Post 1: My Exhibition Proposal (pre-lockdown)
https://itssunnyinafricatoday.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/my-exhibition-proposal-before-lockdown
Post 2: Statement about my art practice
https://itssunnyinafricatoday.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/statement-about-my-art-practice-2
Post 3: Three contextual references
Mask Diary Outside artist Ruth Newell April 2020 slideshow
Mask Diary Inside artist Ruth Newell April 2020 slideshow
Raku Mask Inside Outside artist Ruth Newell April 2020 slideshow
In November 2019 I went to Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford to take photos of the masks there as research for my dissertation. I took photos of about 100 different masks:8
I like the way the items are displayed by type and not place or time so it is easy to look at everything on a particular item.
photo of my experience at Pitt Rivers where items are crammed into the museum space
The inspiration from this visit is ongoing and has now spilled over into Exposure. I am currently making 6 masks as self-portraits or emotional 3D diaries, one mask for each year at university (2015-2020).
Ruth Newell poses with bisque fired mask January 2020
Pitt Rivers inspired me because I am interested in anthropology and archaeology. I previously studied social anthropology for three years at university. The collection of half a million items is brilliant and having travelled to various countries and lived in a few cultures myself I find the pieces easily speak to me. They are familiar yet nothing actually refers to my culture. I see myself as a global citizen. I appreciate the items because they come from around the world and from different times in history.
This experience at Pitt Rivers of the dense display of everything for me echoes the 1861 painting Grand Salon Carre in the Louvre by Giueseppe Castiglione.
Artist Guiseppe Castiglione View of the Grand Salon Carre in the Louvre Museum oil on canvas 1861 800x519cm
I hope I can fill my installation walls with a lot of work like these two examples. I want the installation to be a surprise for the viewer at every new art piece they encounter. I want the installation to be a unique experience for them, but thought provoking so the viewer thinks about it afterwards and wonders at the issues touched on through the piece as a whole.
In January 2020 I started to read about exhibiting in required reading and other books I found in the library related to exhibiting. The books I read and make notes on for my final exhibition ideas were
WHAT MAKES A GREAT EXHIBTION (the essay by Glenn Adamson) and
ENGAGING SPACES : Exhibition Design Explored (by Kossman; Dejong)
where I came across the idea of the pre-museum ‘wonder room’ in the 16th century. I started to plan and design an exhibition proposal around this idea. I feel inspired to draw my own wonder room, by re-imagining a wonder room exhibit today. I feel inspired to create a wonder room in my collage mural.
Fold-out engraving from Dell’Historia Naturale Ferrante (Naples 1599), the earliest illustration of a natural history cabinet
A corner of a cabinet, painted by Frans II Francken in 1636
In “Musei Wormiani Historia”, the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worm‘s cabinet of curiosities
I also read these two books about exhibition spaces and made helpful notes that I felt were relevant to my ideas and work:
FROM STUDIO AND CUBE (by Brian O’Doherty)
ART AND ARTIFACT (The museum as a medium) by James Putnam
In February a tutor told me about The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles. The collection here belongs to art, science, ethnography and history. This reflects a ‘wonder room’ in many aspects, especially because it is captivating and interesting yet not referring to any one topic as such. The exhibits in the museum cross the line between fact and fiction, between reality and imagination which may relate to conceptual art that I make.
Front of the museum in Culver City, Los Angeles
My exhibition relates to this museum because I am also trying to answer a plethora of issues. I am touching on: exhibiting a studio with traces of the artist in it; the artist as a specimen; how the studio walls create the studio; how a female is exhibited in galleries and their body parts and the expectation of beauty; viewers becoming part of the art piece; mental illness and art therapy healing.
My installation piece is essentially trying to capture my university experience at Cardiff Met. I am presenting a personal experience as a university Fine Art student. As the viewer enters the space I have created, their shoes are removed to create a mood of awe, like entering a sacred place. By stepping into chalk and walking around the installation the viewer is collaborating with the artist (me) and making their own art on the only remaining blank canvas (the floor) without any intentional effort. This draws them closer to the artist as they view paintings, sculptural pieces, collages, mask pieces and hopefully if I have time a video piece and one or two books. All the pieces expose me, the artist in the studio space.
I am giving the viewer a look into the life of a student artist. It may be familiar to them or expected but it will be different in the sense that what matters here is not the quality of the art pieces but the points that are being made about the degree course, being an art student, a studio space, exhibiting as a female, mental health and recovery. A lot is going on conceptually and that is what this installation art piece is going to be all about!
POSTSCRIPT (SINCE LOCKDOWN)
I am going to do a visualisation of a virtual exhibition on ArtStep.com. In January 2019 I spent a day in the renovated Bath Spa for my birthday. I am inspired, for my online exhibition plan, by the different themed rooms in Thermae Bath Spa which relate to self care and well being. In the Wellness Suite at Bath Spa, I had six completely different experiences related to wellbeing : a Roman Steam Room, Georgian Steam Room, Infrared Room, Ice Chamber, Celestial Relaxation Room and Experience Showers.
the Roman steam room in the Spa
the Georgian steam room in the Spa
the infrared room in the Spa
the ice chamber in the Spa
the relaxation room in the Spa
the experience showers in the Spa
I think the different rooms in the Bath Spa really relate well to my virtual exhibition because I have explored many different concepts under the umbrella topic of the studio just as the different spa rooms come under the idea of a wellness suite. I am going to create different rooms like the Spa in my exhibition to organise my art pieces into bite size concepts. I hope this will create an interesting and simpler set-up where the outcomes (art work) of my exploration (into my studio space) will be enjoyable and fun for viewers, like my day at the Spa!
