Professional Practice Unit 2 and 3

The Blood Moon Over the Lotus Temple; BAME sisters: The Gender Pay Gap; Re-Rooting

Women in Saudi Arabia dreaming of being allowed to drive MP 4

Unit 2:

In Unit 2 I have furthered my skills in painting by challenging myself to ‘Think Gallery’ and therefore to paint big. Having got over the initial resistance and frustration of not knowing how to go about painting on large supports, I produced The Blood Moon Over the Lotus Temple (120  x100 cm oils), BAME sisters: The Gender Pay Gap (90 x 90 cm mixed media). I also experimented with the use of found objects such as earrings. I participated in the Exhibition titled ‘Dissecting the Archive’ held at Wimbledon UAL for which I produced a series of digital paintings that I looped together into a video presentation of my response to Philip Gustons’ Ku Klux Klan (Women in Saudi Arabia dreaming of being allowed to drive- Inspire Pro video) . I also experimented with clay and gold leaf on black paint in the painting Re-Rooting (88 x 88 cm. mixed media) and I contributed this piece to the Exhibition titled ‘Artopia’ held in January 2019 at the Yunus Emre Institute in central London.

 I am now interested in producing a video consisting of autobiographical clippings related to what it feels like to be 65. To this end, Anna Bunting Branch has alerted me to the fact of 360 degree cameras and I am learning to use one.

 I am tentatively playing with the idea of entering some of my art into local exhibitions but will need to seek advice on this.

Unit 3:

For Unit 3, I undertook 2 trips, one to India and the other to Japan and talked with the art historian Benoy Behl, the psycho-geographer Gareth Jones, the clinical psychologist, philosopher and Buddhist, Dr Lorraine Nanke and the counselling psychologist, Ruth Cocksedge. These interdisciplinary endeavours expanded my awareness of life and of painting when seen with different lenses.  I have deepened my knowledge of Buddhist art both in India and in Japan. I have explored the concept of Wabi Sabi and am building this concept, which includes notions of impermanence, incompleteness and imperfection, into my current paintings. Thus I have begun work (The 6 am Paintings 120 x 210 cm felt pen) with crude and rustic utensils such as Sharpies (felt pens) and cheap sketchbook paper. As subject matter I am using autobiographical experiences that embody impermanence and insignificance, thus coaxing beauty of what might traditionally be deemed as ‘ugly’.