Artist Rseach

ARTIST RESEARCH FROM THE GALLERY VISITS Exploring the work of other’s that interested me, and discovering more knowledge on their work

Artist Nick Veasy ‘Puffa Jacket’ 

After finding this piece by Nick Veasy ‘Puffa Jacket’ in the gallery I explored his techniques and why he created work in this particular style. In a world obsessed with superficial image it is a refreshing contrast to look beyond the surface and appreciate the stuff that surrounds us for what it is made of, not just what it looks like on the outside. English artist Nick Veasy uses xray technology to peel back the layers and peer inside all manner of subjects; people, objects, natural forms and animals. The work has an ethereal, other worldly quality, yet the things he uses to create the pictures are familiar. Nick’s work has won awards in every relevant photographic competition and shown in galleries around the world.

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For Nick Veasy, artistic inspiration came from an unlikely source. While working as a photographer/designer for morning television in England, he was assigned the monotonous task of X-raying soda cans to determine which ones contained a winning code for a contest sponsored by Pepsi.

After three days without a winner, he X-rayed his sneaker for kicks. Veasy recalls, "It was a great image and I thought 'there's something to this.' It was one of those life-changing experiences. I just left behind everything else I was doing."Veasey spent the next three months working with scientists to refine his technique. He learned to gauge object density and structure by experimenting with a variety of materials including plastic, flowers, metals and people, taking the utmost care with his living subjects.

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Armed with his new knowledge, Veasey easily transformed it into commercial success.

Artist Edward Hartwig ‘Broken Glass’ 

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Edward Hartwig was a Polish photographer active over 50 years as a practitioner and champion of the medium. ‘Broken Glass’ was taken in Warsaw and is typical of Hartwig’s more experimental photographs. He sometimes used devices such as the glass in this image to frame shots. The texture of the sharply broken glass – the criss-crossing cracks in the pane and the precariously-attached pieces – are the initial focus of attention. Upon closer inspection, part of a skyline takes shape and the viewer is drawn into the picture plane.

This is one of Hartwig’s more aggressive, jarring images. It is also one of few politically-charged images produced by the artist. The glass is symbolic of the fractured state of Polish politics during the 1980s, a time of civil unrest and martial law. This piece below known as ‘Broken Glass’ made in 1980’s is a black and white photograph of a cityscape seen through broken glass.

Edgar Lissel: Angel of the Annucation 

I was really inspired by this piece, in reminded my of my previous stencil work I did in Art and Design, under the inspiration of artist Banksy.

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This photograph was made in the V&A using a giant pinhole camera, or camera obscura, built around a display case that contains a 15th-century carved oak angel.

Photographic paper was attached to the back of the case and a unique negative image was formed by ambient light filtering onto the paper through a pinhole. The exposure lasted twenty-four hours. The elgant silhouette of the sculpture inhabits the inverted image of the gallery, which is transformed into a celestial realm where points of light appear like black stars.

The V&A commissioned Edgar Lissel to create this photograph during a two-week residency to coincide with the Exhibition 'Seeing Things: Photographing Objects 1850-2001'.

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Photograph depicts the silhouette of a Northern French 15th-century (1414-50) carved oak angel surrounded by the lamps in the gallery that appear on the exposure like black stars.

In the room of ‘photography’ this piece along with the other artists I have researched in this presentation stood out to my as a Graphic Designer.

Artist Rebbeca Earley: Pins and Gloves 

Textile designer Rebecca Earley has been widely recognised as one of the most innovative print designers of her generation. She devotes her textile label Be Earley to fashion accessories and interiors. Her unique designs have won awards from various bodies, including the London Arts Board, the Prince’s Youth Business Trust and the Crafts Council. Earley is also half of fashion partnership Earley Palmiero which produces beautifully printed womenswear, currently stocked in Liberty and Koh Samui in London and stores in Japan. Earley’s highly original prints are worn by Bjork, Kylie Minogue, Simple Red, Cher and Demi Moore.

Richard Galpin 

Richard Galpin’s complex art works are derived from the artist's own photographs of chaotic cityscapes. Using only a scalpel Galpin intricately scores and peels away the emulsion from the surface of the photograph to produce a radical revision of the urban form. The artist allows himself no collaging, or additions of any kind - each delicate work is a unique piece made entirely by the erasure of photographic information.

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The works enact a reimagining of the city, but their futuristic vision is predicated on the city as it is now, with the intricate details bearing traces of contemporary urban experience. Playing between abstraction and representation, the works draw their visual language from a variety of early 20th century movements such as Constructivism, and Vorticism.

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Since graduating from the Goldsmiths MA in 2001, Richard Galpin has had solo exhibitions at Franklin Art Works (Minneapolis), Brancolini Grimaldi Arte Contemporanea (Rome), Galeria Leme (Sao Paulo), Roebling Hall (New York), and Hales Gallery (London). Group exhibitions includeUnder Erasure at Temple Bar Gallery (Dublin), When it's a Photograph at The Bolsky Gallery (Los Angeles), Prints and Drawings: Recent Acquisitions at the British Museum (London), The Photograph in Question, Von Lintel Gallery (New York), Attack:Attraction, Marcel Sitcoske Gallery (San Francisco), and Looking With/Out at the Courtauld Institute of Art (London). Collections include the British Government Art Collection, the British Museum and Deutsche Bank

Artist ;John Baldessari 

JOHN BALDESSARI BIOGRAPHY John Baldessari was born in 1931 in National City, California.

He received a BA and MA from San Diego State University and completed postgraduate work at both Otis Art Institute and Chouinard Art Institute.

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For more than five decades, Baldessari has created thousands of works that demonstrate—and, in many cases, combine—the narrative potential of images and the associative power of language within the boundaries of the work of art. He has continually explored these themes in painting, photography, film, video, site-specific installations, artist’s books, sculpture, drawings, prints, and multiples.

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Since 1957, Baldessari’s work has been featured in more than 950 solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. He has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, including those organized by the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, in 1981; the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia, Spain, in 1989; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 1990; Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK, in 1995; and the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, and Kunsthaus Graz, in 2005. A major retrospective exhibition, organized by Tate Modern and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will open at the Tate in fall 2009.

As a teacher from 1970 to 1988 at the California Institute of the Arts, and from 1996 to 2007 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Baldessari instructed and influenced generations of artists.

He lives and works in Southern California. For an extensive biography of the artist, please visit www.baldessari.org.

This artist struck me whilst walking around the gallery, and found myself inspired by this idea, I thought was quite unique, and I could use this in my work. It is something I hadn't seen before, and I had discovered. I think the contrast of the black and white and the colour silhouettes work very well, and I think I might use this idea in my work.