Professional Practice Evaluation

This attached PDF is my Professional Practice Evaluation Summary for UWE Drawing & Print Level 2

Professional Practice 2 - Tin Stanton

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Thoughts on a new series

A year and a half into my BA course, and I'm starting to question again what my work is actually about, and what I want to achieve with it. I have spent much of the time learning techniques and skills, but now I want to not only explore mood and lighting within my landscape artworks, but also to convey some of my own, more personal thoughts and feelings.

I'm a lover of nature, and have travelled the world to engage with it, but everywhere I have been I have had to witness humanity at it's worse (from individuals to industries). Witnessing first hand the destruction of forests and wildlife in Cost Rica, the vast (and mostly dead) destruction through palm plantations in Borneo and so on. I have even had to limit my own travel experiences so that I don't become an additional part of the problem.

I'm no fan of humanity and its ever swelling numbers. I'm not behind the concept of progress. I'm shocked and appalled by singular acts of greed and personal ownership and worship over community and equality. However - and this is important to me - I do not want to make obvious and ugly works that slap your face with their narrative and iconography. I would rather have a piece that can be enjoyed with or without its underlaying message.

Being born into the first wave of electronic technology (I was 15 when I bought my first PC - The Sinclair ZX81) I followed a path through electrical engineering, electronics and then into IT. I have always embraced technology, but now I see it as a work tool, and reject it as much as I can in favour of nature and the outdoors.

This last year has emphasised how much technology has taken over our world, and we have replaced almost everything in our lives for an on screen facsimile. Something many of us find less than satisfying, while others are embracing it wholeheartedly, and find the virtual world to be as valid as the real one. Other groups of people are now finding themselves unable to go to work or go shopping to continue their own personal progress , and are instead destroying nature at an increased rate, some with little enjoyment or understanding of it.

The painting below is my first experiment in this series, where I am painting additional glitches and artefacts from a digital world onto landscapes. These are a reminder that most of our experiences of the outside world are almost entirely digital. In fact the works themselves are more likely to be viewed on screen than seen in reality and it's getting to the point that people can claim to have seen much of the world without their homes. It's a frightening thought that most of lour interactions are now mostly digital, and this hits home hard when you are creating large paintings that need to be experienced rather than copied and displayed on a 3 inch square screen....

I will begin with smaller paintings such as this A3 while I see what works, but the idea is already starting to form.

reflection and redirection

These two pieces, created over the last few days and perfect examples of the kind of work I'm producing at the moment. I'm very pleased with the technical handling of the pieces, and they both have that slightly bleak feel that my landscapes often have.

The question is, is that enough?

Already finding myself struggling for compositional ideas outside my own photographs or imaginings that work with this idea of bleakness is a struggle enough, but having to limit my normally overwhelming imagination, and limit the narrative within the painting is proving difficult.

I have a great love of nature, and I have a great deal to say about the way we interact with it, it's just a case of finding a way of getting those thoughts across.