Actions & Movement in Art

Vito Acconci and Francis Alÿs are two examples of artists that turn actions and movements into a form of art. I drew inspiration from Francis Alÿs work “Collectors” and “The Green Line” to also turn something as simple as walking into a form of art. The idea of leaving your mark behind while walking stood out to me, so I began brainstorming ideas on how I could create my own version of Francis Alÿs walking installations.

I wanted to document my journey of walking without actually leaving a permanent footprint behind in an environment. Artists Janine Antoni and Paul Ramirez Jones created a piece of walking art called “Migration” where they walked along the beach and matched each others footprints, which I thought was a perfect way to document a journey which will not be a permanent mark. From this, I came up with my idea of  walking along the beach and recording the journey, but also like in Francis Alÿs work “Collectors”, I picked up each natural item on the beach along the way.

My actions and movement in art piece represents that you can walk without leaving a permanent mark on the environment. It also captures all of the little things that you may miss on something as simple as a walk, if you don’t take in the environment around you.

Time in Art

Many of David Hockney’s works capture the essence of time through photography collages, which inspired me to use photography as a medium to also show time passing. David Hockney’s works, Tea Time and Gregory in the Swimming Pool stood out to me the most out of his works.  I used these aspects of both these pieces to create my own photographs that shows time passing in two different ways.

To brainstorm the idea of time, I originally used the iPad as a medium and created timelapse drawings and layered photos together. I decided instead of using video time lapses to show time passing, I would use Photoshop to create a time piece in a single photo instead.

I like how David Hockney uses many different photographs taken at different time intervals and places them together again in an almost abstract way shows time passing.  It allows you to see the movements and changes of time all together in an instant, instead of for example, in a 30 second video.

Stemming off the concept of being able to see time passing in an instant, for this photograph I used Photoshop to layer and place multiple photos (taken at different time periods) into a single image.

In class we all took photos of the same object using the iPad and created a collage. I took inspiration from this idea and captured a photo every hour in the same spot, which allowed me to created a collage that shows time passing through the change in the sky.

Air & Space in Art

Extending from the in class activity of creating the inflatable elephant using bags and fans to blow it up, I was inspired to create a sculpture piece that was also inflatable. I researched artists that use space and air as a practice in their artwork.

An artist that really stood out to me was Charles Petillon’s and his “Clusters of White Balloons” sculptures. In his installations he combines the concept of air (in the balloons) and space (by incorporating the balloons into a physical space) in his artworks in a way that I found eye catching. He fills abandoned spaces with the white balloons and adds light around them, which to me creates a sense of softness in a harsh, forgotten environment. By using balloons, Charles Petillon is also creating work that can literally burst at any time and has a very short lifespan, especially in the outside environments.

To create my own scaled down version of Charles Petillon’s piece I also thought about Ai Wei Wei’s work and how he creates a political statement in each of his installations, by also using the space around him, which I also wanted to incorporate into my own work.

My original idea to add a statement to my work was to make the balloon sculptures into specific shapes such as a tree, rock, etc and places them around streets to symbolise nature invading man-made areas. Instead, I decided to reverse that idea by symbolising how plastic is placed into natural environments, and the impact humans are having on these spaces. I did this by creating abstract shapes with white balloons and instead of actually placing them outside (due to the risk of popping), I took photos around the Illawarra and photoshopped the sculptures into these environments instead.

Mt Keira Lookout, Wollongong

Sublime Point hiking trail, Thirroul

South Beach, Wollongong