Having recently blogged about my love for newspaper, here is an update of my progress…
Following the very inspiring visit by the MA students from the Royal College, I have untaken to experiment with newspaper and tried not think too much about the concept – Make Work. This has been my ethos this week.
A sustainable product seemingly condemned to vegetable peelings and fodder for fires is unappreciated in my opinion to say the least. Who reads a newspaper anymore anyway, when everything is accessible by mobile phone, right there in the palm of your hand? This is the reality unfortunately; such haste to make news and get it out there, no wonder some of it is fake.
Newsprint proved to be a very viable option during my recent Skills work, as a replacement resource for drawing instead of quality paper - cuts to funding in a college environment – etc. etc. In fact with several adult students on benefits (some relying on food banks due to universal credit delays), it has been a god send in that it’s cheap to buy in large quantities, and there’s enough of it for everyone to make large work and so therefore not lose out on a proper drawing experience – scale is your friend.
Back to the point.
This week I’ve explored the idea of the newspaper, with a visit to St Bride’s in Fleet Street. I visited St Bride's Church, next door to the St Brides Foundation - which was sadly closed in 2015, although fortunately the Print Library is still accessible on Wednesdays, but only First and Third of the month. The church famous for being the church where famous journalists take the last journey, the St Brides crypt historical exhibition proved very inspiring, with a detailed timeline revealing the history from the middle ages to now. Following this I took the opportunity to visit the John Ruskin Exhibition at Temple, which was amazing. My favorite piece amongst many was a 7ft print of a tree. See Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriaburch/45979368985/in/dateposted-public/
Standing before the print it felt as though you are under the actual tree and with print in mind, made me pay homage to the fact that the benefactor of newsprint is the tree.
Moving on, as it turns out, this sustainable product works well on a laser cutter, you can achieve precise cuts with very little effort, as long as your illustrator file is faultless. I experimented with the idea of newsprint type (paper) and binary numbers (in acrylic) – thinking about the transition from newsprint to digital code.
I put together two marquettes, to visualize an idea of how digital age is taking over and replacing newspaper industry, but came to a dead end. It was helpful to realize something in 3d and discount the idea.
Following this and having researched ‘Contemporary Artists that work with Newspaper’ Google threw up; Robert Rauschenberg and Williem De Kooning, I decide to experiment with painting onto the newspaper with oils. This was very successful and I enjoyed it immensely, even though my subject matter was just an object at this point (tea cup and jug) I stuck with the ethos of Make Work. I also looked at the research Id collected at the London Art Fair, as well as the newspaper work of US Contemporary artist Will Kantz.
Will Kantz’s people on the fringe of society collection proved very inspiring. In the spirit of Rauschenberg (coined as neo-dada in his time) I created a Brexit collage with Brexit headlines from the Evening Standard to provide further inspiration. Focusing on ‘The affects of a No Deal’ Brexit, as that was predominately the subject matter and through further internet research discovered that people have started to hoard tinned food.
I think of my Nan and how she was with shopping as a result of living through the second Word War.
Following on from my research into Will Kanz and his people on the fringe of society, I thought about food banks, the adult students, and how as a western society we have food mountains, yet we have people on the brink of homelessness, having to rely on charity. Thinking about what people donate to food banks I decided that it was probably the cheaper brands, less known brands such as those available at cut price.
I took a trip to Lidl and studied the labels to see how many products were fro the EU. Although a German company, most products are in fact British apart from a brand of tinned food from a company called Newgate, situated in Dublin.
Following an episode of icons, currently showing on BBC2, I began to think about how Andy Warhol used consumerism to make art with his soup cans. I made a study of one of these cans to generate further ideas. Does this have the potential to become a screen print, similar to that of Memarth Rao (visitor from Royal College) and the Viagra print.
Or perhaps an installation of an empty food bank, or empty shells of food containers of what once were, this is my next stage of experimentation….
My direction of travel (at the moment) is;
· People on the fringes of society
· Universal credit delays mean more families are reliant on food banks.
· How will food banks be affected by Brexit and the lack of produce if there’s a no deal Brexit?
But it could all change...
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