Sophie Ashdown

This was our first experience in this course of a “group crit”, not something I have ever experienced before so I was somewhat apprehensive.  We had no prior warning that this would happen so no time to prepare anything.

In my group were Josh, Karema, Cat, Alex, Denisa, Pritish, and Mateusz.

I decided to go first, mostly so I could get it out of the way and not worry about it while others were having their turn.  I figured that if I went first then I could concentrate better on other people’s work as we went along.

I decided to talk about the work I had done on an old painting that I didn’t like, to try and make it better.  It was this piece originally:

I had applied some copper leaf to it to make it into this piece:

I talked about how and why I made the changes, how I applied the copper leaf, and that it was very messy.  How despite making the changes, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not.

Josh was the first to comment and he was actually very complimentary about the piece which really surprised me.  He saw merit in it that I didn’t, and I was surprised by how much it affected me.  I’m not used to having artistic people commenting directly about my work, and to have it be complimentary was almost a shock to the system.  Of course my family and friends say nice things about my work but it felt very different here.  Others also commented positively and gave me some constructive and helpful feedback. One of the suggestions was to change orientation of the painting, and amazingly I like it considerably more in a vertical position!

Ultimately the vertical position, and the positive comments have not necessarily made me like the piece, but I dislike it less so that is progress!

Then Josh talked about his experimentation with automatic writing and how he combined it with his painted work.  I thought the result was beautiful and told him.  It really gave his piece an ethereal quality that was really striking.

Karema showed us how she incorporated text into her pieces which gave the images a really different feel when combined together.  It made you read things into the images that you might not otherwise have done.

Cat does beautiful otherworldly work which I absolutely love.  Her characters are so beautiful and charming.  I want to be a faerie in one of Cat’s artistic worlds.  I love how Cat talks about her work and her motivation, eg “pushing the subconscious to emerge”.  I hope that through this course that I can talk so eloquently about my own work.

Alex normally creates beautiful horse sculptures but on this day she showed us some collage work she made that were inspired by her dreams.  She didn’t seem to like the results but I really liked the house collage.  I told her that if she did a series of these houses that they would look incredible as a group.  Or maybe use her sculptural skills to make 3D versions.

Denisa has been experimenting using wax in her painting and the results were really interesting.  I liked her combinations of colours and the different techniques she tried across multiple paintings.

Pritish made a fascinating video of him walking through London.  It is interesting that when I have walked through London I barely take notice of my surroundings except to orient myself on where I am or where I’m going.  But Pritish’s video made you notice more carefully the other people, buildings, vehicles, etc from a unique angle.

Mateusz made some images that were programmed to music and they were beautiful.  I loved the movement and the patterns that they made.  I would happily put some of his pieces on my wall at home.

Overall the crit experience was much more interesting and heartfelt than I expected.  I really enjoyed viewing and discussing everyone’s work.  I love seeing everyone’s work and how/why they made them.  It makes me feel more confident as an artist myself that others go through some of the same questions and struggles as I do, that we all have doubts about our process or the outcomes.  But also that we can all find merit and beauty in what is created, whether it is our own or other people’s works.

I look forward to doing one of these again, but hopefully next time we’ll be told in advance so I can create something completely new to share and discuss.

And a big thank you to my lovely coursemates who are all so kind and lovely.