Long time no post

For those of you who have been following this blog I feel obliged to inform you that I am still alive and that a brand spanking all singing all dancing blog and additional portfolio website are on their way! It has been a hectic and somewhat surreal period of adjustment the last few months after the hype of the degree show but information and updates on what I've been up to will all be posted on the new site asap, also the address www.tomcarlile.co.uk will automatically be forwarded to the new portfolio but I may keep this blog online as an archive, we will see. Submission details for the RGI anual exhibition in Glasgow have just arrived through the post, i'm off to read the small print and work out how to transport a large lump of resin.

Some rough shots of cast work

Sneak peek of resin casting

 

 

Triptych painting

   

Apologies for the poor photo quality, its what you get when working in a basement flat, the photo to the right is a decent shot of the middle panel, unfortunately the other two were already being cast at this stage so couldn't get them all together at this point

Preparing to cast

Compositions

   

New Sculpture

Stasis

Large sketch with bleached fabric overlay

Sketchbook

 

         

 

Hovering face

I've found that sometimes the best way to get your motivation back into making art is to try something different for a while, it allows some breathing space, time to think and hopefully makes it that little bit easier to re-inject some enjoyment back into the process of creating itself. That's my theory anyhow and the results of my one night excursion away from my work in the studio are displayed below in the form of a little hovering clay face. The piece will be lacquered shortly once its dry. The metal stand was part of an old sieve used for sifting plaster.

      

Roseangle Exhibition Photos

Shot of Studio 1

Large resin cast at various stages of illumination

Roseangle Postcard

10 x 15cm Acetate, acrylic, copper dust and silver pigment ink

Postcard sized artwork to be raffled off at the Roseangle gallery opening this Friday they're also on sale outside the Art shop within DoJ all this week for £1.00 a ticket, bargain.

So far so good

After spending another several frustrating hours this morning re-sealing the light frame I eventually managed to get down to the resin room. The first layer went on pretty smoothly, will have a better idea on Monday as to whether or not stress cracks are going to appear or if it will shrink too much. The first layer was set at about 3 mm, this took approx 2.5 litres of resin, luckily I've been allocated a 20 kg barrel of the stuff, bad news is i'll probably have to pay for it after this, we shall see.

Long day

Today was mostly spent sealing and re-sealing the light-frame for casting the resin tomorrow, I'm hoping desperately that in using silicone to seal this frame that it wont have an adverse affect with the type of resin I'm using, I'll only find out this of course when I try it tomorrow... oh and hopefully the sculpture department will have enough to cast a 60 x 80 cm light-box, should have checked this today but was losing the will to live. We will see, fingers crossed everything will start falling into place tomorrow, if not a radical rethink may be required, will try to post some photographs either tomorrow or at the weekend.

PDQ

Just spent £30 quid on an A1 size print for the lightbox background, hopefully will be worth it, will be fitting it in the studio tonight. Incidentally £6 for a hard-back binding of a dissertation, might start using these guys instead of the university unit.

Concept

 Possible concept for first larger scale light-box, more a test in composition than anything else.

Jan Svankmajer

Have just spent the last two hours watching  some of Jan Svankmajer's work, incredible. 

Statement

My studio work to date has been primarily involved with the exploration of materials and light. I am currently in the process of building several large scale light boxes onto which transparencies and imagery are to be overlaid. These images will then be embedded in a layer of resin, where further colours,  imagery and materials such as gold and copper dust are added. Multiple layers of resin are applied over time to build up depth whereby the light filtering through these layers, illuminates further images embedded in the surface. My intention is to create something “beautiful” or striking in a visceral sense. The images themselves are primarily concerned with the female form, utilising photography and digital-manipulation to create scenes in which the characters depicted reside within highly abstracted environments, aesthetically I want these images to sit somewhere between the realms of photography and painting.