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I wanted to research fem artists that work with subjects regarding femininity and the body, my intention for these studies was to broaden my approach when it comes to materials, methods and application. I found that majority of the artists I looked at used oil paint, which I think I will do in further developments. As oils take ages to dry I tried my best to get the same effect in a different medium, mostly using watercolours.

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I had trouble printing off the images for the previous artist studies, so I thought of using the extra prints for collages.
Working intuitively, I noticed that the collage looked quite similar to male and female reproductive systems and decided to draw in the gaps. I feel this communicates the feeling of incompatibility with your own body.

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I created this one by weaving a black and white version of the same coloured image to represent that gender isn’t black and white, it isn’t male or female, that it’s a spectrum.

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https://www.meredithwood.co.uk/blog/2016/3/2/shirow-zewx4-wj68n

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Abstracting parts of the woman body in magazines

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Why are they all smooth, wet, and glowing? Is there a reason why woman in adverts or papers are depicted this way? What is it about having a woman be smooth and wet helps sell a product or an image?

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Painting from the projection workshop!
I would say watercolour may not have been the best medium to use when trying to get it to have the projector affect, maybe acrylic or oils would have been better so I could glaze the patterns over a base painting?? Besides that I actually quite like the end result !

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A collage experiment based on Judy Chicago’s dinner party,
I saw a couple of the plates take on this weird abstracted almost fleshy like form, some felt quite feminine, I thought how could I connect this back into my practice? I started just by scanning through images of the plates and collages them into this wee thing! I think the top looks kind of like a face, and the bottom reminds me of the Louise bourgeois body like sculptures.

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(This looked a lot better before I closed over the sketchbook and it squished it)
I wanted to quickly experiment with the previous collage, thinking of how I could maybe take it further, I worked with tissue paper and started manipulating the way it folds, it reminded me of fabric manipulation and i definitely think that it could be an element I play with later on, especially thinking of textiles.

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Incorporating myself into this abstracted form experiments ?? 

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Patterns from distorted body, using red chalk

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Gathering queer photography to find common themes 

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https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/01/27/anti-lgbtq-hate-crimes-scotland/
“Hate crime incidents against LGBTQ+ people in Scotland have soared by 75 per cent in just eight years”

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Looking at old European master drawings

I want to look back into art history and create a new take on traditional painting and drawing methods, by reclaiming this famous stylised era, and making the portraits centred around queer people.

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Looking at old European master paintings.

With the far left image, this painting to me feels camp, the extravagant flamboyant pose, the leopard print. It’s camp 💅🏼

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Analysing the paintings, seeing what elements are important to bring into my paintings/drawings

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(Padlet keeps cropping it to squares :((!!! )

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(Missing text: L they/he)

I asked friends on Instagram if they’d like to be included in this project, starting with quick sketches reminiscent of old master drawings! I used pencil instead of chalk as I don’t have fixative at home but I think it turned out really well! I used a burnt sienna pencil and the colouring it’s quite similar to the red chalk seen in previous studies

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A3 watercolour paper, burnt sienna pencil. 

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Scaling up the portraits!!

I am actually really proud of this sketch, I feel as though I really captured the softness seen in the old master drawings! I didn’t want to go to heavy and over work it as I’ve been thinking of how can I incorporate my concept on queer erasure, so I thought maybe leaving it quite bare in areas could allude to this, but I would like to add more detail into the hair as I feel it would look more polished

!!! There is more of these I forgot to photograph on the desk in my studio space !!!

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Playing around with erasure in a literal way!
Found this artist michele petrelli, and I think the way they do their portraits was exactly how I imagined it may turn out!! Pretty cool :)

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Obviously I’m not an old master painter, and usually my portraits take on a more stylised, exaggerated look. I found this study to be quite hard as it was so different to the way I naturally work, I made sure to use the techniques old masters used, whilst also trying to achieve the half painted half sketched look found in Petrelli’s work. I think I definitely over worked this piece but it has taught me to be intentional with what areas I should ‘erase’, In the future.

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As I don’t primarily work in a 3D form, I was thinking how could I connect the sculptural work I’ve looked at into my own practice? I thought, well I could use paint!
I really love how this turned out, I wanted it to somewhat resemble elements of a body but not enough where you could flat out say it’s whatever area of the body. Aswell as wanting to insinuate feminine traits by adding the soft curvy patterns into the piece.

I actually made quite a few of these, but my little kitty decided to run over them as they were still wet and got her and the house covered in blue paint :|

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(Sketchbook page was a bit bleak!)

