[MA Contemporary Fine Art Final Module - Self Directed]

MA Contemporary Fine Art/ Final Module - Self Directed

During this module I intend to further my professional practice as an artist, through the creative use of marketing, exhibiting, and promotion.

[Text in grey is taken from the brief]

Aims of Module:

·      ..pursuit of a personal art practice to a high level of professional competency

  I decided to promote myself as an artist using creative, challenging, and unique methods of marketing, to establish myself as an artist by gaining as much exposure as possible. The five main ways I did this were:

1.     Exhibitions/ expositions

Organising/ taking part in as many separate Exhibitions as possible during the module, across the country.

  I intend to ‘step out of my comfort zone’ and take part in every exhibition I had the opportunity to. This created scenarios that I wouldn’t usually find myself in, and this was reflected in the artwork.

2.     Exposing my practice

I created a lot of my works as a performance so the viewer could see how the work is created – ‘Live Art’

  Artists often keep secret their techniques of creation, in the fear that exposing them will demystify the work. I have decided to remove the barrier between artwork and viewer, exposing my methods of working with my medium, to give the view a better understanding of the work.

3.     Stepping out of the white cube

Showing works in a non-gallery environment, so that the viewer can encounter the work during their day-to-day lives, without them having ‘their guard up’, as people inadvertently do when they step into a gallery.

  This mostly involved public commissions, i.e. creating works for clients, in bars, shops, cafes etc. The client added a new element to the work in the form of a specific brief given to me to partially dictate the theme of the artwork

4.     Viral Marketing

Web based marketing, through the use of Video, filming the process of creation and then exposing this on the Internet.

5.     Publication Promotion

Attaining articles and mentions in as many websites, newspapers, and magazines as possible.

• ..organization of production and presentation, be that an exhibition, exposition, publication or public lecture

Over the course of this module, I will ‘Expose’ my work in as many different settings as possible.

 (During this module I have had 19 exhibitions/ expositions, outlined above.)

Intended learning outcomes (knowledge and understanding):

• A high level of developed skills in presentation

Following on from the previous module I will continue to present my work in multiple exhibitions to the largest amount of people. As some of these will be for ‘bigger’ clients (e.g. Relentless/ Vans), I will have to present my work to the highest level of professionalism, drawing on all past exhibitions for inspiration.

• ..presentation of discrete and autonomous finished artwork

The artwork exists autonomously when experienced separate from the artist. This can be no other way.

• ..awareness of the relationship of context to processes of production / …awareness of the relationship of context to the process of delivery in the presentation of artwork

During this module I have experimented with processes and methods of production that have forced me to consider context in new and unusual ways. The way in which I have created and exhibited my works encourage a certain context but are not confined by it.

• An advanced understanding of a personal art practice defined by its personal significance

I have been pushing my personal artistic practice forward, to new levels of exposure and professionalism (as outlined above)

•           An advanced understanding and awareness of the process of negotiation relevant to the definition and self-management of transparent criteria in the production of an individually relevant art practice

The level of exposure my artwork has achieved over the past module, and the sheer amount of exhibitions I have participated in, clearly show how I have produced and managed my personal art practice. My criteria was set out from the beginning (see above points), and the work can be nothing but individually relevant.

• Professional competency relevant to management of personal artistic production / Management of project / event (exhibition)

(see above)

• Cognisant of individual uniqueness and relevant contemporary precedents

The way in which I create my work, and the medium I use are both very unique, as are the ways I choose to expose my work. I have estimated that there are less than ten artists worldwide who regularly use electrical tape as their medium, and less than five who regularly use it to create line-based illustration. None of these use the same techniques as me, or create the same aesthetic, due to widely varying inspirations.

Relevant stats for this module

19 exhibitions, in; galleries, bars, cafes, and music festivals. The biggest of which were seen by 15000 people.

26300 blog views, from afar a field as India, Russia, China, and America.

Multiple articles, in such publications as; Time Out Magazine, The Ilkley Gazette, The Urban Times, The Telegraph and Argus Newspaper, The Wharfedale Observer, and Reiss Online.

All of this was organised, orchestrated, negotiated, and executed by myself.

Exposition – [Mass noun] – The action of making something public Middle English: from Latin. ‘Expositio(n-)’, from the verb ‘Exponere’, expose, publish.