Wednesday 10th February 2021
Todays session started with Anneke introducing Lydia Czolacz to our teams call this morning, Lydia practices in fine art and especially 'Surrealism, Women & Graphic Design'. She has stated by looking back at surrealism and gone looking for new techniques within these old styles of art, looking at artists that are able to see a new movement in art as early as 1917. Lydia started to show us the 'Dada Movement' around 1916 and that Sigmund Freud started this movement and how to access the underside of knowledge. Next, she started to show the group a number of surrealist artists that either she follows for her art or artists that she seems are influential, such as; Pablo Picasso who worked with the 'Collage' technique, Salvador Dali with The Persistence of Memory looking at the melting clocks and also working on a short film for Disney. Following, Max Ernst who was a Dadaist showing the dehumanisation of women and Rene Magritte who replaced features on a woman's face for her body features and again this was dehumanisation of women in this ear. The one thing in common that the artists show that Lydia pointed out is that all the artists are men and they are men drawing and creating ways to show women in a bad way. However, Lydia then followed by showing the female surrealist artists such as; Frida Kahlo who tries to show all sides of herself and Leonara Carrington who tries to portray herself through animals like the minotaur. Lee Miller who works on the male gaze photographed a staged dinner that included a Severed Breast from Radical Mastectomy, showing that men take women for granted and if they want us as women they can have the whole package. Surrealist techniques - Collage - Cubomania - Decalcomania - Outagraphy - Automatism.
Czloacz, L University of Huddersfield . (2021,02,10) Surrealism, Women and Graphic Design . Brightspace. https://huddersfield.brightspace.com/d2l/le/content/134133/viewContent/951338/View
After a short break Lydia came back and started to introduce her work more and the artists that influenced her in her practice and more modern day surrealists artists like Jessica Walsh, Vasjen Katro and Leta Sobierajski. Our task then for this session was to create a collage from either our own cut outs of the 50 that Lydia had provided for us view a dropbox file, we were to create a collage around 'Desire/Time/The Gaze'. At first I was a little confused to how I was going to go about this task and what images to use and where to place etc. but after seeing the images in the file and quickly seeing a pattern of body parts I started to visually see something that I could create. After a few trial and error positioning and resizing of images I had a creation to show the group and baring in mind this task was set for 30 minutes.
Collins G. (2021). [Image Making].
After seeing how easy it was to create a quick and simple collage I decided to create a collage using my own images to see where I could go with this technique and if I could improve and using this in my practice more as a photographer. As a result I am very pleased with what I created with my own images and find that the images I have chosen look great together. These are two separate images of eyes placed over one another and changed in colour, I feel this is a very striking image to create and also a more confusing looking image as some viewers may find it hard to look, especially with the bright bold colours.
Collins G. (2021). [Online Image].
The last task of the day with Lydia was to create a 'Sigel' in 15 minutes, this was a simple task of choosing a name or key phrase of your own personal project and then remove any letters that repeat after the first. I have attached images of Lydia's instructions below to make it easier to understand along with my personal sigel approach.
Czolacz, L University of Huddersfield. (2021,02,10) How to Sigel. Brightspace. https://huddersfield.brightspace.com/d2l/le/content/134133/viewContent/951338/View
My sigel
Collins G. (2021)
The session today conducted by Lydia was so refreshing, even though I am not a drawer or graphic designer i found the workshop to entertaining but also instructive with new ways of working and new ways of researching into art and practice. Lydia has created some amazing creative work and also given me some very good information to take and out into my own practice. Below is an image of doodles that Lydia asked us to start when she first started talking in her presentation and I just want to add this at the end of this blog to show the response and characterises I gained from Lydia.
Collins G. (2021)
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