Studio/ Research - 08/05/2019 (One-On-One)

Week Ten One-On-One with Kathryn  

1. Drawings and Illustration Practices.
2. Definition of Heuristic Methodology.
3. The meaning of material used in my work. 

After my last one-on-one meeting with Kathryn, this stage would be great to do more research and planning before diving into the making of my Final Project "The cinderellas". 

The drawing of a tree branch on each illustration symbolized the connection betweem the tree cinderella. I found that this symbolism potrays a more vivid message to the audience, rather than the work that was full of details. *Space is important! 

My search will be on:

• Heuristic Methodology 
• The relationship between fairy tales and nowadays society (how the story of fairy tales relate to nowadays society) 
• How material enhances the meaning of my project. A symbolism 
• Surreal illustration 
• An artist that works with fairy tales. 

Article: All the better to see with you   (Carolan, n.d.)

Art Exhibition

When the curator Samantha Comte first began plotting the course for her next exhibition at the Ian Potter Museum of Art in Melbourne, it was the revival of dystopian literature that first piqued her interest – in particular those shows, films and novels that champion a solo heroine who doggedly pursues hope regardless of the seemingly insurmountable forces conspiring against her. “That’s what a fairy tale is, they’re all about hope,” says Comte, recalling an early realisation.

 Comte’s favourite fairytale was Little Red Riding Hood.

You know how it goes: a young girl, teetering on the cusp of adulthood, receives a warning not to stray from her allocated path or risk engendering great peril from her (male) aggressor. The original tale, by the French writer Charles Perrault, is simple enough: Little Red ventures out and is promptly, unceremoniously, devoured. In this earliest incarnation, there’s no (male) saviour. There’s no justice for Little Red, only the kind of karmic punishment that’s warranted for, as Perrault puts it, having listened to a stranger – an ending that retellings and time, in its course, has changed in manifold ways. It’s for that reason that Comte’s recently-opened exhibition borrows its title from a line synonymous with that ever mutable tale: All the better to see you with: fairy tales transformed.

“The show really tries to explore that dark side of the Brothers Grimm and early French fairy tales that were designed as cautionary tales,” Comte recently told GRAZIA. “It looks beyond the palatable styles that we’ve become so familiar with. As society’s values change, particularly around children, the [fairy tale] genre has adapted to those social mores by incorporating those values.”

(I agree on this statement, fairy tales changes during a particular genre, adapting to its new society)

“I don’t think I realised how powerful the genre of fairytales is,” Comte says. “That it can be really used to assert a dominant narrative within our culture, but also how it can be subverted and have such an impact. A lot of the artists [expose] how powerful the genre is [that] you just think of as children’s stories.”

Exploring the Dark Side of Fairytales at the Ian Potter Museum

(Sier, 2017)

“I’m really interested in how fairytales change in response to context,” Comte says. “Transformation has always been central to fairytales – both the theme of transformation in the content and how the genre itself has evolved over time.”

Paula Rego’s Little Red Riding Hood with Potter curator Samantha Comte   (Potter museum of art , n.d.)

 (Ian Potter Museum of art , 2018)

Featuring international and Australian artists, All the better to see you with explored artists’ use of the fairy tale to express social concerns and anxieties surrounding issues such as the abuse of power, injustice and exploitation.

Article: Faulconer Gallery Exhibition Explores Fairy Tales in an Anxious World (Grinnell College , 2019)

A travelling exhibition, Dread & Delight: Fairy Tales in an Anxious World, runs from Friday, Feb. 1, through April 27, in the Faulconer Gallery.

The exhibition brings together the work of 21 contemporary artists using familiar fairy tales as a radical visual and verbal vocabulary with which to examine the staggering complexities of contemporary life. Works by Kerry James Marshall, Kiki Smith, David Hockney, Carrie Mae Weems, Tom Otterness and many others explore ideas of beauty, security, danger, and acceptance. In recalling specific stories, some of the artists have embraced their promises of change and championship of the disenfranchised. Others, however, have plumbed their darker elements – poverty, addiction, and exploitations of power. Many of the fairy tales featured in Dread & Delight are familiar (Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood). Others are lesser known and provide an opportunity to explore the rich breadth of the fairy tale tradition.

Dread & Delight is organized by the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and curated by Emily Stamey ’01. She has been curator of exhibitions at the Weatherspoon since 2015.

Article: Artists Reinterpret Classic Fairy Tales, from Rapunzel to Snow White  (Fuderburk, 2018)

In “Mother-Load” — an impressively executed, pumpkin-orange carriage sculpted from materials including aluminum foil, hot glue, and crystallized rock sugar [Using material to represent his message] — artist Timothy Horn alludes to issues of poverty, both in his use of unsophisticated materials and his inspiration beyond Cinderella. The piece draws from the real-life rags-to-riches tale of Alma Spreckels (1881-1968), a poor laundress who married into a sugar fortune.  Despite her great wealth, which was used to found San Francisco’s Legion of Honor museum in 1924, Spreckels was still ostracized by high society. At six feet tall, Spreckels, known as “Big Alma,” would not have fit comfortably inside Horn’s child-sized coach, echoing her exclusion. [The exclusion on her social status reflect on the size if the coach, represent her size thats unable her to fit into the carriage]

  

What is heuristic research?  (Moustakes, 1990)

Meaning of heuristic: heuristic inquiry is a process that begins with a question or problem which the researcher seeks to illuminate or answer. The question on that has been a personal challenge and puzzlement in the search understand one's self and the world in which one lives. (pg 15)

Self-dialogue on heuristic research:

Heuristic inquiry requires that one be open, receptive, and attuned to all facets of one's experience of the phenomenon, allowing comprehension and compassion to mingle and recognizing the place and unity of intellect, emotion, and spirit. (pg 16)

Works Cited

Carolan, N. (n.d.). All the better to see you with . Retrieved from Grazia : https://grazia.com.au/articles/fairy-tales-transformed/

Fuderburk, A. (2018, October 22). Artist reinterpret classic fairy tales, from Rapunzel to Snow White . Retrieved from Hyperallergic : https://hyperallergic.com/465883/artists-reinterpret-classic-fairy-tales-from-rapunzel-to-snow-white/

Grinnell College . (2019, January 31). Faulconer gallery exhibition explores fairy tales in an anxious world. Retrieved from Grinnell College : https://www.grinnell.edu/news/faulconer-gallery-exhibition-explores-fairy-tales-anxious-world

Ian Potter Museum of art . (2018, September 09). Paula Rego’s Little Red Riding Hood with Potter curator Samantha Comte . Retrieved from Youtube : https://art-museum.unimelb.edu.au/resources/video/paula-regos-little-red-riding-hood-with-potter-curator-samantha-comte/

Moustakes, C. (1990). Heuristic research: design, methodology, and applications.Retrieved from google books: https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=y3HwBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=heuristic+methodology+in+research&ots=QGPTSeVaP9&sig=9hpo4te209fNie1v19bGccfLD3s#v=onepage&q=heuristic%20methodology%20in%20research&f=false

Potter museum of art . (n.d.). Paula Rego's little red riding hood with potter curator Samantha Comte . Retrieved from Potter Museum of art : https://art-museum.unimelb.edu.au/resources/video/paula-regos-little-red-riding-hood-with-potter-curator-samantha-comte/
Sier, K. (2017, October 23). Exploring the dark side of fairytales at the Ian potter museum . Retrieved from Broadsheet: https://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/art-and-design/article/all-better-see-you-ian-potter-fairytales