Researching Anj Smith more deeply:

Researching Anj Smith more deeply:

Anj Smith has had multiple exhibitions in her time as an artist, all named differently, with different motives behind them. Despite this, the essence of her work is still very much the same. Her style remains similar, with the same women with dark eyes and pallid skin, but the messages behind her art evolve.

I have studied some of her biographies and interviews, and pinpointed the points and pieces of conversation that interested me the most.


Anj Smith on her exhibition title: "Phosphor on the Palms" - named after a line of a poem

"The poem seems to embrace a similar sense of liminality, in this case in the portrait of a beach scene where the clouds and surf scum appear indistinguishable. It could be considered quite a bleak poem in that the sublime that the Romanics found in nature only shows up relocated in a debased form - not a rainbow in the sky but a chemical smear caught in the branches of beach detritus. As the same time, it does appear!"
http://www.wallpaper.com/art/anj-smith-explores-the-beauty-of-natures-ugliness-in-new-solo-exhibition#SzOTryCydRDl3h4o.99


This quote comes from an article named
"Anj Smith Explores the Beauty of Nature's Ugliness in New Solo Exhibition"
- I find it very interesting that an artist would work to capture this kind of view on nature, when usually, nature is seen to be sublime, pure and beautiful. It is rare to see an artist capture the reality of pollution ("a chemical smear caught in the branches of beach detritus") and the naturally occurring 'ugliness' of nature ("surf scum", which I'm assuming is sea foam).

Anj Smith on scale:

"I have always relished the intimacy of a smaller scale because it can entice the viewer to bend physically into the work. The thoughtful viewer who takes time to linger at close proximity is rewarded by experiencing a totally different painting to that of the casual passer by. But in the three years spent working on this project, I felt a few of the works would explode on a small format so they became larger out of necessity. Sometimes the eye needs more passive space in which to relax in order to fully digest the more frenetic, detailed zones."
http://www.wallpaper.com/art/anj-smith-explores-the-beauty-of-natures-ugliness-in-new-solo-exhibition#SzOTryCydRDl3h4o.99


I find it interesting that this view on scale is the complete opposite of that of Mark Rothko (whom I have also studied), whom is much more involved with large scale art, and insists that to allow those to feel his art genuinely, he must become a part of it in it's creation at large scale. I appreciate Anj Smith's positive view on small scale art, as I personally also enjoy working on a small scale.

"With the title of her exhibition, Anj Smith points to the central theme of her practice. Citing Netherlandish vanitas paintings, she has written, ‘Those artists worked with a visual language comprised of symbols that had very clear, established meanings, codified and knowable. Back then a skull was depicted to remind viewers of their mortality. In our time – and therefore in my work – there is no single concrete narrative. Symbols no longer stand for fixed intentions and a skull can mean pretty much anything, including, at the moment, an iconic motif for a scarf.

Even so, I feel those old defunct symbols retain a kind of ‘half-life’ meaning, a vestige of their purpose. As their original content decays in the present, they still suggest something to us, even if that ‘something’ is less clear and is morphing into something else’. In Smith’s paintings, these decaying phantoms of meaning are phenomena in their own right, blossoming literally and figuratively, suggesting multiple new, if bewildering, meanings as they evolve."

https://www.hauserwirth.com/exhibitions/1638/anj-smith-the-flowering-of-phantoms/view/

Smith's mention of Dutch Vanitas paintings is very interesting to me, as although they are 2D creations, they come from 3D installations, which I feel could be very interesting to me in my sculpture development. I can see the correlation between Dutch Vanitas, and Smith's own creations.

Dutch Vanitas paintings:

Anj Smith's creations:

These two images are very blatantly inspired by Dutch Vanitas, but it does not mean that the rest of her creations are not. I can see correlation between the ideas behind a Vanitas painting (using many items to signify different things) involved in Anj Smith's portraiture. 

In Dutch Vanitas paintings, it is often the case that a skull is placed in order to represent mortality. In Smith's art, this is not the case, but instead, a woman is used as the focal point. Albeit, a pallid skinned, drained looking one. Surrounded by things that are also probably a bit worse for wear. (weathered fabrics, creatures, dying flowers, matted hair).


