art show

3rd July

mystery date

July 3rd

Monoprints

Latest painting 'combinations and alliances'

Mary

MARY MAGAZINE mock up. I Created a fashion magazine for my art dissertation on the use of religious symbols in art and fashion and what creates an iconic image in today's society. All photos, editing and writing done by me.

New doodles and designs

Summer of love

New art

Paris is always a good idea

illustration

bunny girl and the seasick pilot

Love Buzz

Last month I interned for photographer Bella Howard, during her exhibition 'Love Buzz'. Set amongst the buzzing and culturual hub of central London, in none other than the St.Martin's Lane Hotel exhibition space, the show was a sneak peak into the lifestyle of a young 'happening' female photographer in London. Set up like a bedroom, prints were taped to the wall, and the central piece consisted of a large pink foam heart, surmounted with polaroids from Bella's life. Ranging from behind-the-scenes at a Mischa Barton shoot, to Harry Styles, to roller-coaster park in suburban America, the polaroids gave a collective glimpse of a journey from adelescence into rock and roll photographer. My personal favourite was the slightly sassy, cheeky Lana Del Rey against the American flag sticking out her tongue, rebuking today's American Dream, for as Lana says, its all a 'dark paradise'.

Sometimes a wonder round an art gallery is all you need to lift your spiritis. Being surroudned by art, the silence, contemplative setting is a sensation that you experience nowhere else. Although some may argue that large large pieces of glass spaced sporadically around a room is by no means art; one cannot argue that the serenity you feel from interacting with the objects is an appealing break from everyday life.
Swedish artist Raphael Hefti experiments with material processes, manipulating and transforming substances to create toughened, highly reflective, coloured, and at times opaque surfaces. The zesty blues and galaxy pinks created by the glass arise from optical behaviour that responds to the immediate light in the room. My few minutes wondering around the room were, like the glass, highly reflective, colourful, and dreamy.



Raphael Hefti at Camden Arts Centre

Final Piece for self inniated project
This art project started out with a visit to the National Gallery's 'Devoition by Design: Italian Altar pieces before 1500' . Rather than treating the altarpieces as works of art, and treating the exhibition like any other, the gallery was transformed into an Italian Renaissance church, reminding us that these pictures were originally hung in the most sacred places above the altar. Changing the atmosphere of a gallery immediately changed the perception of the hanging pieces; no longer did I see these as pieces of art, but real images of devotion and sacrifice.
I was looking at whether the religious symbol had become so commercialized that its use in art is simply aesthetic, or whether by using religious symbols in modern patterns and prints it does, in fact keep religion and history alive. Even the skull, once used as a memento mori, looking towards the afterlife as something greater than mortal life on earth, is now in the 21st century used in high fashion, worn as accessories in Alexander McQueen scarves and rings.
This project spanned from exploring pattern and fashion textiles on flat canvas, to questioning religion, to the ideals of the American dream. I originally created my own religious motif, photographing little bits and bobs I could find around the house, jewellery, dried leaves, a hamsa (palm shaped symbol used in Judaism and Islam), spray painting these items gold, photographing them, collaging them together, and ultimately creating what looks like a sacred coat of arms. I screen printed this onto the canvas, surrounded by images of money, wealth, consumerism, animals, and fashion figures. Realism meets abstraction and colour meets line. The nude figures, one with flowers printed onto her front, oozes lust, beauty and sexiness, along with the dangers of consumerism and fashion.
The piece subverts beauty, seducing the viewer with its sickly sweet colours and neon pinks, while really giving a clear perspectibe of the rise of materialism and perhaps the fall of religion.

Dada

It's that time of year again- the school fashion show, claws are out and stilettos pierce the maths corridor carpets. This year each house was given a 'movement' and we were given Dada. A reaction to the horrors and futility of WW1, artists began to question what kind of society could provoke such unprecedented barbarity and madness, and thus created art that questioned every aspect of the world they were living in, primarily using collage and text. Dada was anti art.
For the show we decided to go for 'ugly pretty' (Tyra Banks antm style). We went anti-fashion and very zany. We played with make-up a la Meadham Kircchoff, with thick black eyebrows, extended lashes and half red half black lips. I transfered newspaper articles and random collage onto a t shirt, and made straight legged trousers out of grey jersey, spray painted black, making them stiff and almost like newspaper ink. Paired with some killer KG heels, a Dada hat and crazy makeup - I looked like the perfect anti-war surrealist man.