Gallery Trips & Le Gun

This week we were asked to form groups between 4-6 people which we would be working with for the duration of the Unit X project. I decided to team up with Lawrence, April, Anthony and Agusia. As most of us had worked together before, we were aware of each other’s work styles and techniques.

This week was dedicated to both research and investigation. We were told that we would be visiting various different locations to gather research and investigate objects which could inspire our Unit X project. We were to visit Whitworth Art Gallery and Manchester Museum as well as the special collections display.

On Tuesday morning we visited the recently reopened Whitworth Art gallery. Although we liked a lot of the displays in the Whitworth (especially the exploding shed) we didn’t feel like any objects we saw inside the gallery were the direction we wanted to move towards as a group. We all leaned towards an object with more history behind it.

In the afternoon we visited Manchester Museum and inside the museum we found multiple various objects of interest. The first object that directly stood out to me was the mammoth skeleton. As somebody who is both interested in prehistory and skeletal objects, I thought using the mammoth as our object would be a good idea. We also looked at the ancient Egyptian sarcophagi and Babylonian tablets.

After visiting the museum we all attended an interesting lecture by LE GUN who showed us a very interesting work style and beautifully created imagery and artwork.

I then found my second major object of interest, Queen Nefertiti’s head bust (although it was a replica). The object was both iconic and interesting. It’s a symbol of artwork, ancient Egyptian culture, beauty and sculpture. I thought there would be a lot of interesting aspects to work from with this object; so it immediately entered my shortlist.

Other objects of interest included samurai swords, a Spartan helmet and various stuffed animals.

We also visited the special collections display and although there was a lot of inspirational work, I felt that this work was already art in itself. It did not require adaption or experimentation. With that in mind, although I was definitely inspired by some of the art styles I saw, I still stayed with the decision that I wanted to pursue an object with historical themes

As a group, although many of us wanted to use the mammoth, in the end we all decided we would use the Nefertiti head. The head has historical significance and has a lot to work with as a piece of art and a piece of history.

We each carried out our own individual research into Nefertiti in preparation for the presentation next week.