I feel that this could be an interesting direction to take my sculpture development, if I was to gather some items to collect and photograph around my final sculpture, to create an installation piece like a 3D Vanitas painting.

On the other and, it is just an interesting concept that I could merge life with death in my sculpture. For example, live flowers decaying. Or preserved dead flowers. Etc.

Inspiration

Inspiration

These images are very feminine, very cliche and not something that I wish to replicate, but I do enjoy the demonstration of how the flowers interact with the hair, and how the hair flows beautifully like water.

I wish to use more than just flowers in my work. Other aspects of nature such as vines, foliage, small creatures, rocks, crystals, minerals and so much more - fungi, animalistic features such as antlers, wings, feathers, markings. I'll see where my research and experimentation takes me, and see what I can incorporate along the way.

These are just a starting point.

(none of these images are my own)

Zhongwen Yu

Zhongwen Yu

I enjoy the idea of using live flowers in my sculpture. Perhaps even a whole plant, to experiment with the idea of incorporating nature itself into my art. In order to do this I would need to create a head-shaped plant pot of sorts, which could be difficult judging by my level of experience with ceramics.

I am sure I can find a way to work around this. ~

Summary so far + Progress

Sculpture summary so far:

Starting point: Nature

Summary so far:
Starting artist: Anj Smith (painter)

Anj Smith's artwork is 2D only, as she is a painter and not a sculptor - but the depth and implied texture in her work made me wonder what it would be like to see her pieces of art personified in sculpture.

I am interested in bringing her 2D concepts to life through sculpture, with my own adaptations.

Clay is a material that I have been experimenting with lately, and seems to be something that I enjoy using. When I first got my hands on some, I had no idea where to start, but only knew that I wanted to incorporate features of nature into my final sculpture. So, to practice this, I sculpted a clay rose, a leaf and a circular tile with a bare tree. By doing this, I got a feel for the clay and how i can manipulate it in certain ways.

The tile and leaf were relatively easy to make, as they are mostly flat, and do not need immediate support. The rose on the other hand was very difficult to keep together, as the individual petals were all thin and delicate, and broke off from eachother very easily. I wasn't sure if it would make it into the kiln at all before it broke apart, but miraculously it survived. But, even now, the final solidified piece is very delicate and brittle, as the petals are now even thinner than they were before.

process shots of the rose in creation

all 3 pieces after having been fired

the rose after being fired - picture with my hand for size comparison

my own image of a rose, for comparison to realism

My piece is very unrealistic, inevitably, as the clay did not allow me to capture the delicate, paper thin nature of petals
- had I tried to imitate this, the clay would have crumbled and cracked in my hand as it dried too quickly

This was a learning curve, as I realised that clay could be much more difficult to use for my sculpture than I first expected. Originally, I had envisioned a girl created completely from clay, with clay hair and clay flowers/braids/leaves/vines/etc carved into her hair, whom I could then paint and glaze to create a beautiful and solid piece. A bit like a marble bust sculpture. See below.

Original VS a rough photoshop sketch of what I had envisioned


Although I do not think it would be completely impossible to try and do this, I know that it would probably be very, very difficult, especially for a clay novice such as myself.

I think that using regular clay would be a mistake, if I was planning to attempt something like this. I am not experienced enough to create such a large sculpture without creating air bubbles or struggling to support it, which would lead to a waste of time and resources if it fell through.

I was considering using plaster and/or air dry clay to experiment with the idea without too many risks/too high cost.

I came across this image in my travels, which I thought was absolutely amazing and seemed impossible to do. The hair has a natural flow to it, which to me, is absolutely amazing. The girl is delicate and soft looking, and fully supports herself despite the fact the girl's neck is very thin. This is the kind of sculpture that I would love to be able to create myself. Delicate, soft and beautiful (very feminine). The artist is Edward Jonas.

After some research on the subject, I found this link to a tutorial on how to sculpt a head. It is not a professional tutorial, but it did give me ideas on how to advance from the level that I am already at.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-sculpt-a-head-out-of-clay/?ALLSTEPS

The woman in this tutorial uses a polystyrene mannequin head as a base for their sculpting, for which they use air-drying clay. The polystyrene base would give me a solid head to work on, and the air-drying clay would adhere to it naturally as it dried. This would eradicate my previous fear of air bubbles bursting in the kiln, as it would not need to go into a kiln at all.

