Artist Research

Davina Drummond

Davina is a fantastic and unique artist who has actually done one on one work with the BRIT school. She is a remarkable woman. Davina Drummond graduated with a B.A.(hons) in Fine Art Textiles from Goldsmiths College, London in 2005 and with a postgraduate diploma in Art Education from the Institute of Education, London in 2007 . She works at the intersection between art and art education, purposely blurring the boundaries between the two disciplines. She creates site or date specific relational works, often incorporating the use of text and textiles. Davina’s practice explores modes of making artworks, which involve the process of social interactions and creative collaborations with others in gallery, non-gallery spaces and educational settings. 

The Big Celebration Cake

This is my favorite of Davina's recent projects.TallTales were comissioned by Southern Housing Group, to produce the Samuel Lewis Estate 100 year Centenary celebration, which took place in summer 2010. The project aimed to engage residents of a 300 home Islington estate through a series of events and activities to mark its 100th year.

For The Big Celebration Cake Davina Drummond worked with residents of all ages from the Estate to create a giant collaborative celebration cake, which was shared at the celebration day in September. During August she worked with members of the estate to design celebration cakes, drawing dream cakes and decorating cakes. Cakes could celebrate anything, perhaps a lasting strong relationship or your son achieving an A for his latest homework? Through these sessions Davina facilitated conversations about what should be celebrated more and what should be celebrated less. The designs were exhibited in the community centre and everyone was welcome to vote for their favourite design, which was then be made by a group of residents with Davina, using ovens around the estate for the celebration day.

See Davina's Website and blog for more of her fantastic work.

http://www.davinadrummond.co.uk/

http://davinasbigproject.tumblr.com/

Artist Reasearch

BANKSY

Banksy is an incredibly famous gorilla artist. His work is unexpected turning up in places you would not expect. Banksy uses famous images, text and geographical place in order to send a message across to the public. Banksy throws issues that effect the world straight into the faces of the people who chose to ignore them. He makes light of terrible situations to devalue them in the same way people devalue the issues by ignoring them. 

Many find banksy's work offensive and barely legal, but if it was not it would not scream the message that he wants to give out.

Artist Research

Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn is a British artist and one of a loose group called the Young Artists. His most famous and well known works are his sculpture works of Alison Lapper on the 4th plinth, a wax work called self  and his work called the garden. In my opinion Marc Quinn is a very unexpected artist due to the fact that he explores his vision in many different techniques. He works extremely well in sculpture and explores this medium in so many different and yet beautiful ways.

I had the pleasure of seeing this fantastic sculpture. I additionally had the pleasure of explaining to a tourist who the sculpture was of and who created it and why this woman was worth creative a statue of. A passerby believed it was a statue of an alien...oh dear.

By far my favorite work Marc Quinn has created is Garden. Marc brought over 1000 different species of flowers together in one huge garden exhibition displaying the beauties and treasures of the world that many people take for granted.

During the week that my group visited the St Thomas hospital I walked down south-bank. At the time there was an arts project that had been set up that was focused on bringing the community together. The project was call the Neighborhood Project and it involved seating areas and green houses that grew flowers and vegetables that were intended to initially bring a community closer together. 

Personally I found this project unique and wonderful for a family to do at the weekend. This community project has really analysed what makes a community and what brings a neighborhood together. The project on south-bank expresses how we all work together and grow together.

Here the wheelbarrows are converted to beautiful flower gardens and some have been converted into seats for people to sit down and admire the flower beds and lie in the sun.

Here are some oddly and artistic shaped seating areas for passers by to sit down and relax.

As you can see from the photos many artists have been involved in the process in transforming south-bank into a colorful and more creative and artistic atmosphere.

This project is a great influence and help for my own community project. Seeing how the theme of the Neighborhood has inspired artists and organizers to create such a fun and friendly atmosphere is really inspiring. It made me evaluate my own community project and think about the ways in which I could recreate a friendly and fun atmosphere in a dull and rather depressing room at the Crystal Center.

I think a theme is very important to the decoration of the room and I also think that it is crucial to make it colorful and creative so that kids will be drawn to it. What ever we decide to do has to be innovative and imaginative to create a fun and whimsical atmosphere for the children at the crystal center, and completely transform the room into the opposite of what it was before.

We are currently in term five of BRIT school and undergoing a series community projects. In Visual Art and Design we have been put into groups and set a task which involves interacting one on one with a certain community. The community which my group will be working with is a physio therapy clinic called the Crystal Center. The focus of our project is to redecorate one of the therapy rooms to make it a brighter and more joyful atmosphere. Through out the project we will be working with patients of the clinic and creating artwork with them, and we will be working with a group of drama students who will be creating a performance piece for the crystal center patients.

This blog is to record some of the things we have done as a group and what I have done as an individual to help create and expand ideas to decorate the crystal center room. Additionally this blog is to show my research which has influenced and enhanced my ideas.