Art By Rebecca Belgie.

About Me.

University of Reading Studio 1.

University of Reading Studio 2.

University of Reading Studio 3.

Statement - Architectures of Emotion.

Documentation.

1. About Colour Psychology.  
2. Production Tests.
3. ‘Iconic London 2’ 2024 and ‘St. Mary’s Church’ 2024.
   
4. ‘KAOS’ Exhibition 19/11/2024.
5. ‘Creative Success’ 2024.
6. Winter Cabaret Exhibition 11/12/2024.
7. Further Production Tests.
8. Interim Show.
   
9. Final Production Tests.
   
10. Degree Show.
    

Degree Show Publication - Ultra Artus.

‘THERE ARE ONLY SO MANY WAYS YOU CAN WRITE ABOUT FRUIT’ Zine.

The Rising Sun Art Centre.

The Caversham Picture Framer.

Email.
Instagram.
TikTok.

University of Reading Studio 1.

Statement.

Autumn Term Independent Studio Project: Animals and Nature.

Spring Term Independent Studio Project: Memories.

Memories.

In my work I focus on my memories through photography of animals, landscapes, and nature, in particular flowers, trees and beaches, and including close up drawings and paintings of them.

To develop this work, I have focused on the environment. I am researching the importance of nature and exploring how nature is a concept that is often taken for granted, for example researching other art works that incorporate nature and texts. During lockdown a vast majority of people connected with nature and wildlife and insects more, and many people enjoyed being outdoors more compared to before lockdown, as the BBC article ‘Nature ‘more important than ever during lockdown” states that “More than 40% of people say nature, wildlife and visiting local green spaces have been even more important to their wellbeing since the coronavirus restrictions began”. This shows that nature has a huge impact on our lives, as it provides us the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. Memories and nature are important as a way to relax and reflect and a chance to escape from work and to enjoy the calmness that our gardens and green spaces bring to us. The MentalHealth.org article ‘Nature: How connecting with nature benefits our mental health’ states that “Nature can generate a multitude of positive emotions, such as calmness, joy, creativity and can facilitate concentration”.

I have been particularly inspired by my memories from past holidays and trips to the Natural History Museum and Pitt Rivers Museum. These have helped me to develop my project and influenced what I draw by allowing me to draw from my own photos and the colour pallete that I use in my work, because of the variety of insects, flowers, and landscapes. The opportunity to capture landscapes on previous holidays will help my future work. Additionally, artists such as Jennifer Bain, Alex Katz, William Morris, Kurt Jackson, and Georgia O’Keeffe have been very influential and important during the process of my work and final piece, although they present their work in a different way compositionally compared to me. From both Jennifer Bain and Alex Katz, I have drawn on their use of colour, subject matter, composition as they create abstract paintings influenced by natural forms and landscapes, and Jennifer Bain often explores layers in her work. This influence is seen in ‘Flowers’, ‘Flower On Patterned Card’, ‘Pink Rose’, ‘Waterlily’, ‘3 Flowers’, ‘Red Flower’, ‘Nature Photo Frame’ and ‘Rosemoor’ where I have experimented with creating more abstract style flowers and layers in my work using similar colours to them. From William Morris, I have drawn on his use of repetition of patterns and images in his work which influenced ‘My Publication Pieces’, where I took his concept of repetition and created my own repeated pattern using my work from my formative exhibition piece. From Kurt Jackson I have drawn on his use of working on larger scale canvases and often using the sea and beach as his subject matter. This influenced ‘Wissant Beach Sunset’, ‘Sunset’ and ‘Rosemoor’ created on a larger scale canvas to normal and influenced by my own trips to the beach. From Georgia O’Keeffe, I have drawn on her use of drawing flowers close up and sometimes drawing them so close up they lose their ‘flower-like’ structure, which influenced ‘Pink Rose’, ‘Waterlily’ and ‘Red Flower’.

I have incorporated a combination of landscapes, flowers, and insects in my exhibition piece, connecting them to the different seasons through the use of colour, mixed media, textures and scenes. Colour is vital to me for emotional responses, which is reflected in the use of muted colour and softness of application, highlighting the peaceful, dreamlike quality. The brighter bolder colours represent more recent memories whereas the more muted colours represent memories from a long time ago that are fading. Furthermore, the inclusion of painting with leaves introduces texture and emphasises the internal and external literally but could also be considered from a psychological perspective as different colours and textures represent different emotions. My exhibition display highlights a range of memories and experiences and the spare postcards in the memory box encourage other people to anonymously share their own memories.

Documentation.

Autumn Term

Intensive 1: Drawing to Koyaanisqatsi.

We drew to the film, Koyaanisqatsi (directed by Godfrey Reggio with a sound track by Philip Glass). I enjoyed exploring how drawing to film can affect what we draw as well as how the speed of film changes the marks that we make on the paper, due to the fact that the film can carry us along and have an affect on our actions. The image above shows my work from watching film, demonstrating how the images and sounds from the film were translated to a drawn surface. Furthermore, it gave me the opportunity to explore and question whether the surface has a speed, voice, mood or volume.

Intensive 2: Dreams.

I created this multimedia artwork to show my thoughts and interpretation on the theme of dreams. To me dreams are often associated with night-time when it is dark outside and people are sleeping, which is why I decided to create an artwork that captured a moment in time of something that is not always visible, for example the moon rising and setting with the reflection in the water.

