Thursday 12 November 2015

Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton

Richard Hamilton is a UK based artist (Born in London 1922) who did mostly paintings and collages. I had the privilege of seeing one of his works in Manchester and when he was brought up again in my crit group meeting I decided to look at more of his work.

Richard Hamilton 'Fashion-plate' 1969-70

I really like his collage work, I really like the disjointed aspect of them and how he uses more than just cut-outs to create his images as he uses paint in several.

 Richard Hamilton 'Towards a definitive statement on the coming trends in menswear and accessories (a) Together let us explore the stars' 1962
  The above piece especially interested me due to the inspiration behind the work, the idea that fashion can be determined by a technological environment. At the time the piece was created the space race was going on and it was very glamorised. 

"The artist in twentieth-century urban life is inevitably a consumer of mass culture and potentially a contributor to it."

Richard Hamilton 'Swingeing London 67 - poster' 1967-68


Vikki Stevens is an emerging artist interested in many areas including body image, mental health and abstraction. Her latest series of work aims to show how images and perceptions of women are “put- together”/ manufactured, and how these images and perceptions affect how women feel about their own body image. Vikki’s ideas for her artwork are expressed in mediums such as paint, collage and sculptural objects, mostly incorporating repurposed images from magazines and found documents. Artists such as Tracey Emin and Hannah Hoch have a large influence on her work. Both the personal perspective and distorted images play a major part in creating pieces that discuss personal as well as cultural issues within mainly the western world/media sphere. Stevens is planning on developing her work into a more abstract sphere to investigate feelings that she has herself and how she can communicate them by using and developing abstract techniques, continuing with collage as a starting influence. Currently the materials and processes she has used in her past work and the work in development are having a large impact on how the work develops and the message behind the work is entirely open. Rather than having a stand out message Stevens is now moving towards a more indirect way of working, focusing more on feelings rather than statements. Current concerns within the work reflect how Stevens feels about herself in day-to-day life and how outside influences affect her and her work. More specifically Stevens is dealing with feelings of anxiety, panic attacks, depression and how she feels as an individual in the world. Artists such as Gerhard Richter, Barbara Kruger, Yago Hortal and Steve Salo are having a large impact on the current work in development.

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