Shaun Project Crit: Rebecca Marrs, Zoe Harrihill and Lauren Crane.

This weeks Shaun Project Crit was a collective showing by Rebecca, Zoe and Lauren C and included a mixture of both painting and sculptural pieces.

On entering the Shaun Project Space and looking around the room my focus was instantly drawn towards this piece of figurative sculpture which Rebecca had created using plastic bottles for the internal stuffing and fluffy orange fabric material for the external covering. I feel my interest in this piece was due to the unusual positioning she had decided to use when exhibiting this piece into the architectural space. The way in which she had placed it in-between the two plinths with the legs bent, and resting against the upper side of one them added to the sense and the gestural movement that the human figure realistically does. This I felt added to her idea of creating a representation of the human form and allowed the piece to communicate the context and ideas that she had been exploring within her studio practice.

As the piece clearly doesn't have any hands, feet or a head I found it interesting that she would exhibit it in the way that the plinth would take on the role of the figures head. This interaction between the sculpture and the way it was curated within the architectural space was visually the most interesting I thought out of the group of pieces Rebecca installed within the space due to the reasons pointed out above.

Rebecca's other pieces included a large stuffed black hand made from tights, a head form also positioned inside a stretched black tight, a pair of legs made out of stuffed black tights, and a stuffed/ stitched upper torso with a head and arms.

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I found that these experimental approach's to creating figurative forms out of everyday materials and how each piece was then curated in relation to what structures were already very interesting although myself not being interested working with the human form. The way she tied the head tight to the pipe, positioned the legs sculpture slightly over the plinth and the small torso as if it was coming out of the floor, I feel allowed them to connect well within the room used.

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Another piece within the Crit showing was this piece by Zoe, which visually expresses and communicates a link to the natural landscape in way it shows representive imagery of tree branches and flowers (blossom). I really liked her use of background colour as it blended a mix of different colours in a way that created a gradient from left-to-right, right-to-left and in doing so brings the tree branches the foreground of the overall piece therefore creating a sense of depth within the piece.

When discussing her work within the Crit she mentioned that she had been influenced by the work of Van Gogh and I feel this is subtly communicated in her other piece which includes water lilies. However rather paint them in the style of Van Gogh she has decided to paint them in a way that makes them look like they are floating in the atmosphere of space. The background used within this piece I feel is really successful, in the way the black and navy has been blended in a swirl-like motion and then splattered with white paint. These white splatters visually look representive of stars, however I feel the water lilies take on a more visual appearance of alien spaceships or pac-men.

This I feel brings an abstract feel to the piece, as the viewer can make up and interpret the piece in a way that may not necessary connect to the true context (idea/subject) that it was made in or to convey.

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Alongside these differed pieces was another set of work that was shown by Lauren Crane which has a more abstract and expressive style. Lauren discussed that the context behind her work and the idea of showing her work would ideally be in a domestic and more social context ( for example: - a modern apartment). With this is mind it allowed every one and myself to view her pieces with this context in mind along with the white wall setting it was currently been shown in.

For me this abstract approach is more suited to my own practice and I liked the blurred look of the piece and the blend between black, white and blue paint. Her use of both vertical and horizontal mark making is something I like to use also and I found worked well within this piece in terms of directing my focus around the canvas. However although I liked the piece as it was shown, I feel that the piece could be improved and built up in more layers of vertical and horizontal marks as a way of expressing more movement and depth within the overall composition.

This small scale piece by Lauren I personally felt was visually the most successful piece she included within the Crit. The use of white and Orange/Gold mark making on the black background allowed the marks to contrast one another and stand out but I don't know how I feel about the copper wire around the board. For me I would see what the process would look like on a larger scale (scaling up the dimensions already used) and without the wire to see how it looks.