Intensive 3: Landscapes.

At the start of the intensive we discussed landscapes which gave me the opportunity to brain storm words, terminology and objects that I associate with the theme of landscapes and it also helped me to create ideas for my artwork. From my perspective landscapes are both real life scenes as well as imaginary places that we have visited or want to visit.

Intensive 3: Landscapes.

I created a seasonal portrait landscape that incorporated warm colours and tones that created a sense of autumn and nostalgia as it reminds me of where I have moved from and memories from my childhood. Furthermore, it creates the impression that seasons are changing as summer is there but nearly gone due to the green leaves and the use of red and yellow crispy leaves which I created using a palette knife.

Intensive 4: Monuments.

We decided to focus on the idea of a school and how when we are at school we have set rules that we have to follow, for example uniforms and lessons, and how we feel that we are told what to think and how to behave which influences our actions and way of thinking. This three dimensional work highlights how the hierarchy of the school makes the rules that students are expected to follow and how we have a lack of freedom, as we are often told what to do.

Practical Session 1: Silently Speaking Them.



We presented our video work exploring how sound can be obstructed, interrupted and intercepted and how these factors affect the rhythm, as well as experimenting with dynamics and the effect that sudden changes in volume can have on the mood of the video. This video was created while walking past the lake on campus, which captures the strong sound of the wind and water faintly in the background.

Practical Session 1: Silently Speaking Them.



We presented our video work exploring how sound can be obstructed, interrupted and intercepted and how these factors affect the rhythm, as well as experimenting with dynamics and the effect that sudden changes in volume can have on the mood of the video. This video was created while walking past the lake on campus, which captures the strong sound of the wind and water faintly in the background.

Practical Session 1: Silently Speaking Them.



We presented our video work exploring how sound can be obstructed, interrupted and intercepted and how these factors affect the rhythm, as well as experimenting with dynamics and the effect that sudden changes in volume can have on the mood of the video. This video was created while using the fan in my room, which captures the strong sound that a fan can make in a smaller space.

Practical Session 2: Institutional Critique.

This piece of multimedia artwork was inspired by me thinking and exploring what the word institution means to me. To me an institution can be a building or a site of learning such as a university, school, or library, which is the reason why I decided to draw the Bodleian library/museum. I have managed to include a large amount of detail in this piece as well as the variety of colour that both contrast and complement each other.

Practical Session 3: Starting at the End Part 1.

We explored how changing the way that our work is presented and exhibited influences and changes its form and content. The image on the left is my original photo that I used as a reference to create the other two art works, the middle image being a pencil sketch of the photograph, which contrasts to the image on the right which is a paper flower that I made and placed onto its natural habitat (leaves). This links to my studio project and the images link back to each other as two of them involve the outside. Moreover, the original photo consists of cold colours in comparison to the artwork outside which has more warm colours. When thinking about size I think that this would look good printed small as the image on the right creates the impression of realism as if I have had to look hard to find it. These images would also look good as a calendar or an artist book where the flowers are coming out of the page.

Practical Session 4: Starting at the End Part 2.

We continued to focus our attention on how changing the way our work is presented and exhibited influences and changes its form and content. The image on the left shows my artwork which was created using watercolour and black pen outline on paper. In contrast, the image in the middle was created using acrylic paint on tracing paper and the image on the right is the same piece of artwork but held up against the window, to create a stain glass window effect. However, the acrylic paint did not work as well as I thought it would on the tracing paper as the paint made the paper become slightly bumpy and no longer flat and smooth. Overall, all of these images show how flowers can be portrayed as being delicate and fragile in nature.

Formative Exhibition

This shows what my exhibition piece was. I have enjoyed incorporating a range of media into my work as well as using real life nature in my artwork, which is a concept that I would like to explore and develop further. By creating these four interlinked pieces I hope to have captured the importance of nature in my work by including insects that can appear in anyone’s gardens.

Spring Term

Winter Brief (Pages).

I created two pages based on my formative exhibition piece that could be published. This piece allowed me to explore how my work would look if it was published, for example in a book, and has allowed me to explore how the style and arrangement of my work can vary to create different impressions and qualities.

Practical Session 5: Winter Brief (Group Publication).

The purpose of this collaborative piece is to have created a poster combining everyone’s work, where we ordered them in colour order with the lighter pieces at the top and the darker pieces at the bottom creating tone and shade in our work, and how this can be multi purposeful as it can also be folded into a book. Moreover, the front cover is a combination of everyone’s work in black and white, which provides a contrast to the colour in the rest of the work.

Practical Session 6: A Space To Find Your Voice Prep Work.

The writing shows my three quick paragraphs describing the umbrella. The image of the umbrella is drawn on the paper and I then put acetate over the top and painted the words on the acetate. Each of the colours has a meaning behind it, as the blue tones represent the rain that is associated with umbrella, the colour red represents fragile, the colour white can be associated with lots of meanings and the colour brown links to the idea of wood which is used to build a shelter. Overall, I have thought about the use of layers and symbolism in this artwork. Both Georgia O’Keeffe and Kurt Jackson have inspired my practice and have influenced my work.

Practical Session 6: A Space To Find Your Work Practical Work.


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