Portfolio 2020: Places and Spaces

Henri arranged the cars in full colour range and carefully constructed the composition using space and placement. Henri loves cars and chose this idea for his artwork.

Butterfly painted en plain air in watercolour on 10×6 inch board by Emily. We were looking for the most beautiful things we could find at home during the Covid-19 lockdown. Emily briefly saw a butterfly and painted in from memory.

This was painted when looking out of the window during self–isolation due to Covid – 19 ‘It is me looking outside and imagining what I see’.

I would like to change the World into a better place to live. Birds dropping happiness from their beaks so that everyone has a lovely day, no plastic waste in the city and lots of trees. The Gingerbread Man building to remind people to always recycle and respect one another and our planet.

My artwork is about a place I would love to live in full of love colours and magical fairies

All around the world, people undertake journeys, often in extreme circumstances. There isn’t always time to pack and say goodbye. Places are lost and new spaces are found. What would you take with you? How would you travel? Where would you go?

The moon sits in space but it also sits in other spaces on earth like between the mountains and in its reflection in the water. It is where space meets earth.

This is about all the plastic in the ocean.

After looking at the artist, Andy Goldsworthy, I was inspired to visit the local beach and make small still life arrangements out of found natural objects. I really like the way the sun is piercing through the shells and stones.

I decided to design more glamorous lampposts to make the streets a more exciting place to be. i thought it fitted with the theme of places and spaces because it’s improving the places and spaces we live in by turning the ordinary (like lampposts) into extraordinary.

Going beyond the cliché of ‘a leopard can’t change it’s spots this work explores the notion that the spots can change the leopard. The spotted orchid displays markings similar to the leopard but these spots are used for an entirely different purpose – attraction rather than concealment. Here the leopard is leading the light into the darkness; this contrasts with how we normally perceive shadow in terms of depth and shelter. The symbolism behind this piece represents psychological camouflage and the fine line between victim and victory both in the natural and man-made worlds.

My piece aims to portray the wonders of the Chinese culture and celebrates the spaces that make up the places that they call “home”. The use of the collage format was to incorporate as much of the culture as possible onto the page in order to fill and overflow the space. Our places, spaces, homes and cultures are not only affected by our circumstances, as seen in the current global pandemic; but also shaped by past events in history which serves as a reminder of the resilience of mankind, an encouragement for us to rise up and overcome and to highlight the importance of preserving the places, spaces and cultures that we call “home” for generations to come.

My painting reflects on how we are experiencing the outside world through a window, and how we are stuck inside whilst our ordinary lives are waiting just beyond the glass.

I took this photo in a food market in GuangZhou, China. The lighting that they use in the markets to make the meat look fresh. I captured this trading moment in order to emphasised that money is beyond the value of animal life.

Taking photos of mundane moments in people’s everyday lives was the starting point to this piece, a way of people watching through photography and painting. I wanted to capture the moment between the two people in a specific place and time close to me but that could be anywhere and will be familiar to anyone. When painting the photograph, I wanted to remove unnecessary detail to change the focus from the busy, physical place of the supermarket to the private space between the couple. This allows the viewer to interpret their body language and the relationship between them, and to perhaps recognise themselves or people they know in the caught moment. Subtle elements of the physical place are still important so that the painting feels familiar to the viewer without disrupting the image with details that may not be recognisable, so the chillers become slightly blurred in the background, highlighting the couple and becoming almost like a gallery that they have paused in, rather than a supermarket. Artwork and the context it was made in and later viewed in is constantly evolving. This painting began as people watching through canvas, a tiny inconsequential moment in the lives of two strangers. With the events of the last few months, shopping in supermarkets has dramatically changed, and become impossible for many. Under lockdown, the viewer today will undoubtedly interpret this image differently now, and the relationship between the couple will perhaps even be scrutinised and judged. Shopping for food has been transformed, and may never be such a casual moment again, leading the viewer to perhaps feel nostalgic for moments like these that were previously taken for granted.

For this piece I took apart a set of headphones and photographed the placement and space between each part. I chose this as a theme as I feel music can take you to your own space and place to unwind and switch off in the busy hectic lifestyle that many of us lead. I tried to capture the lightness and airiness of peace and a calm fullness surrounding the pieces but when you listen to the music you might get the opposite effect. An object so simple at first glance can have very complicated inner workings.

My favourite space is a sensory experience of colours and light. I am obsessed by numbers and alarms hence the colour and light being used. I love to immerse myself in it. I have surrounded my piece with numbers on the sensory room walls to immerse fully in numbers.

18 Photographs. Dalibor is visually and hearing impaired. He created these images whilst on a visit to the Turner Contemporary Art Gallery. These images of inside the gallery gives the viewer a different perspective of a space shared. Dalibor’s perspective. Dalibor has taught himself how to changes the images using a simple camera all on his iPad.

Martin is an adult supported at the Artrack studio in Gravesend run by The National Autistic Society, he is autistic and registered blind. Martin has has a traumatic life, however, he finds pleasure in painting and visiting the Kent coast and his friend in Wales. As he is now blind Martin struggles to see the landscape which he loves, however, through the gesture of painting he is able to re-imagine it.

The picture was taken while lying in bed, alone and hungover, in my 1930s flat. I was glad having my own place meant I didn't have to talk to anyone or do anything. The quote in the title is Lou Reed's introduction on a live album to a song called Sunday Morning, which is about regret and paranoia.

This piece is about the places we inhabit in our memories and how they fade and blur over time. How the specific detail is gradually lost until the memory becomes a snapshot of an atmosphere. It was inspired by childhood visits to the Welsh Valleys in the 1960s and 70s which, for a girl from suburban Surrey, seemed fabulously exotic. There was a steep hill behind the house where wild ponies grazed and we picked wimberries. We called it ‘The Mountain’.

We have all been confined to a space recently (our homes) and that experience had connected us all. Our experiences of staying at home will have been infinitely varied, depending on our individual circumstances, but we have all had that experience. In this lockdown, I have been considering, not our differences, but our collective humanity – the sinuous coiling thread that links all of us through time.

Childhood represents my memories of growing up and the special things I remember doing as a child in Folkestone. My love for the seaside and the ice cream van, the funfair rides at rotunda and my memory of the illustrations in ladybird books. This painting is a collaboration of all these significant events that have engraved in my heart as Folkestone is my special place.