Barbara Walker is British artist who’s work talks on the social, political and cultural realities that impact her and those around her.
Barbara’s practice is influenced by her upbringing in Birmingham and the struggles of issues regarding class and power, race, gender and representation, these topics are core to her work - and bringing visibility and a sense of belonging through her art makes it universally understood.

I feel as though these areas of Walkers practice is exactly what I am wanting to achieve through this project. She also physically erases some of her works which ties perfectly with the concepts I have.

I think playing around with both physically erasing the art work and emulating the half finished style seen in Michelle Petrelli’s work is a great way of playing with the element of queer erasure within art, whilst also representing people in queer communities.

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Testing oil paint on ceramic,
What happens when I add more linseed oil? How does it lay on the surface?

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I feel as though reworking found materials and objects are core in my practice, sustainability is something I’m conscious of within art and as i often obtain these materials from streets, turning something that would be disregarded as trash into something creates a element of unique, authentic art.
I feel as though it also speaks on class, half of me is intentional about sourcing these materials, the other half- has no choice, as art materials are often pricey I often have to obtain these materials in order to create my works. These underlying themes have been a major influence in my practice as it’s my day to day reality, and I feel by me showing these aspects is an act of representation for creatives that are of a lower class.

(Wee ramble sorry x)

I found painting onto these plates really hard as I -
1: couldn’t sketch out traditionally
2: sketching out with paint was hard Aswell as if it was a lil to thick or dry it would completely just come off :|

For the paint seen above I used a reference image of my friend Euan that honestly looked like a old master painting to begin with. But after working on it I found for the look I’m going for the images need to be somewhat lighter in values for it to seamlessly blend into the plate, in order to achieve the erased aspects im looking at.
So I decided to experiment with Barbara’s technique of directly erasing an area, and also the sketched out look seen in Michele’s work.

I found actually erasing (bottom right) the work to be quite therapeutic for this painting (because couldn’t stand to look at it any longer) as it felt intentional, a direct way to talk on the erasure of queer people in art history.

And using the sketch-painting method (top right) felt more as if I was stating that even after the clear erasure of queer identity’s in art, you can’t fully erase them. Which I personally think articulates my concept better in terms of creating that representation.

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I started researching the history of art of plates and found that fashion plates used to be a way of advertising the latest trends back in the day. The first fashion plate can be traced back to 1678!
Even through I stumbled across these plates and decided to use them in this project for other reasons initially like gravitating to the more oval shaped plates to signify the cyclical nature of acceptance and hate towards the LGBTQ+ as it operates similar to an oval. there is an extreme connection or rather a coincidence or maybe intuition that lead me to using this as a material to represent my concepts on. to the queer experience, it’s influence in fashion and expression, and now to me representing queer people on plates, feels full circle (no pun intended ;) )

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Going to the archives at GSA was super enriching for research into textiles and portraiture, it gave me insight to how leather has been used in art before, figurative print on textiles and garments, Aswell as traditional portraiture.

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Looking at the history of the leather subculture in gay community 

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Although this idea of using leather in my work stemmed from thoughts on how I express my gender identity, through means of fashion, textiles and accessories. The historical aspect of leather within the queer community holds such an importance. I feel even though this idea started with my personal experience- it connects with a lot of queer identifying people through leathers history.

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Cahun first started their staged self-portraits when they were 18, quickly becoming a staple medium in their practice. The portraits feature the artist looking directly out at the viewer, wearing costumes and make-up, swapping and mixing genders. I feel as though for this time period it was pretty revolutionary!

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Fabric compositions, denim, leather, bandage, canvas, lace. 

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Experimenting with fabric compositions, using textiles I feel drawn to when expressing my gender! I wanted to combine these textiles in visually interesting compositions, blending feminine and masculine.

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Fabric compositions, chamois leather, leather, denim, lace.  

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Developing these further, (left) taking figurative elements playing with gender roles (blue boy, pink girl) and showcasing my personal expression through having a baseline of leather and denim (masc) and decorating with lace (femme)

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Forward planning, I knew I wanted the base of my final to be leather- but obtaining a large amount would most likely be a challenge. Thinking of how growing up in Glasgow, every scheme there is always a the standard leather couch sitting on a pavement, so I went out to search for one! Of course as I set the intention of finding one, and how easy it’ll be it’s Sod’s law that it was an absolute challenge to find one. I spent quite literally 2 weeks walking around local schemes in hopes of finding one. But hey! One eventually showed up in whiteinch! I wasn’t quite sure if the scale I was working to at this point- so decided to be generous and basically strip the entire thing.

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Sampling both sides of the leather!
I want to weigh up the options on what side to paint on for my final, of course the darker side has a more smooth texture than the suede but I feel like having the texture of the suede could lead to a more visually interesting piece?

