Critical reflection - Unit 2
Unit two
Key word: Healing, memory, grief, repair
In unit 2, I have written several sections to show some critical reflection of the research project. They inspirated me from artists, books and creative processes.
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Project emotion and thoughts on the beard inspired by Emma Talbot
After drawing several beard and trying to print with soft ground in etching and stone lithography in unit 1, I got an enjoyable feedback that is projection of emotion and thoughts on the prints.
‘Most acutely, Talbot summons the events of the past in order to work through contemporary dilemmas that may have an impact on the future.’ (Smith, L. and Fray-Smith, W., 2022) This description let me start to think why I chose beard as an image of initial idea rather than other texture. Beard is a signpost as a male that I trust and would like to have a safe relationship. In the beginning, the male symbol was inspired from personal experience which I lose my dad suddenly few years ago. I found that this accident became a trauma when I wanted a relationship seriously such as between families, love partner and friendship. I used to worry about losing someone I care about, something I am reliable on and intimate relationship. Then I try to draw a beard that could let myself to project what I expect in a close relationship with someone. The beard engages in my hope and previous grief memory but it is truly a destination I prefer to build with someone in the future.
‘Emma Talbot’s most recent work is invested with a deep concern for time: our present moment, how we got here, and where we might be going.’ ( The Age / L'Età Emma Talbot, 2022, p. 23)…’It is commonly assumed that time is linear, flowing “uniformly, independently from everything else, from the past to the futures. The past is fixed, the future open.” …In our world of catastrophe, our relationship to linear time may produce anxiety, prodding us to use time judiciously, because – as we are so often told – “time’s up” or we are running “out of time”.’ (The Age / L'Età Emma Talbot, 2022, p. 24)
My images of prints I made have been an inside journey of repairing the grief and missing and lose experiences. I work on dealing with anxiety, worrying and disappointment by drawing and printing. In the mean time, I could add my hope and expectation about the future in the works to mend myself. Just like “time is linear, flowing uniformly, independently from everything else, from the past to the futures.” (The Age / L'Età Emma Talbot, 2022, p. 24)
Followed by this time advancement idea, I started to draw more everyday life feeling and the beard I printed to observe how it goes. The everyday drawing seems like a diary to look back and reflect on crucial moments I got during a day. Sometimes it would be a productive and positive memory and sometimes I experienced an unexpectable disappointed event. From these fluctuating, I tried to find a balance between emotional circumstances and everyday routine and think optimistic with sadness or frustration.
This everyday drawing is different from my prints drawing since it goes through following mood and feeling inspired by what had happened in the day. I found there are satisfied, frustrated, hope and feeling of worry to lose in the inspiration that attracted me. The image combines with the beard and my scar of burn injury. During the process I try to figure out a pattern of this developing idea to print.
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Primary research of how man thinks about having a beard
‘Natural selection changes a species by favoring individuals with traits that enhance their chances of survival and procreation. When it comes to procreation, however, there is another level of selection as individuals within a species compete with one another for the favor of sexual partners. Darwin reckoned that, …animals evolved many secondary sexual characteristics that functioned…, or as ornaments to attract potential mates, such as coloured hair and feathers. ( Oldstone- Moore, C., 2016) During this reading, I did some primary researches of gathering feedback of why man choose to have beard on the face around my classmates and friends who has beard on the face. Interviewer A: ‘If I do not have a beard, I will look like a baby. I use shaver to keep the shape and clean when I take a shower.’ The feedback let me know that he is focusing on the facial hair style and could show masculinity of himself.
‘What made the beard a strongly attractive ornament for some but loathsome for others? If it was simply a matter of taste, why were the passions it stirred strong enough to cause some prehistoric women reject would-be mates?’ ( Oldstone- Moore, C., 2016)
‘As it now stands, theorists have proposed three basic solutions to the beard conundrum. The simplest, which Darwin himself considered and rejected, is that beards have no purpose at all.’ ( Oldstone- Moore, C., 2016) Interviewer B’s feedback of why he choose to have a beard on the face: ‘ I don’t know, I got beard since my twenties, since I could have a beard and I use a shaver to keep the shape.’ From his description, I feel that having a beard is an instinctual habit and has no purpose. He is used to the beard on the face.
