Tuesday, 3 July 2012

SUMMER SCHOOL


As I said in my earlier post - Summer School is well and truly here! I am almost through the 2nd week now with 2 weeks to go. The heat is definitely rising here in Abu Dhabi reaching highs of 42-45ÂșC lately!

Just starting to grade the first project for ART251 (Basic Graphic Design) were they show their abilities in Illustrator (example below).



Some of the girls are really talented and can really express themselves through their work and it is great to see this in class.

I only wish there was more time between each class that I have with them as we are fitting in 20 week courses into 4 weeks! and there is just no time to reflect and refine work between classes.

Anyway - back to Blighty in 3 weeks when I will be enjoying sun, rain, snow and tennis ball sized hail stone all in 1 week!

Monday, 2 July 2012

THE SILENT EVOLUTION - Jason de Caires Taylor


Not been on here for soooo long now - and as I was sat in class teaching Summer School with a few minutes to spare, I decided to have a browse on some of my favorite sites. I came across the images above and it really reminds me of the work at Crosby beach - the installation by Antony Gormley. This is a great continuation of his work and it is great to see how the sea interacts and manipulates Jason de Caires Taylor's work and makes it their own. I really admire artists that create works like this. They bring a whole new "living" dimension to the work and it is constantly changing giving the audience something new to see each time they visit it.

The installation is located under the sea off the coasts of Mexico, Grenada, and the West Indies, Jason de Caires Taylor’s realistic sculptures of people morph and evolve over time with the proliferation of colorful sea life that inhabits them. Stony human faces are obfuscated by coral, barnacles and seaweed; fleshed out and breathing with new life, the resulting ecosystem textures and transforms these ever-changing, ephemeral bodies.

Created with environmentally friendly materials that promote coral growth, the sculptures contain inert, ph-neutral properties designed to last hundreds of years, and to house the creatures that distort and transform them.

Taylor’s magnus opus, The Silent Evolution, located in Cancun, Mexico, consists of 400 life-sized casts and forms a permanent artificial reef. Taylor’s body of work provides both an artful method for addressing environmental concerns and the spectacle of witnessing true buried treasure.