Matis
This body of work was strongly influenced by a cultural context. By first being intrigued by street artists and modern art, I developed an interest in urban lifestyle and explored it using different mediums. As an amateur of art but at first not a very dedicated artist, it was primordial for me to expand my scope and try to use different means of communication.
My first work, “time piece” was a first step to start working with different materials. As summer is the season with the longest day light, I decided to use materials which could work with the sun, as such, a work of shade was created using a grid. As it was placed outside for a while it lost some of its original shape, which was at first disappointing to me. However, after some time, I found that the relationship between the work and nature felt like it gave more character to it.
Film making was the source of motivation to pursue my art course, and when observing the marches against global warming during the set theme “The art of protest”, it quickly came to my mind. While I was at first hoping to create a project, which showed a violent and devastative act, I decided to twist the way protest has been perceived and thus use a calming music which showed despair rather than anger. A film maker who has strongly shaped my work is Dan Mace, and he once said that story telling had more importance than the image quality. This is why neither of my work aimed to be cinematographic, using this idea, for my other film work wanted to use sounds rather than images. To what extent could one medium (video) be used as another (music)?
Collage work emerged from my interest in photography. A workshop with Cherelle Sappleton initiated my intrigue in it, it was for me a very convenient way to combine different medias. I first started using images from magazines, as seen on the work “Dimension 8” which was strongly influenced by an urban environment.
The layered collages led to a 3-dimensional work which looked at the construction of images. What troubled me for a while was the difficulty to precisely cut around but on the contrary, it now appears to me as the wavy edges and wrong cuts, give a sense of organic shape to the work. “Knight crime” was my last work, its enlarged size aims to strengthen the message of the work which points out the knife crime in the city I live. This collage was the first one created with my own pictures, using shots from the “single shot” project.
At last came digital drawings on photographs. Drawing is for me a challenging media, by using my photographs on adobe illustrator, I was able to develop it under a different perspective. The aim was not to produce an aesthetic work but to focus on the story behind the picture, to take the action outside of its frame.
To facilitate the understanding of the video works, one of them was set on a pedestal with a set of headphones which allows the audience to hear the speech clearly. The other, set on a large screen, with a set of speakers, makes the music well heard and gives an overwhelming feel.
The drawings were placed alongside each other and the aimed lay out which would fit well between the sizes of each work. The placement of the boards allowed for “Knight Crime” to be placed in a corner, so that when the audience approaches the work, the feeling of being trapped is emphasised. The placement of the other work aimed to have an optimal placement for it to be viewed, such as “Trapped” which was placed lower, for the audience to be forced to look into the mirror and slowly notice the elements.