Camberwell
MA Painting
Project Space
Sunaina Khandelwal
13 - 19 July
Day 1 - Introduction
(13/07/2020)
Hey everyone and welcome! Below are some examples of works I had made earlier on in this unit and wanted to share them with you so you all can get an essence of my practice and how it relates to some of the ideas briefly mentioned in the videos. I have also included a few sentences about my practice below- Enjoy!
'Transition', 2020
Clay powder and charcoal in resin
'Cultural History', 2020
Yellow Ochre chalk pastels, plaster and digital overlay of 'Georgio Vasari's 'Hall of 500'
'Painting's Materiality as an object', 2020
Digital overlay onto resin
''Reeves', 2020
Charcoal, plaster and digital overlay
I am currently working with industrially produced artist colours (specifically earth pigments) as I am interested in exploring the notion of how these colours can be represented as paintings within themselves rather than mere constituent parts of a bigger picture (painting) within art practices. Certain colours within their names (such as Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber etc..) hold a historic weight while their materiality freezes a sense of time.
As a result, this can be understood through the alchemy of painting from the perspective of artist's pigments. I have specifically chosen to work with industrially produced earth pigments since my initial ideas were focused on creating an essence of 'prehistory' through materiality. Industrially produced paints often categorise their colours by names such as 'Raw Sienna, Red Ochre, etc..) and these names already hold a significance in history and the contemporary world, but what interests me is why and how these manufacturers decide to name a particular colour the way they do. Again, this is something I aim to further research and answer through the alchemy of painting from the perspective of colour.
Sketchbook pages
Below are some shots of my recent sketchbook pages that showcase both my messy writing and planning of ideas!
After attending a lecture about Catriona Leahy's work, although conceptually differing from mine, I was intrigued by one of her pieces where she collected bags of carbon powder from a mine and then piled it up on black card and photographed it as if it were a mound of earth from a mining excavation. This informed the below experiments where I took a bag of clay powder and piled it up onto a piece of white card and photographed it as if it were a part of an archaeological dig.
I had then digitally overlayed Yellow Ochre that was manufactured by Georgian Oil paints onto the mound of clay in order to experiment with the idea of how Ochre is a commonly occurring colour that is rooted within the grounds of the earth. The use of the industrially manufactured paint was to reiterate the idea of how contemporary tools of colour manifest and appear to carry on a historic identity within the contemporary art world.. My work represents these colours in object form to add a certain weight onto these materials because once they are taken out of a painting and represented as individual mediums rather than constituent parts of an artwork, they automatically possess a weight of their own that is embeded within their materiality.
Some sketchbook pages that were used to plan the next steps of developing my plaster cubes
Day 2- Making the plaster cubes
(14/07/2020)
These are some images of the process behind making the plaster cubes. The ratio of plaster: water was 2:1. Plaster sets relatively quickly so it is crucial that I add whatever materials needed on the surface of the cube immediately while it is still in a liquid/ semi liquid form.
Checkout the video to see the artist at work!
Letting the plaster mould set for the next 24 hours. On day 3 of the residency I will be showing you guys how I digitally overlay the colours onto both the plaster and resin cubes. The colours that I am prominently using within my practice are presented below
Colour swatches
Pebeo, Yellow Ochre
Georgian Oils, Yellow Ochre
Michael Harding, Yellow Ochre
Winsor and Newton, Yellow Ochre
Pebeo, Red Ochre
Georgian Oils, Raw Umber
Michael Harding, Van Dyke Brown
Georgian Oils, French Ultramarine
Georgian Oils, Titanium White
Day 3- Potential display ideas
(15/07/2020)
After a chat with my course leader (Geraint Evans) yesterday, I began to think about possible proposals/ plans that I could develop for this Unit. My work is currently addressing ideas associated with colour,contemporary art and Science (alchemy). As a result, Geraint suggested that I start thinking about how I can manifest these ideas within my methods of display. Some ideas discussed:
1. Instead of using the 'cube' shape as a constant recurring structure perhaps think about creating similar works but in the form of alchemist's/ scientist's tools? (such as test tubes, petri dishes etc..)
