Gallery Visit - London

Gallery Visit - London

To help with my research on artwork and the theme 'Journey' I attended a trip to London on the 5th of October to the Tate Modern and the Photographer Gallery. I had a brief plan of what I wanted to look at, but one of the main things I wanted to do was go to the 360 viewing platform at the Tate.
I took a lot of photos of London from there, here are my favourites.
View of the boiler room
Millennium bridge 
Looking at a tower in the distance
Another bridge over the Thames

Bruce Nauman

Next, I looked at some work by Bruce Nauman. There were a few pieces that caught my eye and made me think, these were called Help Me Hurt Me (1975) and No (1981). These two had a similar style, they're both lithographs on paper. My first reaction to these pieces of work caused confusion and some sadness, the colours Nauman has used are quite dull and the cool tones of the blue add to the lonely and slightly anxious atmosphere of there pieces. The background blends with the foreground and means your attention is drawn to the composition of the piece as a whole.
Help Me Hurt Me
No
There is a lot of mark making in these pieces also, these marks allow the artists movements to be followed and come across very expressive, almost in anger, which adds more emotion to these pieces overall. They show a sense of violence and pain and the fact that the words are almost trying to be hidden shows inner emotion being let out, giving off a very powerful sense of how the artist was feeling, The words used (help me hurt me, and no) are very universal and can be applied to most peoples lives, so I think this work has an impact on many people, each in different ways.

Another piece of work by Nauman that caught my eye was called Violins Violence Silence (1981-2). Its made up of neon lights spelling out those words one by one, before lighting up with them all at once. This piece is interesting as the colours are very vibrant an bright, and give a sense of energy and excitement. The first word I noticed was Violence, a word which makes me think of war, disagreement and anger, this theme os war links in with my journey as well. The way the words are arranged mean you have to study the piece to notice all the words, it took me a while to notice the word 'silence' as some of the words were backwards or overlapping, so when they lit up one by one it would be easier to see, but when they all light up with intense glowing colours it becomes quite overwhelming, and this intrigued me.
VIOLINS VIOLENCE SILENCE 
All three of these words look very similar and contain mostly the same letters. Violence is made up of the two words violins and silence, which are very opposite words. Violins are beautiful instruments which create quite the atmosphere, and silence is a very different atmosphere in itself. Violence is a mix of the two.

Luc Tuymans

This piece called Issel Sagawa (2014) caught my eye for a few reasons. This photo made me think of war and soldiers. The cool tones bring a very negative feel to this piece, in my case I thought that the man in this painting might have been a soldier or someone of war who seems lonely and washed out.
The colours Tuyman has used in the painting of oil on canvas are very soft and there are no harsh lines, the hint of pink used on the shirt intrigued me as it stood out compared to the cool shadows of the rest of the piece. The sharp stabbing brush strokes are noticeable when looking closely, which add more emotion and the artists methods in creating this piece.
Issel Sagawa
Upon doing further research of this piece I was shocked to learn who the man in the painting was. Issel Sagawa was known as a 'celebrity cannibal' as he murdered and cannibalized a Dutch woman in  1981. It intrigues me as to why Tuymans decided to paint this man, it makes sense to me more now his choice of colours, the cool colours show a cold man. I found a quote by Tuymans when he's talking abou this piece and he says "...there is this little piece of film where the older brother was always sort of threatening his two younger brothers and to put them in a pot and to boil them; and right before that image comes up you see a little kid with a mask and a tropical helmet, the image is of Issei. This is the epitome of the scary image." I find this quite inspiring, he also mentioned this is the 3rd time he's painted this man, he seems to have followed his life almost. This inspires me as my journey is based on me following my great grandad and I like the idea of these washed out portraits, which almost anonymises the person being painted, unless further research is done.







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