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Millbank tower project
A lovely curation day that also supported my work on how to install in the show space. It is important because my print get stitch on that needs to be seen at two sides. For the initial idea from an one to one tutorial, we planned that could make a frame and hang the print on it. Unfortunately, I had not been inducted by woodwork workshop as I only can make by hand with a wood white frame on the top of it. During the making process I got an idea from technician that could hang it from ceiling with the frame I made. In the moment, I couldn’t image what will look like if the print is hanging in the Millbank Tower. However, I totally like the installation of the print in the show day.
In this project, watching tutors to decide where is an appropriate location of work is the most interesting aspect for learning. Moving each work from a corner to another, I found the decision came from their experiences that depend on professional curating skills. Different light could make viewers have variety aesthetic experience when they looking at the display. For instance, I got a window side to hang my print from ceiling and I did not see clearly the light goes through holes I mended. However, the print is hung in an environment without near a window a week after the pop up show at Millbank Tower, I could find shinny light comes through holes on the beard I printed.
After Millbank tower project, I got some inspiration from peer crit that was a silence group crit different from we did before. There was a several minutes group members in the beginning of the crit could talk and feedback to my print. Then I could respond for the feedback. I found there were lots of points which I never think deeply such as my craving to be loved, craving physical distance of someone’s face from beard that represents an intimacy relationship and it combines the grief from my personal memory and hope of future. I got these new thoughts from the helpful discussion and it gave me an indication about how research project goes more further.
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Louise Bourgeois
‘It is a mark in the body…” Drawing is the eye-opener of the soul,” she states. A print records the unfolding of the soul; it is a macula in the gaze. Some prints confront us with a hyper-gaze, eyes that look into our eyes, and dive into the viewer.’ (Herkenhoff, P., 2005) When I read these sentences, I felt they were talking about my drawing as well because I use drawing to start a conversation with an unsure issue happened in daily life and set myself to a safe place. It opens an eye for me to deal with and unpacks in the deep mind.
‘Whatever materials and processes Louise Bourgeois used to create her powerful artworks, the main force behind her art was to work through her troubled childhood memories. These memories were not specific, but a layering of emotional responses to the complicated relationship she had with her parents and their relationship with each other.’ (The Art of Louise Bourgeois, nd) I was sad by knowing the story of her creative idea, but I could feel the strongly powerful influence at the sight of the artworks. It was like a punch on my eyes.
Louise Bourgeois Paternity (1994)
Louise Bourgeois Do Not Abandon Me.(1999)
The suffer and painful emotion are direct go into my mind seems like could feel the pain for her. It made an obvious contradistinction between her works and mine since I found I might not use to give lots of hints and evidences to viewers from the prints and prefer to gather intuitive feedback of them.
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Fay Ballard
I heard Fay Ballard’ works from one of unit 1 tutorials and so pleasure to join a talk with her during unit 2 especially could sign up an one to one tutorial after it. Before the artist talk at Camberwell, I went to Patrick Heide Contemporary Art to visit her drawing for preparing some notes and thought could ask afterward. The artworks show a felling of peaceful and quiet to me. I saw a tiny hole in the centre of each concentric circles, which reminded me a photo she drew in the studio carefully and attentively. I was attracted by how she went three major topics, the colour been used in the concentric circles and titles she named for each work. For example, the three major of works just like her life story, the colour onto concentric circles came from her childhood memory and the titles she named could directly help viewers engaging into the drawing. These questions were brought to the sign-up tutorial and came with brilliant feedback.
Fay Ballard Memory Box About my Father (2012)
Fay Ballard His Trace 2 (2015)
On the other hand, there was a key word that Ballard remind me for my prints and drawing. It is ‘human touch’. “Whatever you do, do not forget ‘human touch’.” she said. I was deeply inspired by it since I really want to catch the warm and kind connection between people’s community. Gentle and quiet way to show grief in the prints that draft from ordinary drawing.
