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Willow Fisher
LJMU Fine Art

Year 2 Semester 2

A visual documentation of the work I have produced this semester.

Year 2: Welcome

Starting point

Initial ideas and work for project

Over the summer I spent my time painting landscapes, these being A5 to my preferred size and in acrylic. I would go away for weekends with my family to different areas of Wales and so on and document the places we had seen in my travel sketchbook. I really admired the visual documentation of my experience, ranging in different styles. For example on sight pencil sketches and watercolour paintings, to detailed acrylic ones, I found joy in capturing what me and my family had experienced and still do. Which is why I want to start this semester with something I have a strong passion for. 
To strengthen this concept I want to bring more to it so that it is not a foundation of acrylic landscape paintings, despite thoroughly enjoying this I feel I can challenge it more and bring more to it. I want to use this semester as an opportunity to introduce and work with something I feel so strongly for, the environment, and look further into it and reflect this in my artwork.
I've already established they will be landscape oriented art pieces, but to introduce more skill and interest to them, as well as a context. I like artworks with meaning, that have a strong narrative and evoke audience members. I want to look at producing landscape pieces ranging in technique and materials focusing on the issue of pollution, waste and the current state of the environment around us. I want to direct my attention and practice to collecting and recycling materials to incorporate into my artwork. Whether its an acrylic painting on a reused surface or material I find round the house, a mixed media collage of materials I find round the house (different textures and colours) or actually using recycled and litter and bringing in to a landscape piece (for example if I visit a beach or something like that have a look at what has been left behind by visitors, collect it and use it in piece.

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Year 2: Portfolio

The Environment

.To make this personal to me one of my hobbies is gardening and I spend a lot of my time in my garden, I grow my own fruit and veg and make the most of the items around me for my plants, For example I don't buy starter planting pots for seeds, I reuse the ones I have if they are not broken or use yogurt pots, bottles etc. I don't spend ridiculous money on brand new plant pots for visual liking, I go to charity shops or car boot sales and buy old pots and containers. I'm not a materialistic person so I feel I can have a strong interest and passion for the work I will produce. It is all relevant to my personality, ideologies and overall interests, plus it will be directed towards an ever growing serious issue about the state of the world we live in.
.I can do extensive research of the areas I wish to visit about their environmental status and so on linking it to my practice.
.I’m looking at the environment and deeper into our relationship with it. Looking to explore how we interact and treat our surroundings and the natural course of our lives, in particular how what we do impacts the environment.
.Look to focus and even work with waste. Our relationship with it, how we dump stuff that isn't deemed useful anymore, like physically dump it. 
. How we just work and live in layers, metaphorically and literally. We live, we dump, we cover up and carry on. When building we flatten original spaces and build on top, wecover over natural beauties like lakes and forests. Replacing them with man made ponds and nature reserves that are far from natural and ethically right. There are layers of history beneath us. Under our houses, the streets we walk, the places we visit, they were once something else, something of importance, that was recognised as unimportant and simply removed. Only it wasn't removed it was just covered up. There's a narrative there i'm interested in unearthing.
.Physically unearth the past, with magnet fishing, rediscover those mysteries and bring them into an artistic context. Retrieve what has been dumped and hidden away, make visible the invisible.
.I want to reflect the social ideologies of the environment, look to how we treat it as this says a lot about us. In a way how we treat it is how it is currently treating us, its back and forth. To explore this I’m going to produce artwork responding to it.

Year 2: Text

Images

I went to Wales with my dad to gather some photographs to produce work with as a starting point. I took a mix of idealised photos of the beaches and then quick snaps of the motorway during the journey.

Year 2: Portfolio

Sketches from the Beach

Year 2: Portfolio

Paintings

I have been painting landscapes. Ideal in their appearance, simplistic almost. Grass in the foreground, trees in the middle along the horizon then the sky. Realistic landscapes in acrylic ‘Twee’. Gradually in the paintings introducing other subject matter, a pylon, powerline, chimneys, mechanical buildings. Just a subtle reminder that they are there, gradually working there way into our environment. I hope that this presents to the viewer the interference from us on the landscape, it's not all picturesque like it seems with the realistic paintings, there's more if you properly look at it. I have been painting them on reused/recycled surfaces, so primarily cardboard so far from different packagings. For example: cereal box, coffee box, tissue box, toilet roll flattened, brown paper bags. At this point in time they are small paintings. I hope to work larger. I like the contrast of a beautiful landscape painted on a not so pretty surface, like a permanent reminder of what reality is like.

Year 2: Portfolio

Masking Tape Landscapes

Keeping with the concept of not wasting anything I kept the masking tape used to border the paintings, with these I stuck them down to make more abstract landscapes. Recycling what would have been put in the bin. It's a minimalist approach that I think works well.

Year 2: Portfolio

Mixed Media Landscapes

I have also been making collage landscapes, created from the leftovers from other artworks. Purely made from scraps and leftovers so I am not wasting anything. This means that these landscapes are more sparse in their subject matter and their composition is more gestural than literal. Working with the same images from the previous paintings but with a different outcome, presenting two very different perceptions of the landscape. Dense and sparse, reflective of the ideology of it. Making use of the materials around me, no matter what they are, making use of everything and anything.
I have collected all the scraps and off cuttings from other works and put them in a box, as you can see below. I could play around with the composition. Stuck down landscapes and loose ones, placing scraps down and moving them, reflecting the continuous changes of the landscape. Everything is temporary. A more simplistic approach.

Year 2: Portfolio

Group Crit

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Magnet Fishing Work

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Year 2: Portfolio

Metal Work

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Rust Water Paintings

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Large Rust Water Painting

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Rust Paintings

Year 2: Portfolio
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Metal Display

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Year 2: Image

Metal Display

Close up

Year 2: Portfolio
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