so, I’ve already firmed my offer and am now interning. recently there’s not much work and its r e a l l y boring in the office.. sometimes i wish i could just take half a day off but… anyway, I’ve just been roped in (no choice) to some project because i know photoshop. however, I haven’t used photoshop since … idk :( last year? and i only know basic photoshop so I’m really nervous about the job. tomorrow i’ll be briefed about the project, hopefully everything goes well and that the supervisor (which is an angmoh and i think he’s scary) will be pleased.
on a side note, I’ve been doing some thinking. i hate (hate is too strong a word) dislike getting scolded, i dislike being told that I’m wrong, I’m not good at taking criticisms. and this is bad. R E A L L Y B A D theres bound to be many criticism and rejections throughout my undergrad life. i need to learn how to take them all in, without affecting myself too much, know what to reject and what to accept. and most importantly, learn how to keep those tears in. i pretty much tear way to easily.. i don’t know whether its because of a childhood trauma or what but i cry easily whenever a authoritative figure talks to me. i didn’t do well in jc and my form teacher came and talk to me, note, she didn’t scold me or anything, she just came to talk to me about my plans and stuff and i just cried. not the bawling kind but those sniffles and tears. some of my classmates saw and were shocked :/ i wonder how should i go about changing this. just let me cry and cry every time someone does that? until i get used to it? i don’t even know why i cry, its like i can’t control my tears.
another note to myself is that i have to be more confident :( i have really low self confidence and am easily worried or nervous about most stuff. sometimes i don’t show it so I’m not surprised if some of my friends are shock if they find out about this. i need to be more optimistic too: if i fail, then i just need to start all over again, when presented with something new, take it on as a challenge and not worry about whether i’ll fail or not, after all, I’m still learning.
also, I’m being to wonder whether I’m made the wrong choice for my uni.. i really really like the student works from the other school but eventually turned them down. the environment’s really cool, the have GREAT student works, the vibe of the neighborhood/country is much more chill and relaxed compared to the one I’m going :/ wish i could do half a year in each uni. or maybe i can go there for my masters.. but i wanted to go to another school for masters ohwells. to early to say anything
life in a few months time is gonna be hellish. i wonder if i’ll be able to sleep and eat properly. i hope i don’t gain weight...
today, i met up w 2 of my pri school classmates whom i consider as really good friends :-) its really been quite some time since i saw them.. i think the last time was prob during As where we would go macs and study (though honestly, i couldn’t really get much studying done) Wanted to meet them before army but… never happened and finally met them today. really grateful for friends like them and glad that we still keep in touch despite being in different classes for 6 years already. thanks for today and lets meet up soon again!
its been a while! summary: As have ended a long time ago, then there was prom, then a long break, birthday, work, a trip to korea and now I’m jobless haha.
So As ended last year, on a good note cause i enjoyed my last paper. I do have some regrets - that being that i did not study hard enough (compared to my friends, they really… drill themselves) i guess i have my own willpower and determination to blame :/ i didn’t really do well, but thats what you get for not pushing yourself to the limit. okay, enough about As.
Next was prom, it was a fun night which mainly consisted of going out of the ballroom to take pics and not paying attention to the stuff on stage. everyone looked really nice :) and my entire prom stuff totaled to less than $100 (cheap thrills hehe) went to twins house w leanne to prepare and ended up… late. again. but what to expect when you’re with the twins? heh not that their to blame but i felt bad cause the tixs were with me so the class had to wait but everything went smoothly. after that, went to the bar(?) at the first floor w a small group of friends, they drank. but i didn’t. cause i couldn’t. actually cause i can’t stand the bitter taste of alcohol. took some more pics and went home a happy girl :-)
then my very nice friends surprised me for my birthday >) leanne planned it w my mum (who surprisingly hid it well) it was the first time someone actually planned something and surprised me for my birthday. they knew what i liked and so everything went really smoothy and i cried haha ya i teared and everyone was shocked. nice memory and i’ll forever remember this and you guys!!! ILY!!
started work back at my alma mater. damn makes me feel old but at least lunch everyday was cheap!!!! shan’t go into details.
then went korea w my family (much needed trip i think the last time we went overseas together was… lower sec?)
now I’m jobless cause we were efficient and finished our project early. and also currently waiting for uni results. i hate making big decisions :(
/edit/ on a side note, not going to school for a prolonged period of time makes me feel really dumb? like i can’t write essays and adequately express my thoughts. this sucks plus i miss schooling :( seriously. everyone who’s still schooling, treasure your time!!!!!
