Statement

Alyssa Walker FA2045: 

Initially, my proposal outlined that I was going to look into representing my own interpretations surrounding the Zodiac themes and related ideas such as the constellations and Greek Mythology and stories linked to the Zodiac. I was interested in creating a series of imagery utilising the idea of costume makeup such as the likes created in TV series Faceoff, however I realised the project was too cliché overall and decided to go down another route after finding some illustrative photographic imagery utilising inspirational quotes and interesting words. Having found a series of foreign words untranslatable into English I was interested in this idea of creating my own interpretation of them. Looking at artists such as Faye Johnson and Mike Redmond who did something similar with old English words and Jess Gough who looked at one specific word creating a newspaper filled with contradicting imagery of Hernweh (homesickness) and Fernweh ( the ache to travel to places you’ve never been). I wanted to do something similar but using the German Word ‘Waldeinsamkeit’, which means the feeling of being alone in the woods. Having gone and spent a day in Delamere Forest, I can understand this feeling completely. Within my own work, I wanted to try and represent the immense feeling of being both overwhelmed and at peace, which I found when surrounded completely by the trees and tranquillity of the forest. I liked the idea of mixing digital technology such as photography and digital manipulation with traditional techniques of making work such as printmaking and illustration similar to illustrators such as David McKean and Ed Boxall in order to see what sort of results I could achieve by mixing two almost contradictory mediums, similar to my feeling of being alone in the woods, in order to create something new and unique.

 I also wanted to make a publication from the start as I really enjoy the process of flicking through images physically and thought this would best portray the feeling of being submerged within something. As the project started to develop, I found myself more drawn to having an almost illustrative approach, through digital manipulation of the forest photos and the old book paper prints I produced; creating images that personally I felt had connotations of childhood fairytales and the carefree feeling that comes with the tranquillity of nature. I feel that this collage style is similar to Alisa Yang’s use of images from children’s colouring books and also, illustrator Sarah Gibb’s Rapunzel Series and decided I wanted my final product to portray this and have an almost whimsical style to them.

Originally, I wanted to produce a newspaper as this is something I have not done before and would be an interesting challenge; the other thought was  to go to ‘T.Snapes’ in Preston again as I have used them before and I liked the size and finish of their printed books.  However, due to financial situations beyond my control, I have chosen instead to digitally print a copy of my final product as a flatmate has generously allowed me the use of their printer, and hand stitch the final pages together. As a result of this, despite the intentions of this being a multiple edition of at least ten, I have only been able to print one off for assessment purposes. However, I feel that the hand stitching does add something quirky to the overall feel of the product and lends itself to the whimsical feel I was going for.

Similarly, I played with the idea of printing the book completely in black and white as I felt this would not distract from the images, however I decided against this, opting instead to use very subtle colour resembling the more neutral elements of nature and the tranquillity of being submerged within the natural world. I feel that the colour scheme fits in perfectly with the whimsical, out of this world atmosphere I wanted to create within the final imagery. If I was to develop this project further I would be interested in exploring the link between Waldeinsamkeit and one of the other untranslatable words, ‘Komorebi’ which describes the sunlight filtering through the trees. Some of the images I edited digitally reminded me of cyanotypes, a type of photograph I used to play with as a child which uses exposure to light, which would have been interesting to explore further as this could easily progress into darkroom photography and chemical light bleeds.