Mia/Methods 20.9.

Final Edit

Photograms

is a series of two 40x30 cm photograms titled I Am Scratching my pockets and The Hole. Both pictures have black to dark grey background. In The Hole the white shape that resembles a piece of paper is dominating the composition and in the centre of it we can see a black dot – the hole. Visually, I Am Scratching my pockets is denser with the enlarged texture of the fingerprint filling most of the space. Both pictures include gestural lines and scratch-like drawing elements. The titles derive from the text fragments seen in the composition, however, the words in Slovene work as symbols rather than carry a specific meaning.

Photograms were made in the darkroom as experiments with light and material. I used the process of developing and enlarging analogue photographs as a printmaking method. Instead of a negative, I used transparent plastic foil that I drew on or made other interventions. This I put in the enlarger and used it as a matrix for creating the images. On the other hand, I took pieces of scrap paper and fragments of text, printed on transparent plastic to use them in the making of contact prints. Combining enlarged forms with contact prints of various elements resulted in a print-like images.

I saw (and still do) the process of enlarging and developing the photographs in the darkroom as a printmaking technique. This intrigued my interest because the medium requires a lot of testing and experimentation also in a playful manner with the result not being entirely predictable. I was also interested in the relation between the text and image, where one ends and another begins. Mostly, I drew the motivation for this experimentation from my previous painting and printmaking practice. Since the coincidence is an important aspect of it, I could bridge it through printmaking to the photography.

...Smell the coffee

Is a frame-by-frame short animation drown by hand with a pencil. We see a cup of coffee that is slowly being mixed with a teaspoon. The spoon suddenly falls on the table and makes a blot of coffee. The person draws the word line out of it which starts transforming in moving images that keep changing, from a woman to a mountain that becomes a blanket covering a baby… All this leads to the point where the child dissolves in an abstract composition. The dream-like drawing is interrupted by the receipt for the coffee so the subject is pushed back into reality.

The sound supports the visual narrative, for instance we hear the noises of the cafeteria and a child’s laughter. However, it becomes more abstract and noisy towards the point when it’s suddenly cut and restoring the surrounding sound of the café. In terms of making, I used a rather traditional method of animating images. I drew all the frames by hand with a pencil on square papers 9x9 cm each. Making around 900 drawings in total was followed by scanning, editing and composing them with digital software. At that point also the sound, which was designed by one of my colleagues, was added to complete the whole story.

I drew the motivation for this animation from the everyday moments of rapture and thoughtfulness. Sometimes, I find myself staring in a banal detail in front of me, such as a blot of water and sometimes I even start drawing out of it. I was interested in melting the reality with personal associations and memories in a way that this particular transition happens in that very same moment. I was trying to visualise my approach to my painting practice, that embraces coincidence and mistakes, which I believe can be a great source of imagination.

Tangram

Tangram is a painting with variable dimensions, maximum length being around 1,5 m. It consists of plywood parts that are based on tangram, a Chinese puzzle, where the player has to create a certain form with existing pieces, knowing only the silhouette. I consider this work an interactive painting, since the viewer is invited to actually play the game – to rearrange the pieces on the floor in another form. The work is actually a picture within a picture. As mentioned, overall shape of the composition varies, while the parts themselves are painted and include elements of text and random found images such as ancient Greek statue, a bird, a castle etc.

I cut the plywood pieces so they form a 80x80 cm square that I took for my picture plane. While painting on it, I changed the arrangement of the parts so that they would form another silhouette, for instance a house. Repeating the same principle, the painting was slowly becoming a whole but at the same time it was falling apart. In certain compositions some fragments of text or collaged images would complete each other, while the others would fall apart. All the puzzles are painted on both sides, so that the viewer can turn them around freely creating silhouettes such as a cat, a rabbit, a figure etc.

With this work, I wanted to research 'an image within an image' in a physical, hands-on manner. Being aware of the flood of images we are facing today, I became sensitive to the connections that images have in any visual context, be it on the internet, a magazine, a gallery. Similar to when reading a text, one can sense different thoughts and ideas that were taken from elsewhere and then incorporated in a new text. I believe the same is happening with images. By layering and juxtaposing found images within a changeable picture plane, I wanted to discuss the unstable entity of an image, which is liable to recontextualising, rearranging and manipulation.

