Decisions made towards selecting the work and curating the exhibition::
In the lead up to the degree show I started to question how I would hang up my works in the most effetive way, the idea behind how I wanted to show my work have a slight commercial influence to them. I have always enjoyed the physicalities of artworks, in the sense of wanting a large collection and also wanting to have tangable objects as my outomes. It has been difficult to create a piece of work that perfectly fits into this category and has also been very difficult to work out how to hang works that would allow for an interaction. After visiting a few locations that have prints that are open to be interacted with I decided to make a piece that the viewer can hold and be a part of.
Exhibitions visited for inspiration
Cardiff M.A.D.E
+Cardiff MADE : inside the gallery there was a small section that featured a section of handmade artists prints, these prints and other such artist works are all made and displayed in a very commercial way. The principal of them all being left on a shelf ready to be moved around is an idea I would like to encoporate into my works but in a more professional method.
Cardiff School of Art and Deign Foyer – This piece in particular by David Fitzjohn interested me the most. The method of hanging the pieces of art in the small grid in such a large space appeals to me as I feel that as my work is very small it could end up getting lost in the sheer size of the space of the walls. I also enjoy this piece for its use of colour and the extra idea of mounting the works on the board and then only having to mount the work as the one board on the wall, this would make the piece easier to hang in general and would also make the piece easier to move into other spaces.
a shelf or display rack to put prints on as it makes them easier to relocate in the gallery space to find which space is the best to keep them. I like the idea of using this as part of my installation, but I am unsure if this is a sensible idea as a handmade one of these would be more difficult to make and probably more unfinished as a final piece, however using a shop bought version of these pieces may not be as sucessful in the final show and will possibly be marked down as shop bought items are not as finished and proffesional.
Tom Martin from the print department within the university is another point of inspiration within my practice as I aspire to make work as professionally finished as his. I enjoy the methods of which he uses to hang and prepare work and also enjoy the levels in which he will go to to ensure any finished piece of work he makes is precisley hung. The idea also of hanging my work as individual artworks presented as a series is an idea I take inspiration from and as seen in the work above Martin had titled the piece to convey this message. I would like to use an element of Tom’s presetational skills within my final piece, as his shows are always perfect and professional.
From http://www.thomasmartin.turnpiece.net
Presentation of Degree exhibition::
Before my degree show work has anything hung on it I need to work out what the base plan of the space will be, for my final piece I will intend on having a series of small prints, 10, hung on the wall and a shelf that has the remainder of the prints mounted and displayed in a similar way to Cardiff MADE. This method shoud hopefully be an imalgimation of all the aspects of theabove mentioned shows I have enjoyed.
As you can see I have three base plans as grids to see which would be the most appropriate for my artwork. The first shows the space as two long lines of work funning parallel with each other, while I enjoy the way this looks in the sketch the issue with this is that the paintings will not be easy to read as pairs of works, and also could end up being lost in the large mass of space. Another concern is that the shelf will be too big for the volume of prints I intend to make and could look unfinished and bare.
The second of the designs could be difficult to read as typically you read a page from left to right, with the shelf on the left it will be more uncomfortable to the eye and also will look more out of place with regards to teh window and shaddows (Light coming in from the Right)
The third layout is the layout I intend to use as it seems to read the easiest out of the two of the split options and also is one of the more light and location inspired options. This way the piece will have a good amount of light on the prints which are wrapped up, meaning the viewer will have to interact with the work to get the appropriate view of the work, therfor having the interactive element I originally Intended.
After much deciding on the layout of the prints and the correct hights for each half of the instalment to be at this is the final format. The shelf is hung to be at the average persons grabbing and holding hight, so hopefully to encourage the interaction with the work. And the hung series of ten small prints is just above and below the eye line, to make sure they do not fall too high or too low to a viewer. Overall I am very happy with how the hanging of my work has been completed and enjoy the final outcome for the degree show.
Technical aspects::
As part of my installation includes a shelf this is something I needed to look into making, as I wanted the piece to be completely perfect. I looked into a few methods of making a Print shelf as the options were nice to have and allowed room for design tweaks and recalculation, as the walls for the show are only made of chip board we could’t make a shelf that was too heavy as it would fall down and need extra support, so the total weight of the prints and the final artworks needed to be accounted for. The mounted prints, 24 prints, we worked out would not be too heavy and I could screw the L-brackets into the wall with no plugs or no extra supports.
Another element of the work that I needed to experienced was how to mount prints, I have mounted a few prints and paintings before but I have used the wrong thickness MDF to be able to screw into them. I enlisted the help from printmaker Tom Martin to tell me the correct most effiecient way to mount them to avoid any issues in the final leg of the degree show preperation.
Alexandra Fine Art 