Finding Dolly
Dolly, Pencil sketch.
This week I feel my practice and placement have met. Yesterday, I worked in my pop up studio at the PMAG creating more mixed media studies of Dolly, and today I had a group crit to discuss the end of year exhibition and the work I wanted to exhibit. I've been spending more time on the placement work than my studio work - just because I want to get everything I can from the experience. As the crit discussion developed it became clearer that the two bodies of work do connect - I'm interested in feminism, family and representation -or misrepresentation as may be the case with the work of Dolly, that Currie produced. I'm exploring themes that all tie into the same conversations.
So, I'm thinking now about how I could exhibit the work from the placement and the work that developed outside of the PMAG in the studio, in the final year exhibition, together.
The image heading up the blog today is a sketch where I've pulled together all of the "common denominators" that I've aimed to identify from different photographic and artistic references of Dolly. I feel this loose sketch is potentially a younger, more authentic version of Dolly. If she were a member of my family I'd be happier for her to be remembered in this way than the angular and derogatory versions by Currie. Some of the portraits I've looked to by other artists have been beautiful - more natural or more impressionist but it got me thinking about portraiture conventions and the art movements that artists had identified with, in portraying Dolly. Maybe a simple sketch is effective enough to catch an honest likeness. I'm still working on more studies but I feel like this line of enquiry is going somewhere.
I've asked the PMAG if I can change my space next week from pop-up studio to pop-up exhibition, so I need to plan this over the next few days and drop an email with my intentions over to the curator. I spoke to them before I left yesterday and they seem happy with my intentions. I'm hoping I can keep the work up for a week and then I'll take it down and bring the placement to a close.
I did also speak to the pinccollege teacher yesterday -I dropped in ahead of setting up my space to see if she wanted to do anything together. The pinc college have their campus based inside the PMAG, in a space that was made available after the PMAG relocated their spitfire plane to another location.
Because of the placement timeframe and work that I'm still engaged with, it's likely to be after Easter that we work together but they were really receptive to doing a session for the students together. They're exploring portraiture after Easter so I suggested taking along the lino prints and guiding the students with mixed media - like how I've approached my work on the placement.
I didn't expect this kind of opportunity after working at the PMAG but I'm actually really excited to be working with the college in this way. It feels like a lovely opportunity. Funding or employment hasn't come into it - I just think we'll both benefit and I can draw from the experience in terms of what I decide I want to do with my professional practice in the future.
I caught up with my uni tutor today, to firm up a date where we can have a session making the zine with the Riso at Air Space Gallery. We've popped a date in after the assessment date for the module, but I'll aim to include the zine design pages in this module pack, and the finished zine can support my practice module. In this session my tutor pointed out that a zine is fundamentally a work of fine art - It was a perfectly timed reminder before I plunged in -and started creating information around the research I'd done.
..I know I'd have gone text-heavy and I need to keep it visual.
I've also started to pull out key bits of learning from this blog to start my placement pack. Pointer - it's been really helpful to be able to go back over and pull bits out - I'd hate to be writing everything from scratch now.
Dolly, Oil partial portrait over lino print using watered down ink
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