to make a situational or atmospheric connection with the audience. 

Took a shadowy stroll and mother grundy into the framers and picked up the emulsion for the exhibtion. Have requested by 20th April so it's approx 3 weeks - but I figure it'll give me time to play with the curatorial arrangement ahead of the installation week. 

Also took a quick look at Engles on you tube - found a talk by the socialist party (In defence of Engels) that was actually quite insightful and connected a few things re property ownership and themes globally - Still struggling to read at the moment so trying to sneak in video and pod casts. 

However I have just received a new book - In defence of witches by Mona Chollet female re historical female archetypes of witches - that still exist now: women who don't want to be mothers / women who embrace ageing and independent women.. I'll get stuck into this.

Had another pass at this - I want the detail in the core but miss the colour I had before - not sure if its because I was used to looking at the previous version or if I need to change it back - - I felt like the sides were too light and I lost the depth that the dark tones gave - almost felt like I needed to just reverse everything I'd just done to the way it was yesterday (left)

Worked the dark tones back in

Worked some of the skin texture details back in to the bottom of the apple and lifted the core with highlights.

checking the works together as they're intended to be a diptych of sorts - led me to look at diptychs information