Now, I am aware that air-drying clay is not a traditional, professional sculpting medium, but I do not desire to be a traditional artist, the whole idea of contemporary art is to break the traditional rules, and grow from them.

---------- So, now that I have a rough idea of what I want to achieve, I need to materialise my thought process in sketches, and work from my ideas in order to create a brief blueprint sketch for the sculpture I want to create. ~

Anj Smith

Anj Smith is an English artist currently working in London, having completed her BA Fine Art Painting course at the Slade School of Fine Art. She is, as of 2017, 39 years of age and continuing to hold exhibitions of her paintings up to this day.

I have been studying Anj Smith in painting, but saw possibilities in her art for sculpture related developments.

Her paintings are very bizarre to me. Almost every one of them starring a pale, fish eyed woman with , dark circles around the eyes, reconstituted patch clothing and a matted mess of hair, intertwined with many strange objects.


 

Although her style has gripped me, I can not say that I particularly enjoy it. It definitely evokes a reaction from the viewer, mostly thanks to the hauntingly dark eyes of the women in her paintings, and the pale, almost translucent skin (the subtle blue and green tones in the skin assert this affect very well). The women look ill and out of proportion. Perhaps they are on drugs or hard times. These theories are only further supported by the state of their hair and clothing, which is often matted and ripped.
The muted colour schemes do not connote happiness at all. Smith seems to generally avoid bright colours, which sets a neutral, rather empty tone to her work.




It is the hair that interests me the most. I have a natural admiration for art that flows, and the hair in this image does flow, but also doesn't. It's almost frustrating, as the natural flow of the hair is obstructed by strange objects such as feathers, wire, fabrics, and many other strange things that seem to come from nature.

I intend to explore this concept further, with my own adaptations. The subtle inclusions of nature in the hair could be amplified, which I think would be very interesting. Many more forms of nature could be incorporated into the hair, such as leaves, vines, flowers, even living creatures. I sketched a simple idea of what else I could add into the hair, here.

This sketch was created using a purple fineliner, which I then painted over with a wet paintbrush to allow the ink to run.

In the hair, I incorporated shells, feathers, vines and a rats tail as well as the usual braids that Smith seems so fond of. I enjoy the idea of weaving interesting colours, patterns and forms from nature into hair.

This would lead to a rather surreal piece, which I would fully support. The natural flow of hair would guide my way around it, and all I would have to do is think creatively on what to incorporate into the piece. I think that this would be especially interesting in 3D, and so, perhaps I could consider sculpting items from clay or wire to add into the mix.

I also created a transcription of one of Anj Smith's paintings.

A4, acrylic + watercolour This is not my favourite piece of art. I did not enjoy the process, as the alienlike face threw me off track. I made the effort to align her eyes slightly better, and have plumped her lips ever so slightly. This is an incredibly rough effort, but helped me to understand the way that the hair flows, how the odd features align, and how to create a skintone that appears ill.














 Personally, the haunting faces of these women do not appeal to me, and if I were to take inspiration from this style, I would ignore the facial structure altogether. I feel that these pieces would be much easier on the eye with softer, less angular faces with less contrast. Specifically, I can imagine the soft faces of a renaissance or rococo style portrait working well.

Original Anj Smith painting

George Romney - Lady Hamilton (As Miranda)                                                                                                        

  My adaptation - I used photoshop to transfer the face of an 17th century portrait onto the face of Anj Smith's painting. The entire feeling of the painting has already changed, with a simple softening of features. I am pleased with the results of this simple photoshop task. 

Needless to say, I prefer softness in portraits to harsh features, and if I was planning to recreate another transcription from Smith's work, I would employ the use of softer features, and possibly a warmer colour scheme too.




I took inspiration from Anj Smith's work and created a pencil drawing incorporating nature into a woman's hair, but with a much softer face.



I prefer the outcome of this piece much more than my previous painting in Anj Smith's style. The softer face softens the entirety of the piece, and allows you to focus on the surrealism of it as well as the nature around it.

