Wall(tracing)paper

As I enjoyed working with tracing paper on the piece "Anthurium", I decided to further experiment with it in a wallpaper based project. What I particularly liked about the tracing paper as a medium was its transparency, lightness and movement, and it was these three elements I wanted to accentuate in this wallpaper design.

I wanted to create a wallpaper that would interact with the presence of the people who walked by without being overtly visible. The use of plain tracing paper links to the opinion that much of the time, everyday wallpaper goes unnoticed-it is not until somebody passes by this wallpaper that its presence becomes clear. The thin, cut-out strips sway and rustle lightly as the person moves and displaces the air infront of it.

As is often the case, time and space restraints meant I was only able to produce one strip of wallpaper for the 'Link' exhibition (mid year exhibition) so it was not as effective as it could have been if it covered more space. However, I plan to further this work and possibly collaborate with a fellow student who's work is based around the movement of people. We will look into the possibilities of projection onto the wallpaper ans well as filmed documentation and photography.

Front Design Company "Rat Wallpaper"

This particular piece of work is perhaps one of my favourite pieces of alternative wallpapers I have seen. The artists placed rolls of plain white wallpaper in a cage with some rats, knowing that the rats would inevitably gnaw at the paper making holes through it. As the paper is unrolled, a lace effect emerges that is entirely the rats' design. This "Rat Wallpaper" is then hung in front of existing wallpaper, revealing small sections of it to the viewer. This way there is a comparison between traditional decorative design and contemporary art.
The piece challenges the usual role of decoration and indeed challenges how decoration can be created. Front Design Company is in a way handing over the design aspects of their wallpaper to a more spontaneous creator, removing their own control and allowing risk to take over.
Like the majority of Front's work, what stands out the most with this is its humour, and it is this refreshing lighthearted take on the subject that makes it such a favourite of mine.

Linda Florence "Sugar Floors"

Linda Florence is an arist I have become interested in while researching for my university dissertation. Her work, like mine, is based around interiors, especially wallpaper. This particular piece named "One of a Kind Tea Dance" was installed in 2008 in the V&A museum as part of the artist's "Sugar Floors" project.
The piece is a floral wallpaper-like print applied to the floor of the gallery using white sugar and presumably a stencil. Ballroom dancers then took to the floor; their graceful movements shifting the original sugar pattern, creating a new pattern with the traces of their dance steps and turns.
By doing this, the artist is allowing an element of risk into the work as it is not certain where the dancers will go, how the pattern will change and whether the new pattern will be effective or not. With much of her work, Florence challenges the normal concept of wallpaper and pattern. Here she pushes the boundaries of the medium by placing a wallpaper pattern on the floor. Why should we stop when the wall reaches the floor or ceiling?
I think this piece is extremely beautiful and delicate and is a refreshing way of using the medium of wallpaper when so many others use it as a tool for political comment. However it is questionable as to whether the piece can still be considered a wallpaper when it is placed on the floor. But then again, who can possibly say?!
It was interesting that I came across this piece after I produced my work for the No.5 Balmoral project as the basic concept is so similar. It has however increased my interest in interactive patterns and decoration, and Florences other work has opened up many new ideas of manipulating the medium of wallpaper.

Christopher Pearson "Environment sensitive wallpaper"

For many wallpaper designers and artists, William Morris has been a huge influence. This is clear with artist Christopher Pearson and his piece "Environment sensitive wallpaper". This design is almost a replica of Morris's "Willow Boughs" 1887, with the same repeats and very similar colours. However, the wallpaper pattern is created in a way so that it reacts with UV exposure and the temperature in the room that it is displayed in. The effect is that the pattern develops 'naturally' over time the more exposure it gets; and appears to grow and spread over the paper. Presumably this is done using heat and light sensitive paper or paint but there is little information given about this.
The fact that it's reactants are heat and UV exposure poses questions on the wider environment and the effects we have on the planet and the environments we live in.

I would like to find out more about the technical methods the artist has used as it would be very useful for me to use as a method of conveying my own wallpaper designs and ideas on horticultural patterns.

Floral Wall Hanging

"Floral Wall Hanging" is a textile piece I created for the Collective Vision exhibition, part of the Free For Arts Festival. Staying with the theme of interior decoration, i created this piece to experiment with different elements such as time and alternative methods of developing a design or pattern. Previously, my work centred around its interaction with the viewer or vise-versa, this time however I wanted to focus on reaction rather than interaction. I wanted an item which, once set up, could be left over time to change and develop in its own way without interference from myself or other viewers.

Due to the time consuming nature of producing the fabric hanging, it was not necessarily as large as I'd have hoped, however the effect of the capillary action is still striking yet subtle at the same time. What I enjoyed most about this piece is that, once in place, I had no control over how the colour spread and absorbed into the fabric and so some element of the final design is left unknown.

