Artist Statement Seminar

The artist statement seminar was really good! I got some really good feedback from my peers and Stephen Boyd about how I can change my statement. 
For the artists statement, the objective was to create a piece of text that gave a viewer a summery of our practices throughout the year. 
I found it really hard to talk about my practice at the start.

This was my first draft of the Artist Statement:

                                                                                                                                                                     


How are people connected with consumerism? Does mass consumption play a big part within our lives? Do we forget those not seen to be affected by this?
These are a few of the questions that I have asked myself within my practice. My projects have centered around painting, sculpture, photography, language and mixed media. 
At the beginning of the year I was walking around the town and heard a young girl speaking to her parents saying 'I want this!' with the quick reply being 'Do you really need that?'. This initially stemmed my thoughts about consumerism and whether we need the things we buy plus how it could easily lead to mass consumption. 
I produced a painting shortly after this experience having being inspired by an artist named 'Sarah Key'. The main aspect of Key's work to me that I really liked was the idea of altering a persons identity by replacing their head with one of an animal form. I used a similar approach but replaced a persons head with a shopping bag, the materials I used were acrylic on canvas. This was the piece that after a few tutorials and experimenting, I realized that there were some aspects to my painting style that could be adapted/improved, also I was being too forceful with my approach to the theme, I was presenting consumerism as this bad source that controls our life. 
After realizing this I started to reveal less to my audience allowing them to interpret it themselves. I was really interested in how painting and photography are related also how they both are great sources enabling a connection with the audience. I played around with various pictures, taking them in different locations in relation to my consumerism theme. After doing so, I later produced a tri of photos, these images were taken in a small public park very close to the town center  The first image was of a woman carrying a shopping bag, then the second and third image the bags duplicated but in a way that wasn't obvious to the viewer. This piece of photography was a slight illusion, allowing the viewer to spend a bit more time picking out differences in these images. But, the main importance in this piece was maybe not the content, however the location and time/awareness I believed to be most successful.
At this point, I began to think about how people are always in a rush to buy things and to get places, how we haven't got 'time' to stop and think before doing. This is where I changed the direction of my practice as I realized that I had been doing what everyone else in the public do, rushing around and not being aware! I wanted to focus my attention to those who we do forget, people who may want to get involved with this rush, who may want to mass consume which we take for granted, people like the homeless.
The change in direction I found hard to begin with, at present time I am continuing the research further into this area so that I can develop a deeper understanding on how consumerism effects those less fortunate. I have recently produced two posters and using software such as Photoshop I have been able to direct concentration to certain areas. One of the posters ideas came from when I was walking home one night after being in the studio, there was a homeless guy sitting in the town center and I tried to think about what it is like to be in his shoes. At that time I was researching into an artist named 'Barbara Kruger' who used language within her work, this inspired me to look further at other sources and I found a quote that said 'There must be more to life than having everything!' this is when I realized this could be a thought running through this mans mind. The poster displays a homeless man holding a cardboard sign with crowds of people walking past him, using Photoshop I decided to distort the man which generated a contrast with the rest of the picture. I placed the phrase 'There must be more to life than having everything' on the cardboard he was holding. To me language is an interesting element to add to a piece of art and there are many ways it could be used.
My main concern after having a tutorial with my tutor was whether the image needed language or not? by distorting just the homeless man and nothing else, does it speak for itself? by adding language would it be giving too much away to the viewer?. These are the aspects that I am continually experimenting with, whether or not an image could speak for itself and how much information should I provide the viewer with. 
Now and in the future I am working on different ways to develop my theme and continue improving the mediums I work with. I have just started playing around with canvas and colour transfers which is really interesting and an area that I will explore more.