'Sense of Place'

Your mission if you choose to accept it: create a body work with a final painting based on the theme 'sense of place'.

Since I am a 2nd year art student and this is the first part of the module I had no choice but to accept the mission. So my mission was to think of something that doesn't involve painting a landscape since I tend to wander when painting a landscape. A painting that is meant to be realistic turns to abstract and I will paint the grass orange as I get sick of green.

Plus when I think 'sense of place' I don't think of an actual place instead I hear music. Yeah I know that sounds kind of pretentious but it's the truth. I'm a music lover, I love everything from classical to metal and everything in between and my i-pod is my most treasured object. When I think of home I think of music, I was brought up listening to my dads punk and rock vinyl till the early hours of the mornings. I link music to books, memories and places.

Therefore I decided that my focus of 'sense of place' would be based on being at a gig or concert, because as cheesey as it may be I feel alive when I go to a gig, adrenalin pumps and you can just let go and enjoy yourself with others who are there for the same reason, plus hearing the music live can be so much better than recorded (only if they can preform live that is!). This sounded great when I first decided to go with it but then I came across my first hurdle; how do you capture the energy that is a central part to a gig on paper? 

I started researching ideas and was influenced by Chuck Close, Rothko and Franz Kline. Even though I went to Download this year and a few gigs in the summer I have no pictures of them so I had to look online for photographs of being in the crowd and from them I did a few sketches using charcoal, vegetable oil and ink. 

These obviously show a little more of the influence of Franz Kline but colour can be added later. And they are the start. Where next who knows?