Art

My painting of my Grandmother (2013)

My Passion & Inspiration 

Galleries are a great passion of mine and they are is always at the top of my lift of things 'To Do' when I visit London. Visiting the Courtauld Gallery, I was very impressed by it collection of early Renaissance art through to the 20^th century art, and I particularly enjoyed the impressionist and post impressionist paintings, in particular, Edouard Manet’s A Bar At the Folies-Berère. However, I very much thought that although these awe-inspiring works of art were impressive, they didn’t make me want to talk about them or develop a connection when them that I thought I may be able to develop in my own work.

It wasn’t until I visited the Tate Modern museum and entered the Damien Hurst exhibition, where I could truly connect with what he was trying to achieve. What excited me about his work was that although it is quite controversial and not necessarily many people’s depiction of ‘art,’ it was the first exhibition I have ever been to which actually got people talking. Hirsts, A Thousand Years, 1990 was particularly thought provoking. As I walked into one of the rooms, I noticed a gathering of people surrounding a glass vitrine, which dominated the center of one of the room. Before I took a look at the contents of this glass box, I was intrigued by people’s reaction to the art. Some took a look and instantly looked away, some gave it a look of disapproval, where as others were intrigued by it and although holding their nose, they stood, staring at this mysterious box for quite some time as it clearly interested excited them. This white, minimalistic box contained a cubicle, which feeds flies, which fed on a cow’s severed head which rots where the blood from the head is still flesh. Then in the cubicle, there is an insect-O-cutor where some flies survive and some are killed. This powerful piece of art familiarizes themes such as life and death where the artist is the ultimate creator. I therefore decided that the theme of life and death is an aspect that I want to incorporate into my work as it induces different responses that can touch people in different ways. Hirsts use of the cows head and blood stimulated my imagination to incorporate meat into my work. I believe that by incorporating an aspect into my work, which once had a life, but that life was taken away from it very heartlessly, mean that people will be able to connect and interpret my work in different ways.

Having visited the Tate Modern, I had an idea of they type of work that I wanted to pursue, however it wasn’t until I visited The National Portrait Gallery that I began to finalise my ideas. I read a quote that generated my interest into portraiture. It read;

‘I’ve always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It’s people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories’ Lucian Freud.

I decided that somehow, by incorporating the human figure in my paintings like Freud,  I would be able to combine their gestures and facial expressions to demonstrate the psychological drama and unrelenting observational intensity into my work.