/double edit/ though i miss the past, I’m really looking forward to the future :-)
first time going art stage and it was an extremely fun experience. gonna be a routine now, will visit every show from now on. so i visited art stage on the 26 (sat) AND the 27 (sun). well, i finished walking around the whole exhibition on the first day with hcaep (well technically alone cause i walked alone plus i find it rather dumb to visit galleries as a group cause everyone has different taste hence the different walking speed) Day 2 was spent focused on a few favourite pieces such as those by sam jinks and philippe pasqua.
saturday started off as time spent w fc putting up o1 deco. somehow it doesnt look very impressive here but the gate's really tall.. tomorrow's mon and school resumes, cant wait to see people's responses and suggestions!! hopefully the j1s and 2s like it :x no pic of the banner yet but i think its very nice. heh okay bias caused its our own banner but I THINK ITS PRETTY WELL DONE! good job ares ^^ then rushed off to art stage
not gonna say much, but here are some of my picks
especially liked sam jinks's works (the hyperrealist old woman, babies and wolf-human) and philippe pasqua (the stylistic and very expressive portraits) as well as fabien merelle (last 2 pics) and one more but i didnt note down the artist's name. its the photorealistic painting of an old man.
the works are rather contemporary, very little drawings, mostly paintings, installations, sculptures. overall it was an interesting experience and an eye opener. feeling so inspired now haha
art stage round 2 : zoomed in to the 4 artists mentioned and 'studied' their works chatting w fc and rushing around trying to find a particular artwork which we spent only 30 sec looking at loll
talked to ms ong on the first day and showed her my picks and she said ' luckily shes not my mentor cause we have totally different styles' and yes. totally agree with that haha. noticed that im more into sculptures, especially those hyperrealistic ones like ron mueck and sam jinks. after graduation i think i will delve into sculptures. i know i have no patience but im just gonna try. hopefully i can find myself a really good sculpture class or maybe build myself a nice work space cause i realized environment really do affect my mood and work. i cant draw seriously at random places and my standard of my work differs base on my mood, concentration and of course the environment.
i really wanna try resin and learn mueck's techniques. though its extremely time consuming, i really really love his work. would like to see the real one some time soon :/ maybe after As
and hopefully i'll do well in As, at least enough for me to attend the course that i want
gonna chiong hw now ad prob post another post on art stage and my thoughts another day
he is an ny based australian sculptor if I'm not wrong and he's also another hyperrealist sculptor and mainly uses silicon or resin/fiberglass to construct
his sculptures.
in some ways, both hanson and mueck are similar. they both create hyperrealist sculptures and somehow both deal with the human condition. there are slight difference in both of them as well; hanson focuses more on the mundane and banality of life, emphasizing insignificant ordinary people and actions, attending to stereotypes in the american society. mueck on the other hand focuses more on the process of life, for example, birth, death, pregnant women, and sometimes a little on the mundane life as well. however, the most significant difference is how both artist treat the scale of their sculptures. hanson's sculptures are mostly life sized, such that people can relate to it and there is direct interaction between the sculptures and the viewers. mueck's sculptures on the other hand are either extremely big or smaller than life sized. the difference in size of the sculptures and the viewers have a different impact as compared to hanson's sculptures. the effect of the scale (interaction between the artwork and the viewers) will be discussed later.
