Sketchbook; Shape and Texture

Laura Carlin

I've loved Carlin's work for a while now, and her use of texture and shape is something that really excites me. The hand crafted textures brings a true sense of authenticity to her work and the way she deals with form and figure through use of shape was something I studied a lot while undergoing this task

 

Leading on from last week I tried making textured shapes straight onto the sketchbook pages using a variation of media, but found myself again going back to the paper cutting and collage with simple features on top of them again

Textured paper that I'd made for an OUIL403 brief came in very useful in allowing me to create really hand-rendered textured shapes

Strangely I'm really enjoying making images of despondent, naked New Yorkers. The idea stemmed from a few photos of performance art and the bohemian movement going on in NYC at the time. My research into the crack epidemic has also fed into this idea of grungy, desperate people that were trying and failing to get by in the slums and ghettos of NYC. Shape has allowed me to exaggerate and manipulate the gesture and anatomy of figures, while texture gives me that dirty, worn and imperfect aesthetic