Exercise 5.1: Compare and contrast (400 -450 words to be used)
I will consider the work of a MA student at OCA, Ted Fox Joyce, who worked with landscape and organic matter within. I was referred to look at his work by my tutor in Advanced Practice. His writing is clear and concise in describing his current practice, his interest in the morphology of plants, and how he could integrate or work in spaces about the real and the imagined.
I find that he writes impartial as he understands that looking at these topics contains not only seeing, it is about observing and reflecting on. He made a summary video presentation with images and research, and did a voice overlay. I could follow his process by reading his Art Journal where he did weekly summary presentations. I enjoyed his use of prose/poetry and folklore in this work. In his work, week 29, Hypyae, 21/08/21 he presents a poem about Lichen, fungi and hyphae by Mac Farlane & Donwood, 2019. I attempted to read more and presume the poem comes form Macfarlanes’s book, Underland. The work he present with it is animated and shows hyphae growing, with sounds imagining this unseen happening.
He comes across as knowledgable and enthusiastic about his work. He brings in the work of von Goethe, M Sheldrake and Deleuze and Guitari to ground in research and philosophy. I am particularly interested in his research into the work of artists, Gemma Anderson and Maria Bartuszova. These artists work with the unknown in a very experimental process of collaboration. It does remind of the symbiotic relationships between fungi and other plant matter. I particularly like his insight when he writes: “I sensed that Bartuszova has a symbiotic relationship with the materials she used; the material unable to operate alone and the artist unable to do anything. Without material, but the two combined and working together produce such intriguing outcomes”. (week 22 0 Maria Bartusczova – 29/10/2022 on his spaces.oaca.ac.uk site)
He develops new work by moving from film to observational drawings and making 3d forms with paper-pulp, apart from his photography for his body of work. This made his arguments and perspective more tactile and believable, as he talked about his experience of making and letting the objects/material speak for themselves. I enjoyed his choice of paper-pulp casts and how he allowed outcomes and the unknown, imagination and intuition to come to the front in his work, which also led to his experimenting with photography on new levels, like working with animation as a form of trying to imagine what happens inside cells.
I accessed his work through the spaces.ac.uk site. The video presentation is available on youtube.com
to follow up:
Reference to follow up: Drawing as a way of Knowing in art and science , Gemma Anderson and Underland by Robert Macfarlane.