Project Proposal

The chosen theme of my Context of Practice essay and supporting practical work is that of fairy tales. A fairy tale is defined by being a short story of nursery standard that is filled with enchantments and the supernatural, with a hero or heroine overcoming supreme obstacles to reach a happy ending, and filled with a recognisable shared language of symbols, images and motifs, passed down from generation to generation.  Not just existing in books or illustrations, fairy tales are widely popular through movie adaptations bringing them to a wider contemporary audience. I am interested in the women of these stories – the mothers, nurses, cooks and caregivers who shared them at the fireside, how female characters are portrayed within the tales with still-harmful stereotypes and archetypes in both books and movie adaptions, and how they have culturally impacted and restricted women’s expectations and ideals of romance and life goals, and how women are subjected to lesser roles of passivity, dependency and self-sacrifice. Through my initial research I have found a number of books and academic discussion in videos that provides a fantastic source of secondary research, covering the topic of fairy tales from a feminist standpoint along with a number of feminist fairy tales written by women and older tales rewritten by a female point of view and with the woman having agency and power. For primary research I have discovered two exhibitions that would benefit my project and I would like to visit, one based around fairy tales and fairy tale illustration and the other on feminist art.

Proposal: Context of Practice 2

COP2 Proposal in 250 words:

For COP2 I would like my theme to focus around the Op-Art movement, optical illusions and how we perceive imagery based on our perception, our level of sight and our life experiences. I'm quite interested in this subject area after visiting an exhibition recently at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery and discovering the alluring and highly contrasted monochrome paintings of Victor Vasarely. This enabled me to reflect on how I interpret the images as someone with a severe visual impairment. Does our level of sight affect the way we read images? Does the interaction of shapes affect the way the picture is communicated? How do our past experiences define and shape us to read pictures in a certain way? Colour theory and how the lens perceives light and colour will be of importance to my findings as well gestalt theory and how our lives affect the way we perceive information. I think it is important as an illustrator to remember that our work will be read in a number of different ways by our audience and understanding those interpretations will underpin my work. I have started to create imagery in a similar vein to Op-Art, highly influenced by my gallery visit and discovery of artists such as Vasarely, Bridget Riley and Josef Albers, and informed by Zaha Hadid's love for organic shapes and forms with exterior skins; drawing parallels to Op-Art. I intend to investigate and explore these themes in the development of a visual journal.

Issuu Presentation