To me, she gives off the impression that she is a personification of "Mother Nature" or an "Earth Mother".

Mother Nature/Mother Earth is the fictional/religious personification of nature.  As a mother should be, she is believed to be nurturing and caring towards nature, the earth and all that lives in it. Mother Nature is benevolent (all-loving) and serene, and it is believed that she would never do us any harm.

A personified painting of "Gaia"/"Mother Nature" ---- I am interested in the way that she is displayed with
flowers in her hair, similar to the route I am planning to go down.

This painting is by Josephine Wall.

The name is well known, but it means many different things to different people, of different ages, and from different cultures.

In Paganism, Mother Nature/Earth is referred to as "Mother Goddess", being the goddess that cares for all creation, and the embodiment of Earth. She is sometimes referred to as Gaia, and there is a specific branch of Paganism named after Gaia that specifically "calls for a new spiritual relationship between man and earth." http://contenderministries.org/UN/gaia.php

In Greek Mythology, the goddess Gaia is "the ancestral mother of all life: the primal Mother Earth goddess." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(mythology) She is also the mother of the sky God, Uranus. Gaia is often displayed with a large bosom, as to capture the idea of her being a capable nurturing mother.




I am interested in the idea of personifying Mother Nature in my sculptures, using artists influence and my own ideas to create a uniquely interesting piece.

Inspiration Stream: Nature - Demonstration of Colour

Inspiration Images from Nature:

In my Statement of Intent, I spoke about just how wonderful colour is, and how special we are to have so much of it naturally occurring in this little world of ours. This blog post is a compilation of found images, and a few of my own images(which are nowhere near as impressive), to demonstrate just some of the incredible colours and patterns that are around the globe, naturally occurring in the places we would least expect them to. We should be so grateful to live in a world with such beautiful things. I know for a fact that I will probably live my entire life without seeing most of these, but at least I can appreciate them from a distance.
I don't believe in God, so I cannot and do not intend to thank anybody for these creatures/things. I think the lack of belief makes it even more amazing that they exist.

I intend to draw inspiration from these images, not only from the colour schemes, but the patterns too. I feel that there is an unlimited amount of potential, and I have barely scratched the surface of beautiful things that I could study.

Birds: (not my own images)

I think this bird is absolutely amazing! The colour scheme and the way that the vivid green frames the purple is amazing to me.

All I can say about this one is WOW. It's amazing that this is completely natural, and that there is an entire species of  this bird, every single one with this amazing, vivid colour scheme.

My own images:

Pigeons: Trafalgar Square

Swans: Needham Lakes

Unfortunately, the difference between my photography and the photography that I have sourced, is that the foreign birds are colourful, wonderful, mystical things that seem to have been plucked straight from a fairytale, whereas the English birds seriously lack colour. Very boring, in comparison! Which is a shame, because it means that if I did want to explore these tropical birds, I would be unable to give photography from a primary source. Not even zoos (that I am aware of) have these birds, or anything similar to them.

Fungus: (the images are not my own, as unfortunately I live very far from any rainforests)

it amazes me that these colours are natural - fittingly, it's named as an "Amethyst Deceiver"

this is genuine photography, and these mushrooms genuinely DO glow in the dark, which I think is incredible

these mushrooms almost look like they should be underwater

this small mushroom seems to glitter - it's very small and cute,
and reminds me of crystallised sugar -
it looks like it should be on top of a cake

this fungus is my favourite of all of them - the way that the "tendrils" flow out in all directions and branch off,
they almost look like waves as they curve and fan out.
I could use the pattern of this fungus in my art, and nobody would have a clue
that it came from a mushroom, as it is just that strange, almost ethereal in nature.

I had no idea that this beautiful thing existed until today, and I probably never would have - it's a shame that the beautiful images on this thread are not better known


 (having said that, most of them are probably very poisonous and better left alone!)

another mushroom, the same breed as the blue one 2 images ago,
but this time, the cap is not round and smooth,
it is winding and tubular much like a
brain or intestine! very strange

these mushrooms almost look like metals, or glass!
I love the metallic sheen, which we
would never assume to be naturally occurring in nature