RK's Art Chat

In a recent class, our tutor John discussed how we look at artist's experiences can have an effect on their work and how their lives can shape movements. This lead on to each of us as a class having to look at one art movement each and then feeding back all the info we collected as a group. I looked at cubism - a movement that began with Pablo Picasso's famous painting 'Demoiselles D'Avignon'. (Picture source: https://www.moma.org/explore/conservation/demoiselles/) This piece (shown above) is a large oil painting featuring five naked women. Their bodies are shown to have both flat and curved components which gives them a geometric element. This painting took months of editing; in fact, this piece used to feature a naked man, but Picasso eventually painted over it. Picasso was a famous cubist painter, but another artist called George Braque was also heavily involved in this art movement. In fact, the term for cubism came up after an art critic named Louis Va...

On Sunday I took my first ever trip to Trongate. I'll admit, the main reason why I'd never been there before was because I didn't realise that it existed, so it was nice to explore a new gallery space after a year of staying in Glasgow. In Trongate 103, there was a photography exhibition titled Focas India: Document. This exhibition featured work from photographers from both India and Scotland where they told stories from their home land. I was especially struck by the work of photographer Sandy Carson and his project titled 'Passing Place'. Here he showed very personal pictures of his mother and the area he grew up in on the West of Scotland from 2001 to 2014. It was very emotional to look at; particularly how a photograph of his mother wearing a typical Rangers FC was placed next to a soft image of his sick mother through a hospital window. It didn't say which year each photo was taken, but they way that they were placed together was almost like a short film...

The White Pube are art critic bloggers that I've been following for over a year now, who approach art in an honest and unapologetically funny way. When I heard that they were doing a talk at The Art School, I figured it would only be polite to go hear them. (I should add, I didn't manage to get any images of the event, however I did tweet them before asking if I had to pay at the door) I dragged my lovely friend Eoghan along and we made trecks. They discussed their beginnings with the blog and how/why they started. The team consisted, at the start, with two Central Saint Martin's students named Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad. They shared a studio space together at university, and after discussions about how frustrated they were about how there was a great lack of diversity with art critics (mainly with how many middle-class white men seemed to be the only ones to share their opinions on art pieces) and they also just had some thoughts that felt worth...

Like any decent course, there's a plan. I'm keeping myself organised this year with my wee A5 sketchbook, where I've laid out my course plan. Above you can keep my September plan (so far), but I fully intend on attending the following soon: - ECA Open Day, 7th October - Graphic Design Festival Scotland, 20th-26th October (try to make it to at least a handful of the events) - GSA Open Day, October 26th - DJCAD Open Day, 1st November We'll also have a workshop during a week in October through the GSA Associate, as well as an October Project running through that time also. This will mean plenty of prep time for sure. I'm also a part of an art collective called Behind the Image, and we're hosting our next exhibition at the start of November in London. I decided to collaborate with my friend Sean for this project, so I'll be balancing my schedule with this project also. We'll have assessments coming up soon also. Dates are to be confirmed, but I...

I began my HNC in Art and Design three weeks ago; which before then I had just finished a year at Cardonald college studying Portfolio Preparation. Doing the HNC wasn't my original plan, I'll admit. I had full intentions on moving on to art school, however when the plan fell through, the option to take on an HNC was discussed with my tutors, and it felt like the best option. I went through most of my time on the Portfolio course feeling torn about what I did want to specialise in. I began the year feeling dead-set on studying Graphic Design, however as the year developed, I fell for illustration much more, and then later on, animation became the most attractive to me. I felt it the most when I made a short film for an art collective I'm part of and absolutely loved the process of drawing things frame by frame and then seeing the final piece move smoothly. That being said, I still have an open mind. My biggest fear about starting the HNC is that it would feel repetitive and...