Some ideas I have for my exhibition now are: The Head Room (for masks and eye, ear, neck art pieces); The Body Room (for art work that explores pieces of the body); The Inspiration Room (for artwork about thinking and waiting in the studio); The Escape Room (for art work about creating a new atmosphere or mindset in the studio); The Experience Room (for art work about endurance, worry and hope in the studio); The Two Studios Room (for art work about managing two different studios). Awesome!
I am making an installation piece. I am creating a ‘wonder room’ entitled ‘Traces of an Artist in the Studio 2014-2020′. I am exhibiting paintings, collages, sculptures and stencilled text related to my student studio experience. It is an interactive installation piece where the viewer removes their shoes before entering the space and steps in a box of chalk to effortlessly make art on the floor as they walk around. There is a swivel chair in the middle of the room with my painting jacket hung over the back of it. The viewer can sit on the chair and look at all the art pieces. I want to paint the walls, shelf and wood to hang things from gold.
On two opposite walls there will be paintings, smaller collages and masks. Hanging from lengths of wood above the walls will be clay sculptures of my body parts. The entrance will be a cascade of placards with text on both the inside and the outside with a space to enter and exit with the box of chalk on the floor there. On the wall opposite the entrance will be two studio-window-size collages of paintings I did. A shelf at the bottom of the larger collage will hold small body sculptures on wooden stands.
My timescale for finishing my work for the installation is currently from Monday 9 March to Sunday 26 April. This is 7 weeks (49 days). In the next 26 days I want to press mould body parts and create some small body sculptures from photos; bisque fire; glaze and Raku fire them. Also, embellish the masks with extras as planned. Also, I want to finish some paintings, and put together the placard waterfall. I need to make the window collages from murals I painted, as well as put together the shelf and the sculpture stands in the woodwork area.
After university ends on 3 April for the Easter break I still have 23 days before setting up the installation piece. This gives me time to finish work in the studio or in a technician area and time to catch up on other exhibition requirements that may come up. If there is time I would like to also put together a simple loop video with a party celebration feel to show my arty party talks and ideas and bring sound into the installation. I know Nigel Pedder will be around 14-17 April. Also, if there is time I would create some accordion fold-out books with Tom that talks about my practice. I have lots of ideas related to my university studio experience, but I realize that not everything is possible time-wise.
I will need technical help with setting up the installation in regard to putting three double walls up to create a typical Level 6 studio space; help putting up lengths of wood across the walls safely; help painting the walls gold; help hanging the clay pieces and putting up the shelf and setting up the loop video with sound.
The type of space I will need for my exhibit is the size of a Level 6 university studio space; with 3 sides of double panel walls and good light to see things in it. I need a studio space with no windows.
The audio visual equipment I need is a laptop screen with sound to display a loop video. I will set it up on a Level 4 small table or ideally a high plinth if I can find one.
An approximate cost of resources and materials for my exhibit will be about £50 for a swivel chair from a charity shop for the centre space, as well as gold paint, and Velcro tape to hang the paintings (on boards) and collages, and fishing line to hang the clay pieces.
I have a drawn plan giving an idea of how I want to display my work.
Ruth Newell, 9 March 2020
ARTIST AND PRACTICE STATEMENT
RUTH NEWELL
I like to work with wood, clay, colour and text. These are my preferred mediums and every combination is a new idea. The wood and clay are cut or shaped to fit my ideas, and I let colours and text add life to it. My work involves moving from an experience I have had to something I have written, sometimes a poem. I develop this by putting it into a collage. I also use photography as part of my process. I care about suffering, especially in children and woman. My pieces reflect this and come together by presenting self-portraits on many levels. I focus on sharing difficult experiences I have had, by a real space installation, in a painting or in clay work. My work is influenced by a life time of transition, war and living in other cultures and so the anthropology of art is a theory I find relevant to my art. I hope that my work helps viewers to cross a bridge into another world and open their mind to new perspectives!
183 words
Mask 7:
Here is a slideshow of me wearing the masks :
I have been working in a college or university studio space from 2014 – 2020. I am inspired to put highlights of what has happened to me over this time in a 7 mask series called: Mask Diary!
I had hoped to have all 7 clay masks not only bisque fired, as they are, but then Raku glazed and Raku fired so that it would give the Mask Diary! series a ‘been through the fire’ look to my last 6 years of art study.
I did a Raku workshop and I came up with individual Raku glaze plans for each mask that was relevant to each particular memory. However, with lockdown these Raku plans were unable to materialize. That is why I have used acrylic paint to try and create a ‘fire’ look on the surface of each mask.
Here is a slideshow of the Raku mask I fired and glazed in the Raku workshop to give an idea of the sort of surface I had planned for the various mask embellishments on each mask in this series:
7 ma
I have used my own face to make the press mould because all that has happened was inside me as an emotional memory. My face should represent that. In this 7 piece series, dramatic memories are now out of my system and on the surface of 7 clay masks. I have made an emotional mask diary.
Here are the individual pieces:
Mask 1:
Mask 2:
Mask 3:
Mask 4:
Mask 5:
Mask 6:
I went to this workshop to get an alginate mould made of my own face for mask making. Alginate is brown seaweed. In powder form it is mixed with water to form a liquid gel that hardens in 4 minutes. It is also non toxic. It creates a temporary impression mould that can be filled with plaster. When the plaster hardens I can make a slip cast mould for repeated clay masks which I would bisque fire. My aim is to do mixed media on each mask relating it to a poem-collage of mine. This would express the inside on the outside.
Ruth Newell 