2. Perhaps create another time lapse video (as above) this time only showcasing your hands doing the work (referencing some sort of alchemical reaction?) What materials could you use to create this effect? Perhaps materials around the house? This video could be the art work within itself.
3. Think about how you want to present your work- as collections? categorising these colours that abstractedly represent the science within them.
As a result of this, I began sketching out some ideas in my sketchbook in order to roughly visualise them on paper. I will start to physically testing these ideas out in the coming days.
Day 4- Potential display ideas #2
(16/07/2020)
Started to think about ideas around how I could display / present colour as alchemical/ scientific objects if and when i get a chance to physically present my work.
I digitally overlayed some colours onto these chemical tools in order to experiment with the above ideas and tested out a method of display within my shelf.
I was then experimenting with various lighting effects in photoshop in order to create a mystic/ magical ambience and 'accidentally', decreased the brightness way too much but it ended up producing an interesting effect where the reflections of the room light on my shelf obtained this almost deep fire like reflection. Once again, this idea of 'chance' held within in my process of working coincides well with the notion of how a painter's work is infact a chemical reaction.
Here are the individual objects that were used in the above method of display. All of these are just proposal pieces for when I get a chance to physically make these objects in person.
Day 5- Experimentation
(17/07/2020)
Above is just a photograph of the empty cabinet I will be using in order to experiment with methods of displays.
As my work was developing according to my interest in the alchemy behind colour, I experimented with creating this quick video where I overlayed the smoke given from my incense onto these achemical objects in order to create an abstracted sense of 'fumes' from a chemical reaction. Th software I used for this test was Premier Pro.
Day 6
(18/07/2020)
By this time I was just spending days researching and experimenting with various ideas in order to obtain some clarity with the direction of my work. So...things will not be as intense during the next two days of the residency!
BUT here is another time lapse video of my lovely hands working to created a 'colured' plaster solution for some moulds. The painter's process is very much like that of an Alchemist's I must say!
Day 7- LAST DAY!
(19/07/2020)
Well then! Today is the last day of the residency and if you have made it this far then thank you for keeping up with me for the last 7 days!
It has been a great experience to be a part of this one week e-residency and I have definitely learned a lot from constantly making and researching as it has kept me in touch with my practice and provided me with a lot of clarity as to what I am hoping to achieve by the end of this unit. To conclude, here are some new experiments I made today as I have started thinking about ways of presenting colour as collections.
After careful thought I came to the conclusion that the alchemy behind 'pigments' is only one aspect of my practice I aim to research. It falls under the cover all theme of my work where I have experimenting with how artist's pigments can freeze a sense of time and history that is embedded within their materiality and name.
French Ultramarine
Cobalt Blue
Cerulean Blue
French Ultramrine
Cerulean Blue
Cobalt Blue
Prussian Blue
The colour swatch with 4 different layers of all the blue oil paints in my posession have been layered on top of one another translucently in order of when they were first used as artist's pigments. Reason for the translucent bands of blue is so that the audience can see through the top layer and through to the other pre-existing layers of colour that manifest a sense of history and time within their materiality and names. It is almost like the build up of these multiple shades of blue act as a metaphor for the constant reproduction of this one colour in different ways in the form of artist pigments.
'Blue Collection', 2020
French Ultramarine
Cerulean Blue
Cobalt Blue
I will be adding two more colours to this collection and these will be 'Prussian Blue' and 'Pthalo Blue'. My aim is to create 3 colour collections (Red, Blue and Yellow) and present each group as an individual collection. Reason for choosing these specific colour categories is because they are said to be the primary colours for artist's pigments. Hopefully, once these colour collections are complete I will test out display ideas within the shelves in my room.
THANK YOU!
Do checkout more of my work here:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sunainaart97/?hl=en
Website: https://www.sunainakbart.com/
