In my interim feedback Zoe/Tom suggested for me to look at Monster Chetwynd's past show at Sadie Coles - in terms of display. I am looking at exhibition images right now and reading the press release text, and it is very inspiring seeing how the different elements of painting, performance, sculpture, photography, and theatre are put together. Both tutors said that the different mediums in my interim (video, photography, painting) seem to be competing with each other. I need to display them in a way that draws together that material segregation... this is a section from my feedback:
There are clear links from work to work, contextually. The shifts between them do, however, encourage a material segregation that, currently, pulls things apart (by medium). How can you draw them together?
Can you perhaps use your prints as wall coverings so they can accommodate the paintings hanging onto them - for example? Creating an environment would support the work and allow your paintings and photographs to maintain their connectivity.
I really liked what Zoe said about hanging paintings on top of a blown up digital image - in Chetwynd's work in this show she had digital images stretched across the wooden panels with her handmade props hanging over them. The effect is very strange and I love the contrasts this kind of display instantly makes. from the press release text: https://www.sadiecoles.com/exhibitions/660/press_release_text/
Spreading across wooden panels in the style of wallpaper, these enlarged images are overlaid by sculptural objects, including a monstrous rubbery bat and a salamander, akin to the handmade props and costumes that populate Chetwynd’s performances.
The text even mentions dioramas - which I was delighted to find - linking back to what Zoe also suggested for me to read further - the idea of heterotopias - which the diorama could potentially be.
In several instances, she uses the concept of the diorama (literally something to be ‘seen through’) as a structuring principle, creating a layered iconography of objects and images.
It goes on to talk about 'panoramic scale and visionary imagery' which resonates with me in thinking of the cinematic - in particular John Martin's paintings (especially the one I was looking at a few months ago as I was thinking about my nightmare). I'm thinking more about the cinematic proportion in my paintings - and if I want to do this when I'm painting from dreams (I will think more about this when filling in my degree show proposal)..
In certain cases, Chetwynd’s combination of panoramic scale and visionary imagery evokes the genre of high Romantic painting – in particular the melodramatic canvases of John Martin (1789-1854); her latest paintings in this respect translate the Gothic turbulence of her Bat Opera cycle (begun in 2003) onto an ambitious new scale.
Seeing Chetwynd's work and how seamlessly one medium flows into another is really opening my eyes to the different ways in which I could display a coherent body of work without taking anything out. It is exciting, and is even making me want to make props/ audio/ performance type work, but maybe in the future as the degree show is rapidly approaching and I want to try out the hanging first (and perhaps some audio). (I also love the black and white photographs/collages under colourful props)
