Fiona Tan – Depot

One piece of art that i have found fascinating this year has been the piece by Fiona Tan at the baltic. We went to view it as a group near the start of first year. when i first saw it it disinterested me as i thought it was just a lorry in a gallery space, but when we were taken on a group tour given lots of information about the piece i found it more and more fascinating. When you go into the gallery you were greeted by a large lorry with the words ‘The Giant Whale Jonah’ printed on the side. as you walked around the lorry you were presented with a screen showing old footage of ‘The stripping of a whale’. The viewer was then invited to climb up some stairs to go on the inside of the lorry, inside it had cabinets of sea creatures, including the horn of a Narwhal. The inside of this room was almost like a historical museum with a nice red carpet lining the floor and very soft lights illuminating the cabinets, it had a completely different feel to the colder gallery space with a lorry and an almost grotesque film playing.

What i liked about this piece was that it was telling the story of the real Jonah the giant whale, who was a preserved whale who was toured across Europe from the 1950’s till the 1970’s. I found this interesting as i had never heard of this story before, and if it wasn’t for the tour guide telling us all the information i would have never had properly understood why exactly the artist had build a 76 foot long lorry inside a gallery space. I really enjoyed this piece after learning more about it, and realise that if i was to look into other pieces more i might take more understanding from them and end up liking them more.

Over view of the whole space. Taken from the baltic’s website

A side view of the lorry. Taken from the Baltic’s Website

A snapshot of the film. Taken from the Baltic’s website

Inside the lorry. Taken from the Baltic’s Website

Evidence of knowledge

During my time in first year the main way that i research is that i use the internet for secondary research, i also will occasionally get books out about the artist but i often find it harder to read from books so i mainly use the internet. i will research a little bit of a back history about the artist for example where they are from and when. i then look at all their works that i find on websites and choose to look into a few of them. depending on what i want to research i either choose one piece and research that piece in detail or i choose a few works and research their work as a whole. i also write my own thoughts and feelings and analysis of their work rather than just using another publishers words. for primary research i often look into things around me, for example the final project i looked at old photos of my life and chose which ones were the most relevant to my idea and the photo they could be paired with.

 

 

Smart Targets

Over the summer i want to set myself a target to keep up with my art in my time off.  The Target i want to set is that I want to improve my drawing Skill by doing at least one drawing a week

Specific – Draw once a week

Measurable – I will produce one blog post to show my development over the summer

Achievable – I can set aside time to draw at least once a week

Relevant – It is developing a key art skill

Timed – It will occur between June till August

 

Da Vinci at the Laing art gallery

One of the most recent gallery exhibitions i  have visited was the Da Vinci drawings that was on at the Laing Art Gallery in newcastle. i went to go visit this exhibition with a friend and we both had a child under 4 with us, this meant that i was unable to truly experience the show as i had to keep chasing after my 2 year old. however i still enjoyed visiting this show as it was truly remarkable to see such a famous artists work in a local gallery. The room was very darkly lit and was red, each painting was very spaced out. i really enjoyed the experience of seeing the works and the effort that went into hanging the show. What i will take from this work is that the right lighting, room and general ambiance of a show can change the grandness of a work, something i will have to consider for myself when i have graduated and need to produce shows myself.

Another great aspect from this show was that you were allowed to take your own photos of the work. something that you wouldn’t expect to be able to do of such old art work. below are a few of the photos i took using my phone so they aren’t the best quality.