-acting god? creating human?
a girl
1. theme, irony and size
In the main gallery, Mueck’s 17-foot-long figure A Girl lies frozen and alone, her giant baby fists clenched and her enormous newborn eyes struggling to open for the first time. Known for using scale to distort viewer perception of his subjects, Mueck crafts his sculptures out of proportion in order to elicit a psychological presence of frailty or dominance.
Demonstrating the monstrosity of birth and the beginning of life with A Girl, Mueck’s exaggeration of size and life situation swings to the other end of the spectrum with Old Woman in Bed, a diminutive sculpture (less than a foot in length) of an old woman nearing the end of her days. Situated in the room next to A Girl, the woman is seemingly curled up asleep underneath a swath of blankets. But upon closer viewing, her eyes and mouthare half-open, with heavy lids barely able to blink and thin lips parted as if taking a last gasp.
Banal items of everyday life, when grouped in the thousands, compels our reconsideration of their relevance around our lives. Much in the same manner, Ron Mueck’s hyper-realistic sculptures amplifies human emotions and situations, forcing one to reconsider the relationship that we all share with one another.
“Ron Mueck does two things very well: he gets under the skins of his hyper-real figures, and he uses scale to expose vulnerabilities. [There is] a supine newborn baby the size of a small bathroom, its fetal blood not fully wiped away and its umbilical cord dangling like a thick, twisted rope. Each figure’s eyes mirror his or her soul. [There is] a hairy nude giant with crossed eyes seems fearful of something small. [There is] a woman the size of a Manhattan bedroom stares over the covers of her oversized bed, unready to face the day. [There is] a black man’s giant round face exudes ambition and, perhaps, frustration. [There is] a naked couple curled, spoon-style, against each other, sharing their warmth but not their thoughts.” (James Cohan)
there is always irony present in mueck's work. for instance, the size vs the subject matter. for instance, in the work 'a girl' the newborn girl is blown up to the size of a toilet (maybe) whereas 'dead dad' is smaller than life size and the subject matter is a dead man. the juxtaposition of the meaning o the size and meaning of the subject matter is obvious.
huge = overwhelming, strong, brave
subj matter = small newborn baby, have yet to experience anything
small= frail, weak, insignificant
subj matter= old man, experienced many things, full of knowledge
there are different ways to interpret the meanings. for example, the baby is still young, and can absorb and learn many new things, hence the size, all big, full of hope. the old man is already dead, no matter how many things he can learn, he can't because he is no longer alive, hence showing how small and insignificant he is.
and i just realized how tough it is to categorize things because they are all inter related. i guess i'll just stop and continue at the interaction with audience part haha
woman in bed
2. interaction between viewers and artwork
“It is not that we identify with the figures; rather, we wonder who they are and how they are going to resolve whatever dilemmas they seem to face. We empathize. Since scale and size vary throughout Mueck’s work, viewers have off subconscious relations to the spatial displacements between the sculptures. We approach the large ones as though they were giants, even though most of them seem unsure of themselves. Some small ones seem less fragile. Mueck reverses our usual notion that larger is stronger and smaller is weaker. The baby compounds this direction by being huge, strong, and fragile all at once. It is built like a tank, but the unfocused and inward eyes reveal that it cannot serve its own needs. Mueck’s visceral figures engage viewers in what ends up being a philosophical investigation of the human condition.” (James Cohan)
I think the main reason that Ron Mueck’s work is so powerful and affecting is that they all convey themes and feelings that we all understand - anxiety in life, fear of death, unexplainable and illogical phobias, that inherent need to be loved and accepted, the slow burning of desire - these are all emotions that we all can relate to in one way or another. And they become ever more so relatable when projected through massive depictions. every single detail is reflected on the sculptures, from blemishes and moles to eye bags. such blemishes are often covered up in real life and is hidden from the world. such blemishes can only be seen by the person themselves, after the clothes and makeup fall off. however, in his sculpture, everything is clearly shown. its like staring into a mirror, the sculptures are a reflection of us. so technically, viewing mueck's work is like looking at yourself in the mirror, with your flaws shown to you. it is because of this that the audience can connect so well with the artworks.
