Arty Party 7 runs with the concept of exhibiting a studio in a gallery. I have been thinking about the idea that a studio being exhibited without the artist in it, is not really a studio at all. Without the artist inside, it is nothing but a space. I think an artist makes the studio, by being there. A studio is the artist’s presence – her thoughts and her actions.
These ideas have inspired me to make a series of small acrylic paintings to place in my studio space so that even when I am not there, I am there in art form and therefore my space is still a studio.
This 9 piece series is called Uni and Beyond. It is all within the context of my university studio. Here is a photo shot of the painted sides of this series:
Uni and Beyond (part 1 and 2) Artist Ruth Newell January 2020 acrylic on various board various sizes
The series is divided into:
1. outfits and poses I have at university. It refers to fashion, cool hair, tangible things (brollie, lunch bag) :
Uni and Beyond (part 1) Artist Ruth Newell January 2020 acrylic on board individual 15 x 10.5 cm
2. anticipating a future. It refers to thoughts and hopes for after graduation:
Uni and Beyond (part 2) Artist Ruth Newell January 2020 acrylic on incised board 14.5 x 10.5 cm, 15 x 21 cm, individual 7.5 x 10.5 cm
Below is a slideshow of Uni and Beyond (part 1 and 2) to view each of the 9 paintings on its own:
For all these pieces I was influenced by fashion magazines as well as two books I found in the library: Design motifs of ancient mexico by Jorge Enciso and Japanese design through textile patterns by Frances Blakemore. It was awesome.
For this series Uni and Beyond, I looked at models posing in fashion magazines and cut out the pictures and put them into my journal. Then I asked the technician to take photos of me in the same poses. I had chosen poses that I felt explored my university studio experience as a whole.
I cut out A5 size pieces of board in the wood department and used the electric saw machine to incise marks in them as if I was drawing. It was awesome and emphasised the the broken body yet still together person I was expressing. I gesso painted all the pieces of wood and then draw my poses onto the boards ready for painting. I used acrylics.
For the background after painting solid colours I cut out stencils from Japanese and Mexican pattern books and painted over each stencil to create patterns on the walls. They could be shadows or light playing through windows or wallpaper. I feel they add to the pieces.
Arty Party 7 Talk writer Ruth Newell 28 January 2020
I wrote an Arty Party Talk here about the concept of exhibiting a studio space. I used ideas in 8 pages from The Studio book (edited by Jens Hoffman) to lead the way in this speech. I am excited how this has started ideas rolling for exhibiting my own studio space in a gallery. I like this idea because it involves installation and concept. I plan to develop these starting points further.
Arty Party 7 Placards artist Ruth Newell 27 January 2020 acrylics on cardboard 25 x 31 cm each
I designed the 4 placards above to start a pathway into the Arty Party 7 theme: my Studio in a Gallery. I like the idea of an installation of my studio space and I am looking forward to exploring this concept in my art practice as a conceptual artist. I would call my studio installation Studio No. 2020 to highlight my final year in this degree. Awesome!
Arty Party 6 theme sentence is : my university studio in winter & my summer studio in a very small flat. I was inspired to do 2 painting series to capture the essence of each studio space, the one at uni and the other at home.
For my university studio space I did 8 small acrylic paintings called Carry Me. For my very small flat studio I did 4 acrylic paintings called Beauty in the Mundane.
In the series Carry Me, 4 of the paintings are about the actual shoes I wore to university. My shoes supported my weight. They carried me from home to uni and back again. They transferred me. I depended on them to move me, and they never let me down! In the same series the other 4 paintings are about my actual rucksack which carried my fruit and lunch everyday to university to sustain me. I depended on my rucksack in the low times, hard times, fire and it didnt let me down. I could lean on my rucksack whenever wherever. It was there for me!
Carry Me Artist Ruth Newell January 2020 acrylic on incised board individual 10.5 x 14.5 cm
Above is a side view photo shot of the edges of 8 paintings in the Carry Me series.
For the series Beauty in the Mundane, I have chosen to paint 4 things in my flat: inside my trainer, my unzipped coin purse, my thumb print and my unmade bed. To me these things seem ordinary, unexciting, repetitive, unproductive. I have painted close-ups of each one in muted, pastel, dulled colours. The effect is a quietness but also a subtle beauty. I made stencils from Japenese kimono print patterns for the backgrounds. I painted the Japanese words for trainer, purse, thumb print and bed in black on the relevant paintings. Unexpectedly the series looks modern, contemporary and conceptually fashionable. I like them!
