After the brief, I visited galleries around London for inspiration. Here is the list of exhibitions I visited and my thoughts.
I began with the Machine Painting exhibition at Modern Art (https://www.modernart.net/exhibitions/machine-painting). The artworks were created using machines and technology, and I was surprised by the variety of the work. Some works show expressive brush strokes and monoprint-like images that we think only humans do. I like this style with minimal colour palettes, so I wasn't keen on colourful, pixelated photo image pieces. I am unsure if I would like to use a machine to paint, but I am probably open to painting or creating with a machine like some artists in this exhibition did.
At the Chisenhale Gallery, I saw Simnikiwe Buhlungu's hygrosummons (iter.01) (https://chisenhale.org.uk/project/simnikiwe-buhlungu/). Nature is my favourite subject matter, so I enjoyed exploring this exhibition. The space was carefully laid out to replicate a sense of a hydrological cycle in Nature, and the plenty of space between each piece gave me the impression of the scale of an entire hydrological system (i.e., an entire planet Earth). The way the cables attached to two musical instruments reminded me of the flow of rivers, considering the topic. I thought revealing the message on the back of the paper as humidity makes the paper curl was clever. Using the fractionation of humidity level as an input to play an instrument was fascinating. It made me think about the transformation of energy/power between Nature and machines such as steam engines and hydropower generation.
Then I went to see the Gebrochenes Pferd exhibition by Alexandra Bircken (http://www.heraldst.com/alexandra-bircken-2024). This exhibition was not my cup of tea. It reminded me of when I was studying mechanical engineering at the uni, where I spent many hours drawing perfectly straight lines and circles, nuts and bolts, and threads of screws: the sliced engine, electric cables, motorbikes - mechanical and masculine. Even the tangled electric cable and hair-based artwork made me feel less intense in this gallery space. Some people like precision and sleek aesthetics, but this visit confirmed my preference for natural, expressive, irregular shapes and styles.
Interestingly, I found similar artwork by chance while visiting the Saatchi Gallery. In the UNREAL CITY: ABSTRACT PAINTING IN LONDON exhibition (https://www.saatchigallery.com/exhibition/unreal-city-abstract-painting-in-london), I saw Karolina Albricht's "Lofty Branches Would Spread Here and There" work. It reminded me of some of Alexandra Bircken's pieces that used hair and cables. This piece projects a more warm, organic, and natural aesthetic, but interestingly, the entire work looks like the computer motherboard or electric circuit. It reminds me that humans have been taking design and inspiration from Nature, so we may subconsciously bring something we saw in Nature when we create.
It was recommended that I visit Mire Lee's Turbine Hall installation at Tate Modern (https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/mire-lee). The installation's title is 'Open Wound', and I was overwhelmed by its scale: the rusty machines and ghostly skin-like fabrics hanging from the ceiling. I felt like I was in an abandoned factory where the world had forgotten its existence as people moved on to something new and attractive. I was fascinated by the mixed qualities and feelings created by industrial materials and skin-like fabric. Initially, the old rusty machines and metal structures put me off, but sympathy towards the machines grew as I spent more time walking around the space and seeing skin-like fabrics.
One day, I visited Camden Art Centre and came across Jack O'Brien's The Reward installation (https://camdenartcentre.org/whats-on/jack-obrien). I saw some commonality between Mire Lee's and his work as both dealt with constants of two different qualities and feelings: hard and soft, masculine and feminine, solid and flexible. By wrapping the industrial structure with soft polyethene fabric, masculinity transformed into something more feminine or smothered by feminity, I felt. It could reflect the current society in that masculine capitalism shows wear and tear, so the feminine community approach surrounds it.
Novelty Automation (https://www.novelty-automation.com) was also recommended for inspiration. The place was filled with the sounds of arcade machines and laughter. The machines' retro, homemade, nostalgic aesthetics and humorous twists on current affairs were delightful. I will keep the idea of making machines to convey a message and make people interact with them in mind for future projects.
This research made me particularly interested in working with contradictions I observed at Mire Lee and Jack O'Brien's exhibitions. Also, seeing industrial products and materials made me think about capitalist society and companies as a production machine consuming resources, including people, to spit out standardised goods and services, eliminating defects and outliers. People are mindlessly moving from one place to another to fulfil requirements for corporate machines.
With these thoughts and feelings in mind, I began developing ideas for artwork.
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