Visit to Liverpool's Art Galleries:
Thursday 23rd February.

WALKER ART GALLERY:

I was excited to visit Liverpool's collection of galleries, as well as the beautiful city itself which is full of cultural sites and history. First, I visited the Walker Art Gallery, held in a beautiful 19th Century building are classical pieces from the 17th century onwards, as well as a range of modern art, selected by John Moore University. The first room I went in was the Sculpture gallery, followed by the victorian and 18th century art rooms. I sensed very much a theme of stories: each sculpture and painting portrayed a story of someone I had heard of, be it from Fairytales, The Bible, Literature or Greek Mythology. My favourite Sculpture was "Puck" by Harriet Hosmer, based on the Mischievous Sprite from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream":

I then went on to the Victorian Gallery, which housed some beautiful paintings, again, based on famous names and stories I was familiar with:

"The Expulsion of Adam and Eve"

"The Sleeping Knights from Sleeping Beauty"

"Perseus and Andromeda"

"Isabella and Lorenzo"

"Echo and Narcissus"
This was my favourite painting in this area. I am very intrigued with the Greek Myth of Narcissus and am interested in artists' perception of the story, be it oil paintings to reflect clearly what is going on like Waterhouse's work here, or surrealist work, such as "The metamorphosis of Narcissus" by Dali:

I think the reason I enjoyed these sculptures and paintings was that on one hand, they are beautiful, careful works of art which one rarely sees being executed in today's rushed lifestyle. Some of these will have taken years to paint, and use colour and light delicately, in a way rarely used today. I am interested in stories such as the ones portrayed in these pieces, and often use them to inspire my own work, however I, like many other artists of this age, use a lot more lateral way of thinking.

In comparison to the beautifully delicate way these artists use colour, I came to view the Modern Art gallery. These pieces use bold colour, and concepts quite different and controversial from the stories used in the Victorian gallery, and many are influenced by other cultures, such as japanese:

I was inspired by these modern art pieces. I loved the Victorian styles, however admire the bold, arrogant way that colour and shapes are highlighted in many of these examples. The last one, "Oriental Garden, Kyoto" by Bruce McLean, reminded me of a mark making exercise we did during our last project. I thoroughly enjoyed making our own painting tools, and created some interesting patterns, here, it looks like McLean uses different techniques to get the forms he desires, or even improvises with them to see the outcome.

*Henri Matisse*

BLUECOAT DISPLAY CENTRE:
I was looking forward to seeing this gallery, it is a very beautiful old schoolhouse, however as a gallery I found it difficult to comprehend and find my way around. The only display I saw was "Colin McPherson: The Proof Principle".

This installation was complicated, and hard to get your head around for a while, but the use of photography, film and textile installation was interesting. It was a good response to McPerson's task, to demonstrate the power and the certainty of photography as a means to communicate proof. The way it was displayed, in a clever simple, clean layout contrasted the complicated task McPherson was demonstrating.

Personal Project:
Knitting a Scarf:

Over the last two weeks (assessment week and feedback week) we were advised to visit museums and art galleries, delve in to the library's art-film collection and just try to collect inspiration. I wanted to also use this independent time to practice drawing and techniques for making. I am quite a constructive designer, so, whilst deciding on the Knit option for workshop sign up, I thought I would practice what I already can do, which is hand knit. Every Winter for the past 3 years I have knitted at least one scarf, be it for myself, or a friend and I enjoy doing so as a little personal project, which can be quite therapeutic.

I can do basic hand- knitting and purling so I try to use these techniques in an aesthetic way, in the past I have knitted squares and simple patterns in to scarves, this time I decided to add stripes using the purling technique:

I am using a 50% Wool/50% Acrylic, chunky yarn, so it will be soft and hopefully quite big. I am looking forward to wearing it over Christmas, and to start the Knit Workshop to learn new techniques and maybe to produce something more diverse than a scarf!