Usually, I do a separate reflection post after I have received formative feedback from my tutor. This, time - it's actually the first exercise!
I finished part four feeling very optimistic. Usually, I am concerned about my feedback before it arrives and usually, my doubts are not supported once I read the report. So it was surprising this time when my feedback left me feeling deflated. Not that the feedback was negative, but I think that I had had such a positive experience with part four and my adopted persona that the feedback didn't seem to match my experience.
I think the main part of the feedback that felt wounding was this:
Your sequence of ‘trial’ portraits all have positive stylistic qualities, and all have potential for more development that the final sequence of portraits does not completely follow up on. This is not a criticism of the final portraits, as these are more technically confident representations of their subjects, but there is more of a homogenous technical approach to this group. It is possibly limiting at this early stage to settle on unified stylistic approach.
Just a note here, as my tutor will no doubt read this when it comes time for the feedback for part five: When I say wounding, that's the emotional and physical pain I often feel when receiving criticism or negative feedback. It's linked to my experience of something called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria. It's also worth noting that this includes perceived criticism and negative feedback! So don't worry - I have not been hurt or offended!
Luckily, I am coming to understand this part of my brain's responses and I am developing tactics to process how I am feeling. This leads me nicely to the next part: because I know that RSD can show up with perceived rejection, I have to try and make space to process the emotions and feedback rationally. I get support from a specialist study skills tutor, and so at our next conversation, I asked him to go through the feedback with me, so that he could give his unfiltered impression and translate phrases that my brain had fixated on. He managed to summarise the formative feedback into four sentences, which I'll explore more below:
"Your portraits are all stylistically excellent."
Now, I am not sure about excellent, but despite the different media used, I do see my personal choices and style coming through all of them. I found the practical research I undertook very useful for opening up my mind to different possible approaches.
My intention all along was to settle on just one of the mediums as my focus for my final sequence of portraits. I had hoped that, by exploring different media and approaches, I would find things to consciously or subconsciously take into the more resolved artwork. I believe I have been successful in that intention. The approach that I took for the final sequence is not something I could have seen myself doing at the start of this project.
Looking at the formative feedback again, I can now read it more rationally. To me, it says "The study pieces have energy that deserves further investment because they could take me in interesting directions. It's a shame the final pieces all have the same approach." I totally appreciate the warning about settling on a unified stylistic approach, but in rebuttal: that was never my intention. It was to create a unified look for a small selection of portraits. I fully intend to push things further, add, and edit my approach.
"You are technically confident."
I am certainly more technically confident than before I started the project. I think I have learned a lot from the different approaches, and I really benefitted from undertaking the other paid courses for the advice and instruction I received. Knowing more about light, planes, surfaces, and anatomy is only going to benefit my technical ability.
I don't particularly care about having ability for ability's sake. I think what I push for is the freedom of expression that technical skill gives me. To get closer to being able to translate what is in my head into the world.
It is very encouraging to read that my final sequence of paintings is representative of the subjects. In portraits, it's always useful to have a sense of likeness, after all! I do think that by going back to the more experimental stages there is an opportunity to see where I can achieve a more fulfilling balance between likeness and what I see of the subject and their inner world. I doubt I am going to get sucked into cubism any time soon, but it won't hurt to explore the work of artists who manage to see the world in more interpretative ways.
"Your final pieces have a distinctive stylistic voice."
Yes, I actually think they do. For the first time in a long time, it felt like I was making work that was me, not just from me. I felt free, almost giddy at times as I felt the barriers dissolve and I made the marks that intuitively felt right. To be reckless with paint and imagery, and then push and pull with the image until the right choices emerged.
These portraits are not the end, they are just the first salvo in my artistic voice being liberated. But to persevere with this emancipation takes patience, courage and dedication. This brings me nicely to the final summative sentence.
"Spindrift gives you a lot of interesting potential & freedom."
I am so pleased my experiment worked. In many ways, this is the most successful part of this project. Spindrift gives me the things I need to keep going, and I don't want to let it wither away. I like the idea of continuing with the persona - not just as an aside for portrait work, but as my tutor suggests: to take Spindrift into Part Five, and see how he tackles different kinds of image-making.
Where to go next
When I discussed things with my study skills tutor, we also discussed what I could take away from the feedback in my next steps. Firstly, I do think that my tutor's advice to create distance from photo reference through the use of sketches and studies is really spot on, and something I will try to incorporate in future work. I think some layers of abstraction will allow more interpretative choices to come through, without a constant reminder of something hyper-realistic in front of you.
Secondly, I agree with going back to the studies, and seeing how I might be able to combine some of the different approaches in a 'mixed media' way. For example, how could the palette knife be used alongside the inks?
Thirdly, my academic tutor recommended in his feedback that I explore how I (and Spindrift) explore portraits and their relationship to a place/space. All of my portraits so far have been more like headshots. It made me think of Edward Hopper and the way he places his figures in relation to the landscape.
Hopper has always been one of my favourite artists, particularly in the way he uses angular cast shadows. The piece above has a sense of melancholic calm to it, and the more I look the more I notice how her positioning is carefully thought out in relation to the room and the open window.
Lastly, I was enthused about my academic tutor's mention of James Gurney (another favourite artist of mine) and his Dinotopia world. I had been considering experimenting with landscape painting in the same way I had portraits, but I had never really considered that I might be able to combine things through narrative. I think it could be a really interesting idea to explore in this section.
Should I do that, I think that I should consider multiple ways of doing that. Concept Art seems like a logical place to look at (I love the art style and concept work for the animated movie Spider-man into the Spider-verse for example). Gurney's Dinotopia is another logical choice, and the work of Aaron Becker has also been suggested to me. It seems to have an interesting relationship between the character and their space. I also like his storytelling without using words. It feels closer to a graphic novel at times than it does a children's book.
Images from "Journey", by Aaron Becker (2014)
All in all, I need to remember that I really, really enjoyed assignment four. And just because I didn't explore other areas, that shouldn't detract from that. Also, that formative feedback doesn't mean that what I did wasn't good. There was a lot of good in there that I should be proud of. Most of all, my experiment to free myself up was successful, and that is the most important thing to capitalise on.
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