picture perfect....?!
We got together today and organised all of our printed images and photocopies into piles. There are some which have been drawn on which we may need to discard...not sure I want to be responsible for putting drawings of male genitalia up over the Northern Quarter!!!!
At any rate, we went back to looking at how we could display all these photos that we've taken and Fabrizzio suggeated this artist : Barry McGEE
What I like about McGee's work is its not ordered in any particular fashion but the pictures are tesselated together to form one large shape whether it sits on a flat wall or juts out around a corner following the shape of whatever they are hung on. I like the idea of creating something which is quite eclectic and colourful with a mix of different mediums.We have more or less come to the conclusion we would like to work in this style, mixing the photocopies and aritst drawings in with the photographs. We intend to crop down some of the photos in order to achieve different size 'pictures' as opposed to a load of regular images; we feel this will add interest to the piece.
As for putting the images together, we don't think we can afford to make a lot of wooden frames as we have spent a fair amount on our event already. A few ideas we had were lazercutting paper into frames or even into strips to create irregular frames; Fabrizio also suggested that we might use coloured tape and it would be worth talking to the owner of Fred Aldous as he might have some scrap materials or even some coloured tape he could donate in our direction. We think it's worth getting in touch with him either way as we are quite keen on using the building itself for an installation space.
We have also thought of perhaps drawing our own illustrated frames and photoshopping them onto the photos. If we each drew up about 5 frames then that would give us a minimum of 25 different frames to work with which we could produce in different sizes and colourways. Somthing to consider definitely; even if we interspersed these with perhaps a few wooden frames and some made of 'material scraps' and a few just outlined in tape. This sort of piece would be quite eclectic and give a real sense of our personalities as artists which, against the hundreds of faces we will be displaying, should work quite well.
If we can get a window space, we were thinking maybe we could use a projector to project some of our images and then create an installation around the projected area? I like this idea but I still feel a solid physical piece is going to be the backbone of our installations.
Liam also suggested maybe we could get some glass drawing pens and DRAW frames onto the inside of a window which we can mount the photos up behind? I think this would be good as a partial piece of our entire NQ exhibition, but on its own would be a little weak and small scale. I would like to see it perhaps in some of the smaller shop windows if we manage to get in any, as I think this would be quick and easy to do and not be too much hassle or interference for the shop.
We will be drawing up our own frame illustrations over the weekend either way so we shall see where we get to from here. Seed of inspiration planted.
