Tacheles

Tacheles was a wacky place! I have never seen anything like it before! Thinking back to my feelings about the grafitti lift we saw on the first day, it was nothing compared to this place! It was so unusual but I loved the expression you could feel from the artists work. 

Over 50 artists have studio space at Tacheles, they were working as we were looking around, you could see what they were producing and could ask them about their work if you wanted to. The walls inside the building were floor to ceiling with street art, every space was filled with a funny little spray painted man or a piece of well designed type. It really was fantastic to think about how they have turned what was a derelict building into such an inspiring place for artists and designers. If this place was near by I would certainly visit for inspiration! 

Outside, Tacheles was like a dumping ground, old bits of cars, metal pieces, bits of mirrors old fridges. A lot of the work you had to step over or climb through to get a view of it, but I felt that this added to the freedom of expression, it wasn’t highly structured like you would find at the MOMA in New York or any other museum, it was the complete opposite! Everything was everywhere and you had to search to find work. It was great, the way it was laid out made you feel like part of the work, I felt involved. Brilliant place!

Banksy 'Wall and Piece'

What an inspiring book! Although not being a major fan of graffiti art after being bombarded with it in Berlin this year, the stories in this book really are a brilliant read. A small selection of my favorite ones: Witnessing crimes whilst being out in the middle of the night spray painting the icon Che Guevara onto a bridge in London. Smuggling pieces of artwork into museums, hanging them and seeing how long they last before being taken down by the museum staff. Spray painting famous tourist attractions with ‘This is not a Photo Opportunity.’ These three are the ones which really made me laugh but there are so many more which don’t fail to inspire.

I came to think about Banksy and his work during my Exploratory Print Project, I received some print samples off a company called ‘Bracketpress’ they had placed the samples inside a ‘pick n mix’ bag which they had printed onto - Taking the sweet bag into a different context. This got me thinking about artists who print on unusual surfaces. Banksy prints on walls as a form of expression, arguing the fact that walls shouldn’t just be used for advertisements. His aim is to make standing at the bus stop exciting because there is something different to look at.

Thinking about how Bracketpress and Banksy both bring different contexts to everyday objects got me thinking about the power of words and communicated messages. I thought into how I could change the concept of an everyday object by simply using print. Whilst completing my paper making there were some shreds of paper which I didn’t use, rather than putting them to waste I wanted to experiment with this practice of changing the context of an item. I took the shredded paper and made a collage - commenting on the ways of society and the recycling system. Paper is wasted everyday, I wanted to put a use to this waste by creating an abstract piece of art work. 

Expressive Paint

Photographing the 'scrap' paper from screen print- highlighting the fact that sometimes we throw away the best parts of our design! The dirty cloth full of paint has lots of potential! I have edited these images in photoshop to bring out the saturation, photographing the paper over a spotlight gave the images a focus point... unsure of where to go with these...

Embrace the Mistakes!

Designers spend an enormous amount of time trying to get their prints perfect... Sometimes we need to sit back and take a look at the mistakes we make, rather than writing them off immediately. They can sometimes be more interesting than the final it's self! Here are a set of screen prints I did, using compositions of shape and colour - I then zoomed in on the mistakes.

Small Print. Big Impression

Exhibition in the Leicester New Walk Gallery, focusing on printing processes- appropriate to my print project! Love the layer effects in these images. The overlap of different print techniques has come off really successfully- Nice to see that people still have a passion for these methods of printing!

http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/lc/leicester-city-museums/exhibitions/smallprint/

Stamp Me!!!

An expressive/playful experiment exploring the notions of positive and negative.

Paper Making

Whilst developing ideas for my print process project, I thought it was essential for me to also look into paper and the way it's made! The way you print is just as important as what you print onto!

My paper didn't turn out as well as I was expecting, but I had fun engaging in the process and being away from the computer screen! My photographs during making the paper express the fun I had! I would encourage anyone to make their own paper... not for the outcome but for the experience!

These are the simple instructions I followed: http://www.laceimports.com/michelle/projects/paper_instr.html