'Worn'

For some time, the university has set a project brief for the end of the year in which the first years create an art piece that can be worn, as if some piece of clothing or costume. As part of an event towards the Christmas break, these first years than present themselves with their work as part of an unofficial catwalk.

I immediately took to this project with little to no problem, already well aware of what I was going to base this piece on.

The Dealer (2010)

The drawing shown above is of some unearthly figure I can recall seeing regularly through dreams I had in my rather angst-ridden period of living in Singapore. To this day, I have still yet to fully understand the sense of purpose in existing that this figure has always had for me. In any case, I decided to incorporate this character as the basis to this project brief.

I made the mask for the character primarily out of canvas, to give the head some structure while flexible enough given the shape I would make it into. Upon finishing the canvas head, I added layers of latex to work as its 'skin'. Yarn thread was also applied alongside the latex to recreate most of the details shown on The Dealer's face.

For rigid form, I made the horns firstly out of card before wrapping them in canvas and held together with latex. This would all be painted into what felt like the appropriate colour at the time.

Over the eye-holes, I decided to place acetate, which where then painted as well, as yellow. I tried to make sure the colouring over the acetate was more like a light wash, so as to not impair my eyesight.

In hindsight, I can't help but feel I made the colour of the Dealer's too vibrant. When thinking of the character more, I have lately begun to consider its colour more comparable to that of pale human skin.

The costume, nevertheless, seemed to have been well received.

 

I set to have better quality images of the costume taken in-studio and uploaded them onto Tumblr.

 

The Dealer @ BecomingtheMyth.Tumblr.com

Self-Directed Project: '1970s Ankou' & 'Beelzebub'

Originally considering the idea for a large-scale performance piece, I began preliminary work into photographic portraits of mythical figures of my choice to follow up on my college FMP piece 21st Century Baphomet. I considered the idea of working on two types of images for this project; the first one will feature a complete costume which will feature photos taken on location. The second (set) will focus on a partially developed costume piece and will be limited to studio space.

For my first costume piece, I decided to create photographic portraits for a costume I developed towards the end of October called 1970s Ankou.

Because of the general aesthetic of Ankou, I chose to take the photos in the sculpture yard of the university campus, providing an industrial environment that felt appropriate. Although I took numerous photos for this piece, I only selected three for the final presentation.

1970s Ankou (2011)

The second piece involved initial construction of a new costume project, this one was to be based on the demon Beelzebub. I decided to focus on the popularised image of this figure as a literal 'Lord of the Flies', as shown from its illustration from the book Dictionnaire Infernal as well as various examples taken from popular culture, most commonly from video games.

Original illustration of Beelzebub in Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal (1863).

Engraved by M. Jarrault.

Beelzebub depicted in game series, Shin Megami Tensei.

Illustrated by Kazuma Kaneko.

Beelzebub depicted in Final Fantasy II.

Illuustrated by Yoshitaka Amano.

Beelzebub depicted in arcade game, Ghouls n Ghosts.

Illustrated by Tokuro Fujiwara, Shinichi Yoshimoto and Hisashi Yamamoto.

Since I didn't intend on producing for a complete costume piece, I decided to only focus on creating a prototype of the costume for the upper part of the body (anywhere above the waist).

I constructed a wire structure for the torso, using wire wrapped around itself as the 'ribs' and a wire mesh as the 'skin' in between. I created segmented limbs from mod-roc and the hands were created from cardboard covered in latex. The materials used for the hands would be further incorporated into the later development of this costume.

Beelzebub (2011)

I hadn't developed a complete idea on what the head could appear as but my designs and the final presentation in the studio involved a novelty mask I found some time before I initiated on the project. The cling-film scattered around the main sculpture was actually from when I cast my own arms for the mod-roc segments. I wished to develop on the form of the wings for when I set out to complete the project in the future.

This project was the start of me further exploring the idea of costume as part of my artistic practice and the relevance in how I attempt to identify through these various figures.

'Manifesto'

n. pl. man-i-fes-toes or
         man-i-fes-tos
A public declaration of principles, policies, or intentions, especially of a political nature.

An artist's manifesto may follow this conventional definition to an extent. However, they often differ in the vagueness of the subject matter and opinion. Thus, many of such manifestos can be broadly interpreted among individuals. It was through this nature of art manifestos that I considered how I may produce my own, according to specific A0 format we were required to produce our piece on. My intention was to produce a 'manifesto' based on the vaguest possible response/s developed for the most common basis to questioning:

I set out to persuade people to provide me a series of questions for me to respond to, as long as it was possible to answer them by only stating 'yes' or 'no'. Even then, my answers did not correspond to the order of the questions which I received them, making any understanding to my response lost to anyone besides myself. This was to adhere to a personal element behind my manifesto while letting myself confide in productivity despite a disinterest in expressing the project brief to such limitations.

My 'manifesto' Yes/No as presented for exhibition.

Yes/No (2010)

However, once I was able to produce this response, I immediately delved into an additional project that was still closely knit to the intention of the project brief. As an attempt to express concerns over the pressures art in British academia has been facing, I toyed around with the idea of the notion of pursuing and supporting arts as a rebellious attitude, albeit minor.

Therefore...

I also wished to toy around with the unusual commercial accessibility and exploit the anarchy symbol has experienced and therefore incorporate it into an accessible and commercially exploitable slogan:

 

I developed this through a simple media, as fabric paint onto t-shirts as bought on-masse from a major clothes shop.

I was able to get multiple students and even some tutors involved getting them to wear the shirts. I asked for appropriate shirt sizes in advance of buying them for painting.

"I am Anartist" (2011)

I definitely found the t-shirt the more entertaining of the outcomes I developed for this project brief and it also drew in the most intrigue compared to my more restrained project idea.