Hernan Ardila

Link to Hernan Ardila's website

Debbie pointed me in the direction of Hernan Ardila (and only awesome people are called Hernan - the amazing Hernan) 
Ardila practice ranges from installations and assemblages to drawn, digital and video works. 

The objective; to adhere to the union and disposition of lines, forms, fields of colour and fragments of wood, plastic of metal. The unitary character of the work is evident through the use of computer within it's development. The digitalisation of materials, whether by means of photography or digitally stimulated form, allowing the artist to pre visualize the relations among the elements. 

Ardila's work consists of a deep and sensitive investigation, whilst remaining light, sensible and specific in regard to meaning and feeling. For this reason the search of precision within the relations goes hand in hand with a lack of certainty that not only demands the absence of significance but also a determined disposition of the elements, making legibility difficult. 

Matter and instability - could summarise his art work. What really interests Ardila is the possibility to manipulate a form and alter it in multiple ways. In this sense he is always trying to work from a point where the things still haven't acquired their direction. His work is fulfilled by intervened forms and elements in crisis that are placed in relation to the order of things which maintains them on their limits, unbalanced; on the verge of being put into movement, to stop being, and that which is the same, to become something else. (from http://www.hernan-ardila.com/about.html)

The paragraph above, I think has a lot of links to how I think about my own practice. The material and an instability, static movement and weight, and placing things out of their own order, creating something other then they were.

Link to some more works

   

 

WRITINGS: Jessica Stockholder

Jessica Stockholder writings/essays

Of Standing Float Roots in Thin Air
Putting words down on paper and reading them aloud has a formality to it that matches the stasis of visual work. These words don’t run into the fluid and fleeting words of conversation. They stay on the page where they can be revisited. In the same way my collections of unimportant things, variously configured around us, in many different places, are here fixed for a while, or slowed down. They are and aren’t part of the flowing, or perhaps it’s more accurate to write, gushing stream of objects being hurtled around everywhere we go.The space one doesn’t want to go into. Perched up here, looking down enjoying feeling detached from, and a little above the turmoil. Standing on top of the hill. Power and safety infuse vision.Down there, gravity working against you as you climb back out in your imagination. Clambering over big grey rocks, in a hurry to get away from the vague worry behind the back.The problem of never being able to see your back, of being stuck inside your own eyes. The vulnerability of the shell, the flesh, bones, and skin we’re in and the plywood. The tree cut down, machined and glued together in the shape of a rough flat scale that is loosely glued to our hides.Dream Whip Jell-O layered like a landscape. Layers of different colors to eat. The Jell-O, like, plastic, is and isn’t the thing I want. Eating inside our white shell. My poor white body hidden (shielded) from the sun while we, scurry like ants around this edifice we are building while we live in it.

And, the red, green, and yellow glow.

(http://www.jessicastockholder.info/albums/of-standing-float-roots-in-thin-air)

I can't put words to why I enjoyed this little text so much - but I did. But I think I like how it is a little poetic and is hard to make sense of because it describes things with words and things we know but you still can't make sense of what she is talking about. I also like the bodily descriptions with words like feeling detached, standing on top of the hill,gravity works against you, the problem of never being able to see your back, the flesh, the bones, and the skin....
I also like the simple words that I can understand singularly but when put together like this, creates a confusion that I enjoy trying to make sense of.
This text written by Stockholder is in relation to this work of hers:

Of Standing Float Roots in Thin Air

Year:2006Sited at:PS1 MoMA, New York, USACollection of:Vancouver Art GalleryReviews:http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-culture/art/1923/jessica-stockholder-of-standing-float-roots-in-thin-air

Finally back into studio

While finishing up my drawing paper I found it very hard to work on both my drawing and studio practices at once, like we were meant to be doing. I saw my drawing and studio practices so close together that they were pretty much sitting on one another. So now drawing is completed - studio can progress. 
Although I haven't technically done any studio work in what feels like weeks... having my drawing sitting so close has meant that while I struggled to work on them at the same time, I was learning and reading things that I will now use in my studio. I'm going to flip a lot of my drawing straight into my studio. And mix it all together :)
So this is the link to my drawing research blog (DVR) http://madisonatherfolddrawing.blogspot.co.nz/

Post Talk Week write up

Lead by Anna Miles, Ian Jervis with Finn Ferrier

What were the significant issues raised in the critique?

- My choice of materials and their visual qualities (the type of weave/colour/thickness/type of rope. Size/shape of the wholes in the chicken wire) need to be fully thought about in relation to how the viewer may interpret them.

- JOINS - because of the minimal quality to this work, the obvious anchorage points to the walls were discussed as distracting and it was suggested that they would have worked better if they were behind the walls, out of view. This I disagree with to some extent because I wasn't intending to create a perfectly suspended form with no other distractions. I think if I were to 'hide' all the attachments it wound feel to me like I was trying to use nylon and hoping that the viewer doesn't see it. But I do think that my joins to the wall could have been tidier, or some in view and some out of view.

- My 'anchorage' was also debated. Some wanted to chop it off and didn't see the need for it, and others saw and enjoyed it's function but would have liked it to have had more weight to it (a concrete form or something similar).

What issues surprised you or offered a reading that you had previously not considered?

- If it wasn't grounded with the anchor then the wire may 'breathe' more.

- Formalist grid, drawing with line. Rope draws in space when pulled tight and then breaks the formality when left to noodle.

- They didn't want to see, and there for think about the joins.

What changes did it bring about immediately in your work?

- I thought about why I felt the need to anchor the work to the floor in some way. And I still haven't come to reason, although I do know that I should have put a lot more thought into WHAT I was using to anchor with before it was presented.

- The fact that I had used the architecture in my studio space (the over head pipes) was commented on to be 'a worry' by one person. I don't really understand this comment, but from it, I take that I should be looking at other methods of hanging/joining and also different sites I could make my work in.

- I didn't like how much of a drawing the work became to some of the viewers.

- I need to be very careful of tensions on the string, to make sure that the ones in use, are tight. Otherwise this causes confusion.

Can you identify areas where you will have to develop further aspects of your practice in order to achieve your desired results (intent), eg. your skill base, further testing, research specific materials, look at wider social, political and historical contexts. Describe what actions you are going to make to develop your work.

- Testing different materials for their connotations that they naturally bring and for their both functional and aesthetic based qualities.

- There is always more research to be done. Looking at a wide range, beyond the art world. Things that interest me... science - physics/biology, femininity, nutrition, the human body under stress/ pushed to max, fitness/exercise and it's amazing ability to create change in our bodies and mind. I guess I like seeing somethings effect on something else and the relationship it forms.

Was there an aspect of another critique that you attended which raised issues pertinent to your own art making? What were those issues?

- Ross - an investigation into weight and support. He built these wonderful structures (mixture of self supporting and using suspension) that seemed dangerous and unstable yet solid. Viewers awareness to their own body and position in relation to the structures and in space. We are seemingly drawn to similar materials and i enjoyed seeing someone else's engagement with them and how playful it felt.

- Mark - brought home to me the power that objects with bodily associations and qualities hold. 

Something that stuck out was also everyone's avoidance of titles. Often people said that in past years that when they titled their work it was the focus of the critique instead of the work itself. So thats scared me off trying to title my work a bit for the moment.