First Draft

Photograms

is a series of two 40x30 cm photograms titled I Am Scratching my pockets and The Hole. Both pictures have black to dark grey backround. In The Hole the white shape that resembles a piece of paper is dominating the composition and in the centre of it we can see a black dot. Visually, I Am Scratching my pockets is more dense with the enlarged texture of the fingerprint filling most of the space. Both image include the text fragments written in Slovene. Both pictures include gestural lines and scratch-like drawing elements.

Photograms were made in the darkroom as experiments with light and material. I used the process of developing and enlarging analog photographs as a printmaking method. Instead of a negative, I used transparent plastic foil that I drew on or made other interventions. This I put in the enlarger and used it as a matrix for creating the images. On the other hand, I took pieces of scrap paper and fragments of text, printed on transparent plastic to use them in the making of contact prints. Combining enlarged forms with contact prints of various elements resulted in a print-like images.

I saw (and still do) the process of enlarging and developing the photographs in the darkroom as a printmaking techinque. This intrigued my interest because the medium requires a lot of testing and experimentation also in a playful manner with the result not being entirely predictable. I was also interested in the relation between the text and image, where one ends and another begins. Mostly, I drew the motivation for this experimentation from my previous painting and printmaking practice. Since the coincidence is an important aspect of it, I could bridge it through printmaking to the photography.

…Smell the coffee

Is a frame-by-frame short animation drewn by hand with a pencil. We see a cup of coffe that is slowly being mixed with a teaspoon. The spoon suddenly falls on the table and makes a blot of coffee. The person draws the word line out of it which starts transforming in moving images that keep changing, from a woman to a mountain that becomes a blanket covering a baby… All this leads to the point where the child dissolves in an abstract composition. The dream-like drawing is interrupted by the receipt fort he coffee so the subject is pushed back into reality.

In terms of making, I used a rather traditional method of animating images. I drew all the frames by hand with a pencil on square papers 9x9 cm each. Having around 900 drawings in total, I then scanned them and edited digitally in Photoshop. I put them together in indesign, saving them as an image sequence, which I imported in film-editing program where the final result was made by the addition of the sound, which was designed by one of my colleagues. The sound supports the visual narrative, becoming more abstract and noisy towards the end, and then suddenly cut and restoring the sorrounding sound of the café.

I drew the motivation for this animation from the everyday moments of rapture and thoughtfullness. Someimes, I find myself staring in a banal detail in front of me, such as a blot of water and sometimes I even start drawing out of it. I was interested in melting the reality with personal associations and memories in a way that this particular transition happens in that very same moment. I was trying to visualise my approach to my painting practice, that embraces coincidence and mistakes, which I believe can be a great source of imagination.

Tangram

Tangram is a painting with variable dimensions, maximum length being around 1,5 m. It consists of plywood parts that are based on tangram. The latter is a Chinese puzzle, where the player has to create a certain form with existing pieces, knowing only the silhouette. I consider this work still a painting, however, the viewer is invited to actually play the game – to rearrange the pieces in another form. The work is actually a picture within a picture. S mentioned, overall shape of the composition varies, while the parts themselves are also painted and include elements of text and found images.

I cut the plywood pieces so they form a 80x80 cm square that I took for my picture plane. While painting on it, I changed the arrangement of the parts so that they would form another silhouette, for instance a house. Repeating the same principle, the painting was slowly becoming a whole but at the same time it was falling apart. In certain compositions, some fragments of text or collaged images would complete each other, while the others would fall apart. All the puzzles are painted on both sides, so that the viewer can turn them around freely.

With this work, I wanted to research 'an image within an image' in a physical, hands-on manner. Being aware of the flood of images we are facing today, I became sensitive to the connections that images have in any visual context, be it on te internet, a magazine, a gallery. Similar to when reading a text, one can sense different thoughts and ideas that were taken from elsewhere and then incorporated in a new text. I believe the same is happening with images. By layering and juxtaposing found images within a changeable picture plane, I wanted to discuss the unstable entity of an image, which is liable to recontextualising, rearranging and munipulation.