The capillary action is the most important element of the wall hanging as it is this link to horticulture that follows through the majority of my wallpaper and fabric designs. I intend to continue with this idea of capillary action and "growth" of pattern and colour within the wallpaper/wall hanging.

No.5 Balmoral

No.5 Balmoral was a group project based in an unused house in Fallowfield, Manchester. The idea was to each take a room or area of the house and use it to display our own workand styles.
I continued with my theme of interior decoration and wallpaper to create a piece of work for the hall and stairway of the house.
The idea for this exhibition developed from my contextual studies course at university in which i studied how images of apocalypse have been protayed in art. The study posed interesting questions about the existance of everything from the mundane to the spectacular and how everything has a shelf life. I chose to portray this view through the medium of wallpaper using hands-on techniques that would convey the concept of degradation and destruction in a delicate and fragile manner.
I used a 'pouncing' technique to apply a charcoal pattern directly onto the plastered walls. Due to the nature of the technique and material, the images oculd be easily smudged and brushed off the walls and so when the house was full of people at the opening, their presence and movement past the work ultimately destroyed it; physically showing its transcient nature.

If i was to reproduce this work, i would choose a more intricately detailed pattern that would perhaps be more visible in the space. I would also possibly record the work over time using video as well as photography to better record the process.

'Pouncing'

Pouncing is a technique I first came across when watching an interview with the 2009 Turner Prize winner, Richard Wright.

His award winning piece was a fresco made from gold leaf on a wall in one of the large gallery spaces of the Tate Britain. The image was a symmetrical, damask stayle pattern which, close up, contains many different styles and periods of artwork to reflect the surroundings and architecture of the piece.

To create the fresco, Wright used an age-old, extremely time consuming technique called 'pouncing'. this is where a cartoon of the image is drawn on paper and then holes are pierced into it along the lines of the drawing. The cartoon is placed on the wall and chalk or charcoal is rubbed over the holes to create a duplicate or 'ghost' of the image. This is then covered with size (a light adhesive) and golf leaf is applied to the top.

The effect of this particular piece is of a shimmering image that appears like a mirage. The delicacy of the fresco gives the impression that it could disappear at any moment. This of course is partly true. As with much of Wright's work, the piece is temporary and its life span is only as long as the exhibition stands. After this, the fresco is painted over and ceases to exist.

Anthurium

Anthurium is a development on the installation piece which I created for the Holden Cafe Gallery over Christmas. I liked the effect the tracing paper patterned hanging had on the environment and i wanted to see if I could further this idea.

The opportunity arose to exhibit work in Noise Lab on Market St. Manchester this month as part of Collective Vision (a collective formed in 2008 by Interactive Arts students).

The exhibition space was very different to that of the Holden Cafe Gallery and so it was interesting to see how the installation looked aesthetically within more stark surroundings.

I was happy with the piece as I feel it expressed my ideas well and and looked as decorative as I had planned.

The pattern was initially created as a wallpaper design to be used decoratively. The idea behind my work is to question the functionality that interior decoration has, and to give pattern a different form and physical presence within a space. I also wanted to consider the space itself when looking at the functionality of decoration. As a society we only decorate interior rooms which we deem comfortable living spaces. How would Anthurium work in a living room or bedroom? As the tracing paper installation acts as a barrier or screen within the space, how would the inhabitants navigate around such imposing decoration?

"Green Leaves" Chorlton's Big Green Festival

This site specific project was to create a piece of art work for Chorlton's Big Green Festival (27/3/10) which incorporated the themes of growth, sustainability and re-cycling.
When the group first visited the site, myself and a fellow student spotted the same tree to work with and so we decided to collaborate. Both of us enjoy working manually to create artwork so this was the starting point for our ideas. After considering the themes of the festival we chose to create leaves for the tree by re-cycling materials to make handmade paper. We used materials such as old newspapers, flyers, junk mail, leaves and petals, twigs etc. This was pulped down with water, bound and sized using cornflour and then pressed to make to make paper.
The finished "leaves" were strung to the tree using natural twine. The idea was that visitors to the festival could interact with the work by writing or drawing their hints, tips and ideas on how we can be "green".
Now the festival is over, we have removed the paper from the tree and plan to re-use them in a smaller piece of work or bing them as a book for St. Clement's church to keep.
I enjoyed collaborating on this project as I was able to hear alternative ideas which I may not have otherwise considered. Collaborating also helped with the creation of the work itself as it was very labour intensive! Neither of us had made handmade paper before so it was also interesting to learn a new skill and help eachother.
http://greenchorlton.org.uk/

"Walls are Talking"

