Philip Bodger
A selection of my work, book's and artists who have influenced my practice.
Unit-Two Mapping my art practice
The work adjacent was created in the final stages of unit one and exhibited as part of a body of work, which contributed to my final exhibition in this unit.
The concept was to use footprints to symbolize my own identity as I moved through England and into Ireland, in which the diverse cultures of these countries shaped and moulded this identity.
As can be seen in the documentation adjacent, the footprints move in transition from the colours of union jack to the Irish colours of green and white through a green frame, which becomes for me a symbol of the Irish border.
This transition structures and marks the foundation of one's Identity, which is always moving, changing and evolving through and within countries, the symbolic, linguistic, cultural and urban boundaries.
Woodward argues, “discourse and systems of representation construct places from which individuals can position themselves and from which they can speak.” Concept of Identity and difference (Woodward, 1997, p14.) The footprints were created in Photoshop where I discovered a number of new skills within this programme, after which they were taken to the printers and printed on vinyl before being attached to the floor.
Reflecting back on this work and whether this approach is moving me and my artwork forward in a positive direction has made me question some of my ideas and concepts.
For example, the colours and ideas that are evolving in my work have possibly become a bit to direct and I need to re-evaluate this and think more about presentation along with the quality and choice of the materials I decide to use.
This work started life as an experiment but evolved into something new and different.
Indeed, the work adjacent is just the beginning of a work in progress that will see me paint and build a canvas that surround this painting, but also leaves a border between the two. The border, which surrounds and separates the two paintings will signify borders, walls and boundaries, which criss cross our world, both limiting and exploiting the free movement of people.
The work is created on an un-primed board using gloss paint, each colour is applied and left to dry before applying the next colour.
Following this, the colours are scraped peeled and scored away from the canvas in places, this process is taken on in a random haphazard action that sees the paint being removed and reapplied by the actions of the artist in an unplanned fashion. This process can be traced back to the artists, Gerhard Richter a visual Abstract artist, who also uses photorealistic paintings, photographs and glass pieces to express the way he sees the world.
As I reflect, I feel this random, haphazard, unplanned action and chance is where my strengths lie as I am happiest, passionate and enthusiastic about my work when uncovering new actions, methods, and technique or when my practice evolves and develops through chance.
As you can see from the images and as stated above the concept was to create a border, which surrounded a painting with a painting, signifying for me the way borders that cover our planet separate, imprison and contain the unprivileged within are so called free world.
The finished painting was created by a number of process, firstly I made the inside and outside canvases with 12 mill MDF board, which I cut to the correct lengths and sizes before applying green, red and white gloss paint to the surface of the two boards.
Following this I left the work to dry before scraping and removing layers of paint from both surface, which like Gerhard Richter's paintings allows for the earlier marks and movements to resurface in a haphazard random fashion.
Next, I applying the technique used by the artist to drip, pour and splatter green, red, white and yellow gloss paint onto both canvases, after which I tilting the work and allowing the colours to evolve and gain access to each other before allowing them to settle into new and different colours, forms and shapes.
The idea was to introduce a feeling of separation and loss within my audience through an Abstract setting, as I have tried to use the void and border between the two canvases to achieve a reaction, which hopefully instils feelings of disconnection, disjunction, loss and separation within the viewer.
On reflection, I believe the idea of the border between the two painting hasn't informed my audience in the way I had hoped it would.
This is a issue, I need to think reflect and research the direction in which this approach is taking me before I can find a solution to the problem of uncovering walls, boundaries or borders within my practice, something that is sometimes but not always invisible!
During my research on the troubles surrounding the border, which effected not only Northern Ireland but also the Republic of Ireland and indeed Great Britain, I came upon the book The Rule of the Land written by Garrett Carr.
Carr travelled by foot and craft along the Northern Irish border, shedding light on and uncovering Ireland's restricted landscape in the wake of it becoming yet another frontier of the European Union.
The book explores and uncovers this invisible line and its landscape, with its uncertain future and troubled past that has hosted Peacemakers, protestors, terrorists, kings, and smugglers. He identifies the underlying disorder and turmoil of a borders, our ideas on land and power and the way we see nationhood.
Carr presents a unique insight into buildings and border dwellings, ancient monuments and discovers hidden pathways and rituals, which displays the borderland as a distinctive realm in its own right and asks the question, what the future holds for the peace process and its people living along this north and south divide.
Reflecting back on Carr’s extensive body of work, which uncovers Ireland's hidden rural border and all its connotations has made me realise what a diverse range of problems exists and indeed will magnify with the introduction of Brexit.
Indeed, a new or hard border along the North and South of Ireland will most certainly provoke a negative reaction and maybe a return to the sectarian violence of the past.
Following on from the book The Rule of The Land, the artist Rita Donagh
uncovers within her work, this sectarian violent past.
Indeed, by drawing her body of work from the outpouring of images constructed by the media, Donagh captures the tensions, deaths, fears, and affects surrounding the so-called troubles in and around the border of Northern Ireland that lasted from 1968-1998.
In this period, Belfast endured virtual war as catholics and protestants adopted bombings, murders and kidnappings as they fought for control over land and power.