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Breathe: Fay Ballard & Judy Goldhill
'My father was caring and loving. He became Mummy-Daddy involved in the domestic: cooking fish fingers, ironing and driving us three children to school. We kept going and made the most of things. However, mourning his death in 2009 released an outpouring of grief for my mother and an urge to reinstate her. I was 52 years old.' (Ballard, F., 2018)
The paragraph reminds me about my dad. He was straightforward, enthusiastic and inclusive. I was supported by his optimistic thought and open-minded idea such as never judge me and two little brothers did not get a good grade at school and bear my dream list in mind and think deeply and quietly about how to encourage me keep going. His death was an unexpected accident in the hospital during a regular disease treatment every three month. Still remember when I answered a call from my aunt from the hospital, she asked me to decided if we gave up doing CPR for him as it had been done over thirty minutes and his ribs was broken. The moment I was clam because I knew the decision should be made by myself rather than little brothers or my mom. Then, I said: 'Yes, let him take a rest and bring him home.' While I ended the call, my hand were shaking and felt cold.
I told myself he was going to have a long sleep.
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In circles
'Ballard's emotional search for her mother was literalised in a momentous trip in 2016 to visit Mary's final resting place, in Spain, where the artist had not been since 1964. There - looking down at the ground, as if into the past - Ballard created a vitally important transitional drawing, Buried Below, 2017. One can hardly fathom the emotional overlaps registered here: at once nature study; homage to a missed and missing parent; long overdue revisitation of trauma; and real-time record of charged moments spent on this powerful spot.' (Williams, G., 2021)
When mentioned "missed and missing', I started to think about the effect these two words brought to me. I won't expect any losing but I still on the way to learn how to deal with it by a clam and gentle method. It is a pleasure that printing would help me facing the past grief. I seldom cry or talk my father seriously after he passed away until last September I came to UK. There is a progress that I used to treat the trauma as a humorous expression when I need to talk about with someone else. However, I could face it with my favourite and enjoyable creative way now. The tracing of my losing family member is emotional and powerful. I an attracted by Ballard's this visiting trip for searching since it was so brave and touched.
Fay Ballard Buried Below (2017)
Reference list
Artist Emma Talbot: Telling the Stories of Our Times (2023) Louisiana Channel, Available at: https://youtu.be/9b_VNt88x8o?si=WCLsrnnX2wY8PotF (Accessed: 21 May 2025).
Artist Rachel Whiteread: "Artists reflect upon what is happening (2023) Louisiana Channel, https://youtu.be/9436JCNqsmk?si=g9whlJmCweljCab_(Accessed: 21 May 2025).
A Dream of Discipline (and Other Works) (2006) Ireland: The Douglas Hyde Gallery
Breath: Fay Ballard & Judy Goldhill (2018) London: Freud Museum London
BREATHE by Fay Ballard and Judy Goldhill - Exhibition Trailer (2018) Freud Museum London, Available at: https://youtu.be/efIxz3sqADk?si=MgvlBBhRRRzKoKr5 (Accessed: 21 May 2025).
Boyle Family (2003) UK: The Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Fay Ballard (nd) Available at: https://www.fayballard.com (Accessed: 21 May 2025).
History of Facial Hair (2022) Yuma County Library, Available at: https://youtu.be/4KwX9AdLIT4?si=m_U8DrKQd4fZgg7c (Accessed: 21 May 2025).
Kathy Prendergast: The End and The Beginning (1999) London: Merrell Publishers Ltd
Misumi, N. (2018) Joyful Mending: Visible Repairs for the Perfectly Imperfect Things We Love!. Hong Kong: Tuttle Publishing.
Ricci, G. (2023) Lines of Empathy. London: Lines of Empathy Press
The Age / L'Età Emma Talbot (2022) London: Whitechapel Gallery
The Art of Louise Bourgeois (nd) Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/louise-bourgeois-2351/art-louise-bourgeois (Accessed: 21 May 2025).
The Healing Arts: The Arts Project at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (2019) London: Unicorn, an imprint of Unicorn Publishing Group LLP
Travelling companions Q&A with Judy Goldhill and Fay Ballard (2021) CRASSH Cambridge, Available at: https://youtu.be/t_SeRUQGnPI?si=zBsxZXZICtJMPVv_(Accessed: 21 May 2025).
Williams, G. (nd) In Circles. UK: Dannylirlprints.com