As stated in the gallery blurb, the workin this exhibition was separated into different topics such as gender and sexuality, politics, warfare etc. To me this was to be expected as these themes have been picked apart in art for years. With this in mind, I was somewhat put off by what i thought I was about to see, and indeed much of the work did not surprise me in the slightest. For example, some of the papers dealing with the theme of warfare I found very similar and uninventive. the idea of disguising the images of war within traditional wallpaper pattern strongly portrays how, as a society, we are anaesthetized to war due to the constant media bombardment of images. As far as bringing war into the home, the artists have succeeded without a doubt, but for me this is nothing new. The topic has been tackled in this way too many times for these prints to create much interest. Personally I think work of this content is beginning to add to the bombardment.
One of the first wallpapers i looked at under the imprisonment theme was Lisa Hecht's "Chain link fence" 2000. The design is so subtle that I wondered at first how it conveyed the theme at all as, at a glance the design is simple blue wallpaper with thin diagonal lines crossing over the surface. After looking more closely however, and reading the title of the work, the impact is incredible. The fine, chain link print becomes a barrier against the freedom of the clear sky in the background. Imagining this wallpaper covering the walls of an entire room, it becomes imposing and claustrophobic. It could be a prison cell, cage or the subversive image of the home as a place of entrapment.

Overall I enjoyed the exhibition. I found inspiration and ideas as well as formulated an opinion on other artists working in a similar medium to myself. "Walls are Talking" reassured me that there is a lot of scope for my own ideas and that decoration is not as dismissed or overlooked as i once thought.

Work in progress

Currently I am working on my wallpaper designs which incorporate embroidery and fabric into the pattern. My aim is to produce a tactile and visually exciting wall covering that has the ability to alter the space it is in.

I will layer sections of embroidered paper over each other and use decoupage to make the design 3D. I may also hang sections away from the wall to create movement and manipulate the space.

I am using coloured cotton in a painterly way to develop the colour and pattern, the sewing machine naturally creates perforated edges in the wallpaper, making it quite easy to separate different sections.

I like using the sewing machine in this way as, although I am creating texture and pattern, it is also quite a destructive method of working, tearing the paper and leaving strands of thread hanging from each peice. Because of the constant piercing of the paper by the needle, it becomes weaker and more delicate. I like this as it means the embroidery will slowly unravel over time as the paper is not strong enough to hold together. This is the basis of my decorative work; the idea that ultimately, nothing in the world lasts whether it be decoration, nature, industry, people, stars or the planet. Everything is in a temporary, transcient state.

Other ideas and techniques i will experiment with are embroidering onto dissolvable material. Once the embroidery is complete, the material can be dissolved and leave the embroidered pattern on its own. The whole process of this links strongly to my works thesis as it is about deterioration.

Pouncing is another technique I would like to experiment with. This is piercing holes into paper to create an image or pattern. This is then placed on a surface and chalk or powdered graphite then dabbed over the holes, leaving a ghost of the image on the surface. I would like to try this using my sewing machine to create the holes.

Site

To start the spring term, we were given a week long project to produce a site specific piece of work within the university campus grounds.

The site I chose was one I know very well from my time at the university. The ginnel is a space to store the rubbish bins for collection and for deliveries to the workshops. I was interested in using the space because I like the colour of the brickwork and the graffiti and moss which has developed over the years. There is also a metal door in the corner which i find intriguing as I am unsure what's behind it.
Because of the nature of the space, I knew I would find inspiration for a piece of work. On this occasion I found two apple trees growing in tubs. As my work is based on decoration I decided to stay along those lines and used the image of the trees in a design for the wall around the metal door in the Ginnel.

I chose to use old newspaper as my material for the wall coverings as it was easily accessable and linked in with the usage of the site. I cut rough strips of newspaper and stuck them to the walls around the door in a tree- like fashion, spreading longer and wider as it grew.

The corner I was working with is not roofed but covered with a mesh, allowing light in. I took full advantage of this and used the mesh to hang apples infront of the paper trees at different levels. This added another dimension to the work and the space. Instead of the piece being flat to the wall it created a 3D element therefore changing the space and the way people move around it.

My final adaptaion of the work was to paint it white. I hadn't orginally planned to do this but felt it would have more affect if it contrasted more with the surroundings. I finally placed the two apple trees infront of the work, creating a barrier and more depth to the piece.

I am happy with the outcome of the work, it has transformed a space which is usually harsh, cold and noisy into a tranquil, fantasy retreat. Decoration in such a space would usually be seen as pointless, but this piece questions the concept. I chose an exterior site rarely seen by the public and which is used primarily for storing rubbish. I think any place can be decorated regardless of where it is or it's uses. Personally I feel calm in that particular site and my work enhances this emotion.