In muted works such as Counterpane (1987), Compound (1985), Long Meadow (1982), or her fixation with the H Block, (the prison which housed paramilitary prisoners during the troubles,) the many Photographic works like the Six Counties (1983) Rita Donagh represents life in Ulster with its siege mentality through its fixation in relation to its borders, boundaries and violence.
Donagh created a series of four works called the shadow of six counties between 1979 and 1981, examining the cartography of the six counties and its political implications.
In her work the Shadow of the Six Counties (1980), painted in oil paint on canvas with collage elements and all characterised by a forceful colouring of brown and blue, appears a map and the names of the six counties.
In the Six Counties (1979), Rita uses sellotape and a grid to frame Northern Ireland, drawn on card.
Shadow of the Six Counties (1981), features a square work, in ink, pencil, watercolour, gouache paint and crayon, again depicting Northern Ireland in the form of a map, which contained shadows and shadings indicating the boundaries between the diverse political territories, overlaid with the outline of the Maze prison or (H Block).
As I Reflect on Rita’s work, I find I love the way she constructs her paintings as she grapples with such complexities with a soft and almost airless formalist tentative approach, which for me, somehow becomes transformed by the subject and in turn introduces her audience into a world full of tension, emotion and passion.
This approach has focused and engaged my mind to rethink and think differently about my own working methods. Through exploring these ideas I hope to inject the same sense of tension, emotion and passion within my own future works, which Rita finds so easy to instil so forcefully within these paintings.
Shadow of the Six Counties (1980)
Long meadow (1982)
Single cell Block (1982)
Counterpane (1979)
The work adjacent was created for the crypt exhibition, named who will provide, which took place at St Pancras church, Euston Rd London.
The brief was centred around ideas of provision and preservation of services, safety, shelter and guidance. This is based upon the church community’s 1995 which list, detailing their hopes and desires for the church’s future in response to the regeneration of the Euston-St Pancras-Kings Cross area at the time.
In this work I have responded to the brief by combined Abstraction and minimalism together to form a structure, which I have call shelter.
Made from two dibond boards and painted with gloss paint, my idea was to form a shelter by simply leaning the two boards together symbolizing and signifying how St- Pancras church has sheltered, helped and guided its community since it’s consecration in 1822.
I can relate to the Artist Mona Hatoum, like myself she was born into a world in-which citizenship, nationality and country played a big part in her early life, and like myself this shaped and moulded her sense identity.
Mona was born in 1952, the daughter of Palestinian parents living in Beirut Lebanon, although she was born in the Lebanon state Mona and her family were ineligible to be classed as a Lebanese citizens.
In 1975 she was forced into exile when on a visit to London a civil war erupted in Lebanon, compelling her to stay in the capital where from 1975 to 1981 she studied in both the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art.
Mona has travelled considerably in the years since, developing a dynamic and vigorous art practice, which investigates global inequity being an outsider and political conflicts related to human struggles.
Although Mona has an extensive body of work, her installation Suspended (2011) stands out for me as one of her most engaging and interesting works. Suspended introduces the audience to 35 red and black floating swings that display on each seat street maps of capital cities hanging at oblique angles.
The tilted or oblique angles, for me, creates a feeling of geographical dislocation rather than geographical correlation, perhaps signifying the continual movement and displacement of migrants around are world.
Reflecting on Mona's work has uncovered a number of different and diverse ways, which maybe I can use to introduce a sense of uneasiness and geographic dislocation into my own working practice.
For example, the way she uses the swings in her work Suspended, which are continuously rocking, leading to an eerie sense of restlessness and unease. Furthermore, her clever placement of street maps on each seat aligned at oblique angles surrounded by this constant flux and movement, that also leads her audience into a world of geographical dislocation.
Suspended
Below can be seen my final work in unit two, which is exhibited and assessed as part of a body of work for this unit.
The work has been constructed from MDF board, dibond sheet and painted with gloss paint to represent or signify a boundary or border that protrudes out from the exhibition wall surface.
This allows for the two sides, the inside and outside back or front to become visible to the viewer and gives me as the artist the opportunity to represent and unpack the differences on both sides.
This can be seen in the work below, by using abstraction and also an image, which is carved into the surface of the MDF board, I have tried to signify the outside panel as a violent border area in Northern Ireland, which in point of fact, in the event of Brexit is set to become yet another frontier of the European Union.
On the inside panel I have used a green dibond sheet and its smooth shiny surface to represent and reflect cultures infatuation with self-image tied to the consumer culture of contemporary capitalism, which for me is entrenched in the global movements of labor, legal or illegal, migration, globalization, and certainly throughout the European Union and indeed surrounds Brexit.
On reflection, I believe by mapping my art practice my work has evolved and grown, so far as I am now exploring different media, materials, and ways to express my ideas.
What's more, is, I trust my research is beginning to come together within and around my studio work, which up until this point has been a bit of a struggled and indeed over the course of unit one and two has at times become a little disjointed or fragmented.
As a result, I feel my research question has become much clearer in my mind, which is, how can I as an artist bring to light the growing number of violent borders that exist and continue to harden across our planet, affecting so deeply the surrounding communities and societies on both sides of a border, boundary or divide.
