I was both excited and daunted by the first Self-led project we have been given and I initially found it hard to settle on an idea.

The brief was to create a 2 week plan of different stages of project, including research, planning, ideas, references, experimentation and comparison to another artists work. All of this should be on what we have learned in this Colour Practise module.

I found it difficult to write a day by day plan as I don’t ever work that way but I did plan out the stages I would need and how much time to give to each.

I decided I wanted to look at how the addition or even the subtraction of colour can change something so fundamentally. I looked at some of the huge things that the artist Christo had wrapped and how it made an ordinary unobtrusive object, building or whatever into something magical: as if it had been grey and dormant and waiting to come to life and now it had. I thought the same about his oil drum sculpture that was on the Serpentine, London in 2018.

I particularly liked the Reichstag in white and the German flag in the foreground as I noted that the colurs on the flag really pop against the white background. This gave me the idea for my project.

HARRODS WINDOWS

MY PREPARATION

I saw the same colour windows in harrods and I also came across an artist called Louise Levenson who made boxes of objects painted the same colour.

I decided to use ‘found objects’ that I gathered from the bin, recycling, on the street or in the park. I used three old pizza boxes to create my boxframes.

I sprayed everything white and I noted how what was trash and unnoticed bits and bobs, once it was placed in a box and all sprayed the same colour, it took on a minimalist feel and became ‘something’

I added small bits of colour which really stood out – like the German flag from Christo and also like the red lines in Basquiat and Kentridges work. I felt this went well and I made a Timelapse video too of this process.