Beauty in the Mundane Artist Ruth Newell acrylic on incised board January 2020 individual 21 x 30 cm
Above is a photo shot showing the gold and silver edges of Beauty in the Mundane series paintings. The gold and silver colours are to do with highlighting the title where gold is for beauty and silver is for mundane.
Here is a slide show of the 12 paintings inspired from Arty Party 6. They are in a dialogue about my two studios:
For Arty Party 6 the theme is : my university studio in winter and my summer studio in a very small flat. I was inspired to create a series of paintings about each studio in Carry Me and Beauty in the Mundane.
For the Carry Me series I initially looked through fashion magazines to find poses and accessories that I could use as a guideline for photos of myself, my shoes and my rucksack. I cut and glued the images in my journal as a reference during the photo shoots.
I felt the big things for me in my uni studio was the 30 minute walk to uni and back home and having enough healthy food to get me through the day so my shoes and my rucksack were important.
For the Beauty in the Mundane series I found an image online of a palm tree with the words escape the mundane. I started to research the word mundane. I am interested by words. I started to explore the concept beauty in the mundane. I found some artists I liked but cannot remember their names, all I remember was the dulled muted pastel colours they used and with this image and the research on the word mundane in my mind, I chose four ordinary things in my bedroom where my studio desk was and took photos of them. I took a photo of the inside of my purse, the inside of the trainer I used most often, my unmade bed when I woke up in the morning and then I put my thumb in ink and printed it.
I printed out the photos I had taken of my purse, shoe and bed and the printed ink thumb really big. Then I cut and incised boards and gesso painted them and drew the enlarged photos onto the boards.
I made the muted colours by adding a little black to each colour. It worked like magic. Awesome.
I used a Japanese pattern book to choose patterns for the backgrounds to the objects in the paintings. I made stencils by tracing the pattern on paper and cutting it out with a knife. Time consuming. Tiring. Tediousness. Worth it.
I started researching Japanese words. My sons and husband were all learning other languages on apps everyday so I looked up the Japanese words for purse, bed, thumb and shoe and I painted them onto the paintings. I was thinking of Japanese paintings like Hiroshige where a Japanese word in black was on a corner of the painting and the painting was uncomplicated and simple (just one thing sometimes, like a branch). My paintings were simple, one object.
I visited Bath and went to the following museums for inspiration:
HOLBOURNE MUSEUM
I liked Patrick Brill’s (Bob and Roberta Smith) text work referencing cuts to art education. I found his actual work on each letter interesting. He has done so much text art and I want to study his work more to get inspiration for my own practice.
I found the Mask of Truth by Michelle Rocca interesting in the light of the court case between Cathal Ryan and Michelle Rocca about gender, power and class and the Legend of Zelda and my own ideas about mask making PTSD.
Candice Bahouth’ s Box of Delights was intriguing, lovely, expensive to buy. I liked her china cup candle holders and also her mosaic totems were beautiful. She takes something ordinary like a china cup or a shoe and recreates it into something unimagined before. She inspired my Beauty in the Mundane series.
Arty Party 6 Talk Writer Ruth Newell 7 January 2020
Below is the talk I wrote for Arty Party 6 using 30 pages in The Studio book (edited by Jens Hoffman). I created a discussion-type speech about my current two studios, one in university and one at home, from data, or words, or ideas that jumped out at me from The Studio pages. Writing this talk was a similar practice to how I create art, either from something I see or read or go through. I am finding that writing is the same kind of process for me as making art. Weird.
These are the 13 placards I created to start me on another track for the Arty Party 6 theme: my university studio in winter and my summer studio in a very small flat. I am wanting to explore how my studios differ from each other, what I appreciate about each of them, what really impacts my practice and finding a contemporary artist that supports this. I think many artists have two or more studios. It varies so much from what I read about different artists. I am looking forward to looking into this concept further.
I painted with acrylic on cardboard and I used stencils I made from magazine text to create 6 placards about my winter studio, and 7 placards about my summer studio. By no means do I consider these placards works of art. For me, they are always and simply mental and creative starting points for me to jump into further exploration of a topic.
Arty Party 6 Placards (My winter studio) artist Ruth Newell 6 January 2020 acrylic on cardboard 25 x 31 cmArty Party 6 Placards (My summer studio) artist Ruth Newell 6 January 2020 acrylic on cardboard 25 x 31 cm with smaller varying sizesArty Party Placards (my winter and my summer studio) artist Ruth Newell 6 January 2020 acrylic on cardboard 25 x 31 cm with smaller size
Ruth Newell 