What colour are you?
- mccloskey201
- Feb 16, 2023
- 6 min read
Feb 1 2021
I chose coloured ice cubes to respond to a brief about how time is depicted in art.
What is Time?
Time can be observed by many things such as the seasons changing - our life until death - watching seeds grow and turn into flowers. It can also be watching flowers wither and die over time without water. The passing of time marking the end of a day is observed by a sunset (if we're lucky enough) and the start of a new day with a sun rise.
Some things get better with time – such as a bereavement, breaking up from a relationship or the relationship itself can be nurtured and improved with time. Some things get worse with time such as food when it goes off and our skin ageing and wrinkling over time.
When we are young, we strive to be older – more mature and grown up and when we get older we crave to be younger and have our youthful looks and energy back.
Time is precious and becomes much more so the older we get. Time always feels like it is running out. Too often people complain about never having enough time, but time can be all we do have if we are lonely or our ability to live a normal life is taken away from us and we have to go into care. Time is all we have then and there seems too much of it.
Don’t waste time and use it wisely. Enjoy it and create fond memories.
Feb 8 2021
How artists depict Time
Thinking about how I could depict time in a piece of artwork was certainly a tricky one. The obvious thing to use was of course a clock, but this was too literal and a much deeper understanding of the use of time in artwork was required. Bring on the research!
Looking at artists such as Olafur Eliasson and Yukinori Yanagi helped me understand how they interpreted time in their work.
Eliasson’s Your Strange Certainty Still Kept (left) uses a strobe light to provide flashes of information for the viewer to digest and creates the illusion of stopped movement and time.
In Yanagi’s work World Flag Ant Farm, (left) the artist uses insects and nature to move the elements around as they go about their business and this continually change the work over time. This is only one of many "flags" connected by tubes.
Feb 15 2021
Art that changes over time
So, from the research above in the case of the ant farm you had to return to the work later to see what had happened and see what had changed over time. I like the unpredictability of this type of work as you cannot predict the results. Some works disappear over time (ephemeral) and nothing is left of the work other than a memory.
Feb 22 2021
Inspiration
Inspired now by the idea of something changing to become something else led me down the road of thinking about ice. It is solid and strong when frozen but becomes fragile and ephemeral by the time is has melted and nothing is left…. other than something that it has changed into...water….then eventually that too completely evaporates.
An artist of particular interest to me with her ice theme is Nele Azevedo and her “Melting Men”. Azevedo creates lots of tiny ice sculptures of the human form – shaped to sit on steps and gradually melt.
This work was originally created as a metaphor for life and death as it represents how fragile life is but has been recognised by viewers as a response to climate change.
I started to think of the idea of something dissolving, disappearing, decaying. What came to mind initially was how a beautiful flower in full bloom would eventually wither and die when taken from its original environment and placed in a vase to enjoy a short life. This felt very sad and negative and if I wanted to depict change from an original form - I wanted it to have a positive outcome.
Mind racing, I know I want to create a work that does indeed change into something else and without any human intervention.
Inspired by the ice theme, I thought I would like to represent time by observing ice melting. As this happens, I want that process to create another work by placing paper on the floor where the ice would drip - a bit like automatic art and every time the work was set up, the result would always be different. Using ice cubes in bright colours would create an uplifting visual sight for the eyes to counteract the solemn melting of the ice.
Mar 1
Development
So, with the idea in mind…how to execute it? What size would this work be? How will the overall work look? Is temperature a factor? Should I control the temperature or just let the surrounding temperature dictate? What colours will be used and why? What am I saying with this work?
Colour reflects our personality whether we realise it or not and perhaps this disappearance of the ice acts as a metaphor for what we represent in our life and then when we die and our physical body decays and disappears then maybe the creation of something that's captured from our personality is preserved?
To answer some of the questions above, I really need to create the work and see if how I envisage it is how it turns out. I feel a few experiments coming on…
Mar 8
Experimentation
I carried out some experiments using ice and food colouring. When you add salt to a section of an ice block it melts quicker than its surrounding mass and creates little tunnels for the food colouring to flow randomly. So much fun and so beautiful!
Mar 15
Developing the idea
I filled an ice cube tray with water (about 3/4 full) and mixed in liquid watercolour paint.
Using a tinfoil tray I added the watercolour paper in the bottom. I needed a structure to hang the ice cubes to and used a pot shelf. Not very pleasing to the eye, but would do for now to see if the idea was going to work.
Now to create a hanger for the ice cubes???
Using bendable wire I cut lengths of 15cm and curved one end to create a hook for the top and a figure 8 shape that would sit in the water and create a grip for the ice as it begins to freeze.
These worked well and I created 8 of them.
Then I inserted the hangers into the coloured water. They naturally lent to one side and at this point I didn't know if this would work! I left in the freezer overnight... fingers crossed!
Mar 16
Ta Da! they had frozen really well and I took them out the freezer and waited for 10 mins as I didn't want to force the cube out and the hanger break off the cube.
The cubes came out easily and I hung each one on the wire structure and waited..... I have to admit to sitting watching for the first drip!
Then this happened after about 20 mins. The thing I noticed at this stage was that the liquid watercolour paint hadn't frozen well and was a bit clumpy as it dripped and seemed to separate from the water.
This was the final outcome after around 2.5 hours. Looked interesting but lots of pooled water had settled into the rippled the paper.....and it took about 2 days to dry!
I just didn't like the pot shelf and decided to make my own hanger from thicker bendable wire. The beauty of this was I could create a more aesthetically pleasing hanging structure and create different heights and a more interesting piece of work.
This time I created the ice cubes with watercolour from a palette and followed the same process although a bonus here was the cubes were completely frozen within a couple of hours. Much happier with the overall look this time I hung up my cubes and watched each drip and splash intently.
This was the outcome this time which took a day to fully dry. Getting better but still not quite right as there was still pools of water that had settled in the ripples!
Now i knew what I had to do to get it just right. I used the water coloured paint from the palette but this time I used much more paint to create really intense vibrant colours. I also used white felt as my canvas as the felt soaked in the paint/water quickly and kept the intensity of the colour...and it also stayed flat!
After a couple of hours, the final result looked amazing and was exactly what I had hoped would happen.
Mar 22
What is the work saying?
This work depicts time in art and uses colours that reflect my personality and emotions. When I analysed the colours they were an accurate reflection of me and the use of bright colours is what i use in all my work and is becoming my signature style.
The work is a way of preserving and capturing my personality when I am no longer around.. life after death? - a self portrait?... Yes!.... the title is
Self Portrait (2021)
Water, paint, felt, life experience
24 x 24cm
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