Over the past few weeks in visual art, students were asked to set up a space in the home and collect materials to work with throughout the term. It has been a delight seeing all of the wonderful responses that students have posted.
Creating a space of your own is an important when beginning a creative project or activity. It can be a place where you lose yourself for a while, where the world can come to you through your imagination, or your collections, or a provocation or an idea.
“Here in a little lonely room I am master of earth and sea,
And the planets come to me.”
(British poet and critic, Arthur Symons)
Claudia responded so beautifully to the idea of using recycled papers just as Sara Fanelli does. This is a fantastic drawing using felt tip on newspaper. She has really demonstrated how, with a bit of imagination and flexibility, you can use a range of materials when making and creating.
Finn has chosen an outside studio. Artists call this way of working En Plein Air – this means that artists left the four walls of their studio behind and experienced painting and drawing in the landscape.
The second provocation relates to a group of artists that have an interest in the home. As we are all spending a lot of our time in our homes over the next few weeks, it will be fun to use this experience to look at how artists in recent history have created art works about the home. We have seen lots of images of paintings that show still life images of things around the home, but there is a group of artists that viewed the subject matter of the home in a very interesting way!
In the 1950’s and 60’s in Britain, a group of artists were very interested about life in the home and the day to day events that happened in the home. They were called The Kitchen Sink Artists because they were interested in drawing and painting things that weren’t glamorous or very beautiful, but instead showed the world, through their paintings, the everyday life of ordinary people. They painted every type of food and drink, utensil, furniture, the kitchen sink, the kitchen table and all the clutter on it, the back garden and even the toilet!!
This is one of the Kitchen Sink Artists, John Bratby’s view of his breakfast table.
Bratby not only chose the kitchen as a subject, but also the bathroom. Below is a painting of John Bratby’s toilet! He made three paintings of toilets and at least three of bathrooms!
Students were asked to draw their own favourite room in their house.
They were asked to, before commencing their drawing and reflecting on their subject matter, to look around the home very carefully. They were asked what they noticed first. What were they drawn to? Was it a favourite chair? Cushions? Some books or paintings or posters on the wall?
Below are some students’ responses:
“This is a drawing of the window in my kitchen. It has an amazing view of the city that is why it is my favourite place in my house.” Hugo
‘This is my drawing of my favourite room my bedroom’ Hendrix
”After colouring. the chair is actually white but I decided that I would make it red to add a bit more colour because my house is very plain and white” Hamish
‘This is a picture when my room was very messy. The pictures on the wall are presents from my grandparents. The artist’s name is Dean Bowen’. Alexander
‘For art I have decided to draw the study. If you would like to compare it with the real thing, there is a photo of the room on the next slide (I took the photo after I drew the room. I did not trace the photo)’Siena
You can see from these drawings and paintings that there is an emotional connection between the artists and spaces in the home and the choice of room. This first provocation has highlighted that the composition of an art work, what an artist decides to draw and paint, what they include in it, and what they choose to highlight within it are very important considerations.
Examining the composition of our work and what we choses to highlight within our work will thing we consider over the next few weeks in our exploration of the Kitchen Sink Artists.