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Thinking back to Claude Cahun’s self portrait photography works I wanted to capture the essence of perception surrounding gender.
After editing a more feminine portrait with a more masculine one- I started thinking of how others perceive me. Regardless of how I identify, majority of the world will view me as a woman.
This gave me a really cool idea of playing with visibility with painting. As I was playing around with digitally manipulating these self portraits I was thinking to my self- how could I lower the opacity of the “masc” portrait with paint? Maybe using a glazing technique or maybe painting it more monochromatic so it’s harder to see.

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A4 oil pastel on leather stretched over old canvas frames

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I really love the playfulness of these two developments, I feel like they are reminiscent of the works of France-Lise Mcgurn that I was looking at towards the beginning of the project, as well as capturing the energetic nature of expression, which to me is accurate to the feeling of freedom when it comes to expressing gender identity.

The only issue is, when working on leather- you can’t sketch out before hand. You need to kind of let go and really just dive in. I was really playing with the concept of visibility, on the left I made the ‘masc’ more opaque and larger to allude to the message that regardless of others perception that my identity is true. And on the right I made the ‘masc’ almost invisible- this is to show that, on a surface level you can only get so much of who I am as a person, by making the ‘masc’ portrait hardly visible- it’s inviting the viewer to sit with the work until the masc presents themselves.
I feel as though it’s a really powerful message.

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I found these very interesting, whilst trying to find artists that combined different textiles and painting the only one I could find was Louise bourgeois, due to her environment growing up with her parents being tapestry restorers, Louise has a lot of different works that exhibit different textiles within them, but I think the figurative element in these works is what stood out to me. I found it so interesting the little dolls she had made.

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Thinking of the connection between the 3 streams and of course there is a sense of self, there’s connection between gender but I feel the most important part of the sense of vulnerability within each.
With vulnerability comes strength.

I started this project looking at paths I haven’t yet ventured into yet as most of my work has been centred around a sense of self. And I wanted to explore new topics and ways of connecting with a wider audience.

In my last sketchbook this theme kept coming up regarding my traumas, how my body processes and reacts to these situations, hyper sexuality - hyper fem, and the cyclical nature of healing those wounds. To dive into the womanhood in which I was born in to, the womanhood I never felt compatible with, to heal through the process of creation.

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Digital manipulation of body to create a motif 

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Previously I used this composition to abstract it to an unrecognisable point, into shapes. But I feel as though there is power in keeping the original image readable.
I created it to almost show to how being groomed into sex work had ‘tainted my purity’ making a flower like pattern to show that corruption in my youth, the damage my own body unwillingly caused to my mind. There’s power in that.

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These where made to - in a way - talk with the before images, I wanted to show the experience of disassociating, disconnecting from your body when subjected to sexual trauma and how a common trauma response is to be hyper sexual. It sounds contradictory but it’s a way many victims that were subjected to this kind of abuse reclaim autonomy over their bodies. My experience with this I would say harmed me further, at the time I thought by acting in these ways I had the choice but looking back, I wasn’t in control of my body, wasn’t old enough to make those choices and didn’t consider the impact it would have on future me.

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Collaging bodies,

I was thinking of the best way to articulate the disconnect I had from my body, I used scans of drawing I done during life drawing classes to showcase differing body types as I want to focus on connecting this experiences I’ve faced to a wider audience. I feel this method of collaging articulates the feeling of not recognising your body as your own, it feels as though it’s an amalgamation of all the unwanted desires projected onto your flesh, that have no meaning to yourself other than it’s now your job to maintain it.

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I wanted to remove the body for a second and see how else I could articulate the dissociative aspect. I felt as though the act of being behind glass communicated this nicely as it’s an accurate way of describing the feeling of dissociation. I wanted my expression to be blank and flaccid, to communicate the aspect of not being able to control yourself, but rather you just have to sit by an watch it play out.

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Quick wee sketches of the collaged body 

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Incorporating textiles again …

I actually didn’t expect this to work but I had an idea of layering scans and prints to seamlessly incorporate pervious symbols to femininity like lace and stuff, and it actually turned out really cool!

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Finding new ways to communicate my ideas 

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As I stated before I felt like after finding Jenny Saville’s work and how similar it was to what I was doing I had an urge to just come away from it all together as it had been done before. Sure the concepts behind it aren’t exact but visually it was almost identical so I started thinking about different ways I could articulate this.

I started thinking of maybe using a surrealist approach and use things to represent what I’m talking about, similarly to what I done in project one with the pomegranates. And it lead me to thinking about how trauma is stored in the body- sexual trauma I could use the reproductive organ to represent the location in which the trauma occurred, maybe incorporating Medusa as she’s recently become a symbol for survivors of sexual abuse.