Research Part 3

Project 8 Research point: Jonathan Yeo, Louise Bourgeois, Clare Curtis.

Jonathan Yeo – The Porn Collage Series – Cliff Richard and Mary Whitehouse

A contemporary realist portrait painter Yeo moved to collage as his chosen medium in 2007. Using papers collected from hard core pornographic magazines he created portraits of those in society that he perceived to have a high level of morality, be it politics or of a sexual nature that they imposed on others.

In the above image, Cliff Richard and Mary Whitehouse (who ’he has always had a problem with’), are Yeo’s chosen subjects due to their sexual morality and disapproval of same sex relationships.

His clever use of pornography scraps, (though carefully selected scraps), entices and draws the viewer in to closely examine and explore through intrigue, not only the images he has used but also, for me to question the need of pornography and how it effects our lives in the world today. Having lived through the Mary Whitehouse years I wonder how she would have felt at being depicted in this way, her eyes and parts of her face constructed from naked bodies, breasts and nipples, some of the very things she bemoaned!

https://metro.co.uk/2009/05/14/cliff-richard-and-mary-whitehouse-in-porn-collage-119379/ [accessed 18/11/19] https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/kw5d3w/jonathan-yeos-political-porno-collages [accessed 18/11/19]

Louise Bourgeois – Maman

I’ve chosen this piece of work because I have memories of seeing it at the Tate Modern, London.

In Maman (Mother), and her other spider sculptures, Bourgeois has created a tribute to all things maternal, she has drawn on traumatic childhood memories, emotions and the protective web of motherhood that is wrapped around a child.

Her mother was a weaver, a repairer, this is how she sees the spider, she weaves a silk web, a cocoon of safety.

However, Bourgeois also seeks to explore the architecture of relationship of form, by doing so in large scale she believes that she has created space in which to move within the form, the space beneath seen as a comforting space, the cage like structure of the legs protecting her from the fears of the outside world.

http://www.artnet.com/artists/louise-bourgeois/2 [accessed 18/11/19] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/oct/14/art4 [accessed 18/11/19]

While completely different in construction, Yeo’s paper collage portraits and Bourgeois in steel and bronze, both have been created from the interpretation of emotive but different personal feelings. Yeo, a message to those people that have in some way in his past ‘pissed him off’, and Bourgeois, to maternal emotion from her childhood.

Clare Curtis – Autumn Heath

In contrast, illustrator and printmaker Clare Curtis takes her inspiration from ‘things’ she finds visually pleasing and are of interest to her, more often than not she explores the natural world and many of her prints are of plants and the garden, things she sees as a ‘British passion’.

In the print Autumn Heath, she depicts the fauna and flora of the forest, which in-part is the subject that I have chosen to explore for project 9. It is interesting to see how her simple marks have created a clearly structured natural scene where everything is identifiable as something one would find on the forest floor.

While this print is in black and white, much of work that I have seen is in bold colour, and she limits her colour palette to between three and six colours. Complementary and contrasting colours are obviously well planned and layers are built using transparent colour that she mixes herself, seeking to recreate spot lithographic colours of the past.

As with the other two artists she is influenced by something from the past, not her own past, but that of an influence from printing history.

As well as prints Curtis also occasionally works with collage, but I am unable to find any examples of work in this medium, which is disappointing as I would like to have seen how her collage related, if at all, to her prints. Is it part of her printing process or stand-alone work?

https://penfoldpress.co.uk/collections/clare-curtis [accessed 18/11/19]

https://clarecurtis.co.uk/ [accessed 18/11/19]

Collage is something that I could utilise in planning my work. I think that it will help to simplify my image with basic shape and form and move my ideas around the paper. Texture could be added later to the simplified form.