The texture was a big starting point in my third year, and I really wanted to home in on the skin element. Thinking about how I could recreate skin-like features that don’t always get mentioned in advertising such as pores, bruises, acne, bumps, and moles. I was also thinking about how your skin tells a story and showing the true features that are in an everyday person's body is the first step to stopping the false, baby-like skin we see online. I felt the best way I could use texture within my work was to use mixed media. To start this off I experimented with sugar paint, including air-dried clay within my paintings and tissue paper. I also experimented with placing cling film onto my paintings. I found it all quite interesting to use within my practice and I would need to experiment more with overlapping materials and what materials stick well together if I was to make a bigger piece using detailed textures. Over time I found out that the sugar paint, if not using the right ratio, will easily crumble once dried as some places are left weaker than others. But I found the mediums interesting when I spray painted over them as it gives a new representation to the work as seen in this square canvas using sugar paint.
Image 1
Image 2
In the first image which is just an experiment, it doesn’t scream skin texture. In some way, it reminds me of a toddler's creation they take home at the end of a term and needs to be stuck to a fridge door. Whereas once spray painting had commenced it gave a more skin-like feel to it that looked a lot like stretch marks, almost like it came from a part of the body. it made me see the piece in a totally different light. Even using the colours red, blue and yellow in the first picture, impacts this image. As you can see it creates a slight tinge that you could see under the skin that is hidden in advertisements. There are a few reasons why you’d use texture within art, first, it's a form of expression, it compliments other elements but for me, it evokes certain emotions. That’s what I wanted to create. A sense of memory, or realisation. Some methods of creating texture that I have thought and researched about are painting with a stiff brush and incorporating mark-making tools like catalyst blades and wedges. Building layers within the paint by making the paint thicker and using a variety of mediums allows you to add to the paint to create a grittier texture, such as adding sand. Maybe even experimenting with taking the texture away from the 2D painting and putting it into a wearable casting element so that I, the artist or whoever is wearing the work, become part of the work.
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