A new post... finally.
Wow, it's been so long since I posted on here, I almost forgot how!! In my defence, I was waiting on some photographs from the evening's exhibition at The Hepworth gallery. Sadly, the pictures never arrived, (I'll keep trying) so in order to kick start this behemoth, let's just go with what I've got.
First to say, the evening went surprisingly well, I was there with my wife & daughters of course, but in addittion to us attendance on the evening was up around the 500 visitors mark, which is pretty incredible for an exhibition which only ran for 5 hours!
My peice seemed to go down well, with lots of punters taking the opportunity to create their own drawings. The idea was that in exchange for a drawing, they'd be able to take away a print copy of my piece.. the ultimate art swap, if you will.
So what was my piece? Well, if you can cast your mind back far enough, my self & four other local artists were ivited to create something in response to Barbara Hepworth's 'Mother & Child, see this post for all the details. Given that 'art' as opposed to 'illustration' is completely out of my comfort zone, coming up with a decent concept proved to be somewhat difficult for me. However, after much deliberation, I decided to do a piece which was about my notions of the relationship between a mother & their child, rather than a reaction to the Hepworth sculpture specifically. The idea I wanted to convey, was that a Mother in many ways is EVERYTHING to a child, from carer to policewoman, from confidant to authoritarian. So, I made a comic strip which uses only the words 'mother' & 'child' for all the dialogue, this seemed like a neat idea at the time, but on reflection it may have stretched to point to far, nevertheless, I think it conveys my overall idea. The decision to make the strip as a faux vintage piece akin to comics from the 60's, was made to suggest that (for me at least) , that was the period when I had experienced that Mother/Child relationship with my own mother.
To the image itself. Aping the drawing & colouring style of the 1960's proved to be trickier than I'd imagined, but I was happy with the end result.
Anyway, here are a few pictures from the evening, & a scan of the piece that the local newspaper ran about the event (trust me, despite what these pictures might suggest, there were people actually there!), & I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at the Hepworth, & Richard Wheater for inviting me to participate in the evening.
First to say, the evening went surprisingly well, I was there with my wife & daughters of course, but in addittion to us attendance on the evening was up around the 500 visitors mark, which is pretty incredible for an exhibition which only ran for 5 hours!
My peice seemed to go down well, with lots of punters taking the opportunity to create their own drawings. The idea was that in exchange for a drawing, they'd be able to take away a print copy of my piece.. the ultimate art swap, if you will.
So what was my piece? Well, if you can cast your mind back far enough, my self & four other local artists were ivited to create something in response to Barbara Hepworth's 'Mother & Child, see this post for all the details. Given that 'art' as opposed to 'illustration' is completely out of my comfort zone, coming up with a decent concept proved to be somewhat difficult for me. However, after much deliberation, I decided to do a piece which was about my notions of the relationship between a mother & their child, rather than a reaction to the Hepworth sculpture specifically. The idea I wanted to convey, was that a Mother in many ways is EVERYTHING to a child, from carer to policewoman, from confidant to authoritarian. So, I made a comic strip which uses only the words 'mother' & 'child' for all the dialogue, this seemed like a neat idea at the time, but on reflection it may have stretched to point to far, nevertheless, I think it conveys my overall idea. The decision to make the strip as a faux vintage piece akin to comics from the 60's, was made to suggest that (for me at least) , that was the period when I had experienced that Mother/Child relationship with my own mother.
To the image itself. Aping the drawing & colouring style of the 1960's proved to be trickier than I'd imagined, but I was happy with the end result.
Anyway, here are a few pictures from the evening, & a scan of the piece that the local newspaper ran about the event (trust me, despite what these pictures might suggest, there were people actually there!), & I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at the Hepworth, & Richard Wheater for inviting me to participate in the evening.
posted by Staz Johnson at 3:36 PM
2 Comments:
lo,staz. that's a lovely piece. strong images, expertly composed. and the attention given to that vintage/retro look is spot on, i can almost smell the old paper.
be interesting read about your process...
Looks great Staz, you really nailed the 60's aged four colour process and line work. I grew up hunguraliy reading any comics I could, including AXA (in The 'Rip Roaraway' Sun) as a teenager and this totally took me back to a more innocent time. (Damn, do I really want to admit to that?)
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