Cast Cast Here, and a Cast Cast there, Here a Cast, There a Cast... Every where a Cast Cast !

After casting lots of limbs,faces , torsos and backs and.... etc. I ended up with a pile of body parts that did not make sense at that point. I then had to figure out a way to connect all of them keeping in mind the proportions of the human body and an idea of the end result.

While trying to figure that out, I hit a wall.... a HUGE WALL!
The figures looked too staged, too theatrical... too cold even.
I realized that there was no life in them.... No sense of movement , they were too stiff.

Experimenting was the key.






Paint thrown here and there...

Scissors and knives...

Cuts all over my hands...

Pieces of Gypsum cut,
Dipped in water,
More Vaseline.....

Music.

impatient model,
Bucket filled with more water,


Gypsum
Gypsum
Gypsum


Break.






and then....


this.





The Answer.

And Now It All Begins

In my personal life I go through a lot of introverted struggle, I tend to keep my feelings and emotions to myself no matter how harshly they affect me or the people around me. My tendency to bottle up my frustrations, anger and pain has reached a boiling point, and now I need to act upon that and liberate my psyche and personality from this strenuous cycle.
My artwork has always been an indirect way of communicating and discussing things I cannot through normal discourse. I may lack the words to discuss my problems but I do have a language at my disposal, that is my art. I have always used this disadvantage to my advantage, by using visual elements to carry my message across.
I want to conceptualize these emotions that I am certain that many people have felt and dealt with in one way or another through my sculpture work.

So... This is where all the work begins, that is after i realized how challenging this is going to be.

Since i want the audience/viewer to be able to relate to my work, it has to involve the viewer in some way. I came across a few ideas and started researching. One thing that stuck to my mind was Shadow installations. They are basically installations, sculpture usually, where the shadow created becomes part of the artwork.

Here are a few examples of Artists and their work :


Tim Noble and Sue Webster

They are based in England.
Their artwork is collected by Charles Saatchi, and it consists of collecting rubbish from London streets and experimenting with the way they are assembled to create shadows that are completely irrelevant.




Beth Galston

Beth Galston is an Environmental Sculpture.

This Sculpture nstallation is entitled " Grid Environment". Beth basically built wooden screens and projected spot lights which interacted with the projectors to create that effect.


" Light Forest"




Chritian Boltanski

To sculpt or not to sculpt?

I had problems deciding whether i wanted to paint, draw or sculpt for my Senior Project. But since i started a sculpture project some time ago, I decided to develop it even more and take it to the next level.

It all started when Areej and I made casts out of Gypsum strips ( yes they do have a medical name that i cannot remember) for the Sculpture 1 class. The goal of the project was to create sculptures that fit into a specific space and only that space.

This is what we ended up with......







I later grew even more attached to the Gypsum figures and decided to experiment more with the medium. I tried incorporating the Gypsum into my paintings, where i would prepare the canvas by plastering Gypsum strips and then painting over it. It developed even more in March of 2008, when I took part in the Artist Residency at the Dubai Creek which was more of an opportunity for artists to interact with other artists, experiment and create artwork.

The two of the paintings I worked on during the Artist Residency ( as shown below) were then exhibited at the Meem Gallery .







The paintings were basically a new approach in terms of dealing with the sculptures. By taking them out of their original context, and adding colour provided a new window to look through.


This is the most recent stage the Gypsum figures have reached:

The Cliche Box.

The Cliche Box was a project where a few artist from around Dubai were asked to design limited addition boxes for the Cliche Magazine. The boxes were exhibited at Traffic Gallery in June 2008.

The Curse of the "Untitled"

Every single piece of artwork I created has been entitled "Untitled" , with no numbers no names no nothing. There is no hint whatsoever to help someone identify it in some way.

There are two reasons behind why i keep doing this:

The first one is simply because i do not want to restrict the audience to a certain theme, concept or idea. Instead i would give them total freedom to decide what the piece of artwork in front of them is, what message it is conveying or what concept/ idea it is based on. I like keeping my artwork open to interpretation. It is a way of forcing people to stop and think about what it is they are looking at , the colours, the figures, the space , the composition and everything else that falls in between.

The second reason to that is because I cannot seem to describe my work in one word, one sentence or one phrase. I find it hard to put my thoughts into words and to construct sentences to describe what i am doing, feeling or thinking of.
This has been a problem that i have been dealing with ever since i picked up a crayon and started scribbling on a paper.

I realized that it is more of a curse rather than a problem. The better I get (whether in painting, drawing or sculpting) the worse this "Untitleness" becomes.

I don't know if that makes sense or not, but it does to me. The more able i become to illustrate an image using colours, shapes, or different materials of how i feel and what i am thinking the harder it becomes for me to put in in words or writing.

So, as you all know, this is the worst case for this class.
For the Senior Project we are being asked to discuss our ideas and concept behind the work we are to produce and exhibit. That is why I think this blog is going to be helpful in a way. I will be forced to write about the work in progress, the concept and all that, which is a good thing... i guess.

So here goes nothing....