Awareness of Space, Y12 students at Driffield School
As a collective we want a few things to stand out when you look at this exhibition. Visually we share similar approaches, you will see maps and layers and repetition. More than that though, we want you to feel the thoughtfulness and mindful approach to each piece that reflects our local area, the attention we have given to the spaces we grew up in and the memories attached to those places.
This work pushed us out of our comfort zone. Concepts like psychogeography made us reassess what we knew about art, but we stuck with these ideas and you will see their influence in the work before you. For the first time some of us took notice of our surroundings, appreciating them enough to acknowledge every detail in our work. This will stay with us.
Appreciation, Will Parsons (2021)
This piece is included here so that it can be seen while listening to the audio track created by the artist.
(OS Map, graphite, acetate, ink, canvas, cotton thread)
In this piece I wanted to explore the dynamic between myself and my local area; and why it is often taken for granted. I’ve been inspired by Larissa Fassler’s use of maps and cartography as well as the mindfulness of Linda Karshan’s work.
As I take daily journeys, details of my routes (such as sights, sounds and smells) become overlooked and underappreciated. Therefore, in my piece, I wanted to present the landscape as stagnant and unchanging. I did this through my use of printing onto fabric, this process is similar to how I perceive my landscape: reproducible and to some extent, uninspiring.
However, by manipulating the senses and taking time to appreciate what is there, I’m forced to change my point of view; hence the bold purple stitching woven into the fabric. This detail reflects my change in opinion of the mapped route, and overall intrigue into what the landscape has to offer.
Memories of Nature - Kiera Rason (2021)
When focussing on impressions of place I have had an opportunity to explore the places that I love and know the best, whilst also opening my eyes to view them with a different perspective. It’s so easy to get used to our surroundings, so much so that we begin to lose the essence of what drew us to them in the first place.
For this project I have included intricate map drawings as a way to strip back the places I know so well down to their physical structure, and with my use of watercolours and collaging of natural elements build these places back up again, with the little things that make them what I love. I have taken inspiration from the artist Larissa Fassler during this project, especially her use of detailed map design and her use of sharp lines with juxstaposing soft watrecolour elements.