mask
dead dad
3. materials and procedure
ron mueck uses a variety of materials for his work, mainly resin, silicon and fiberglass. for this particular work pregnant woman, mueck used fiberglass/resin (i forgot which) to create the body. however the face is created using silicon. by using silicon, mueck can easily achieve an extremely realistic face whereby he is able to put/punch each individual strand of hair, eyelash, eyebrow into the sculpture's face.
i have never actually work with resin/fiberglass/silicon but i would like to try working with them
i couldn't upload part I :/ but here's part 2.
the way he works with his mediums, from the draft to a scaled down version with realistic and precise features made of clay, to the blown up sculpture made of a mixture of materials. to me, hyper realism is a style only suitable for perfectionists who are willing to spend so much time and effort on a single piece of work. it is also because of the perfectionist nature in the artist that the sculptures are able to appear so real. i think an impressionists artist or futurist artist/sculptor will probably never achieve such perfection and detail. i like the effect of the first clay sculpture he made. this sculpture serves as a basic model which gives him an impression of how the sculpture would look like. there is little to no detail, only rough outlines and silhouette. the clay model is rough and uneven (i like the texture). the clay he uses is different from what i had in mind. i guess this is due to the lack of experience?furthermore, the materials i've been exposed to are not a lot. my idea of clay is like those pottery clay haha. i'm not sure whether its the same clay but it looks kinda different in the video.
anyways, this is only the basic model. after deciding on the pose, he works on a larger and detailed sculpture. by using a wire armature to support the sculpture, he added clay around to shape the sculpture into the form of a pregnant woman. with his tools and hands, he carefully shapes the facial expression, fingernails and other details into the sculpture. after this is done, he will have a extremely detailed mini sculpture. he then creates the final sculpture. (my goodness so many steps zzz) so for the giant sculpture, first, mueck uses wires to build the basic structure of the sculpture, he then uses bandages (gauze) soaked in plaster of paris and wraps it around the wire armature. after the bandage has dried, mueck then slaps on clay to create the mould. slowly shaping it, smoothing it, adding clay, subtraction clay, the forms of the pregnant woman slowly appears. after he is done with the mould, he goes on to coat the mould in silicon (if i'm not wrong, or at least grease it to prevent the initial sculpture from sticking to the mould. not sure about this) he also uses wooden pegs to mark the specific spots so when he puts the mould together, he would know exactly which crack fits which crack. it is this kind of planning and detailing that allows him to create such realistic sculptures. sometimes, the clay sticks to the mould and it's hard to remove cause there are tiny crevices and lines. in this case, mueck has to cut/chip/saw/break the clay in order to take out the mould. he then reattaches it using the help of a wooden scaffolding.
it is a really complicated and tedious process.
so he fills it the mould up with liquid resin/ fiberglass (not sure how its done, I'm guessing its poured into the mould when is in liquid form). he look the face out and made one more using silicon. he then slowly and tediously sticks each strand of hair into the silicon since silicon is soft. (i will go crazy at this point) with this, he has full control over how the facial hair/hair will look like, enabling him to fully recreate an extremely real sculpture
for the sculpture dead dad, this is the only sculpture in which mueck uses his hair for the whole sculpture. i guess its like respect for your late father, using his hair to represent his father's hair, its a little like transferring his soul (which is made from his mum and dad, aiya you get the meaning) into the sculpture.
pregnant woman 2002
mueck's work prompts us to question the ideal real in contemporary art.
what is real? his works are looks absolutely real. yet it looks fake because its sooo real to the point that its too real to look real. okay this sounds confusing. the blemishes which he proudly shows are something that even normal people try to cover up (be it with makeup or clothes). cause of all these cover ups, we don't even see these blemishes in real life. seeing all of these on the sculpture kinda makes it seem unreal. the size of his sculptures are also not real. but he captures emotions so well such that there seems to be some sort of soul in the artwork.
