The birth of an Artist - Creating Seren Rhys

To begin to create an artist I thought it would be useful to create a blog persona for her and her art.

 http://serenrhys.blogspot.com/2010/04/httpwww_18.html

I thought it would be important to develop some background detail regarding her life as well as imply her role in British art and the rise of digital photography during the last twenty years.

From my research it was important that she studied at Goldsmiths since many of the YBAs studied at this London Art school. I wanted to give the character quite a bohemian upbringing and thought Ibiza an ideal setting since it has a history during the sixties and seventies of attracting artists.

The idea that Seren Rhys has spent her life in front and behind a camera I thought this would allow me to explore how women are photographed as well as examine the history of women photographers such as Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, Jesse Mann, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin and Corinne Day. Other artists that will need to be explore are Sophie Calle, Tracey Emin, Sam Taylor Wood.

Through this persona I will be able to explore:

• The rise of the YBA
• Wales and the artist
• The impact of digital photography on the art world
• The female gaze - representation of women by women

Supervisor meeting - Planning the Practice

Sophie Calle - The Reader

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/index.php/fuseaction/shop.product/product_id/416

I picked up a copy of Sophie Calle: The Reader at Whitchapel Gallery whilst visiting the exhibition. It has proved to be extremely useful since it provides a critical tool for navigating Calle's image and text work from 1979 to the present. The book brings together interviews with the artist, critical commentaries by an international range of critics, curators, artists and art historians and a most useful index summarising recurrent themes in her work.



It will be most useful to refer to this as I develop Seren Rhys’ retrospective exhibition and it will be a starting point to develop the exhibition catalogue.

As I research this book in more depth I will refer to it on the blog at a later date.

PhD Practice Piece - planning

Nat Tate

The Stone Diaries - Carol Shields

Supervisor meeting

11th January meeting


We discussed my first draft of the lit review. We then went on to discuss areas that I need to now develop:

The Female Gaze – an area to explore in more depth

You also recommended that I return to WG Sebald since there is very little work on his use of photography and the positioning of the photos within his novels. You suggested Rings of Saturn.

Other writers/photographers to explore were:

William Boyd – Nat Tate

Johnnie Shand Kydd – Crash

Stephen Bull – Meeting Hazel Stokes

Andy Warhol – Photography

Alvar Gullichsen - Bonk Business Inc

I discussed some of the ideas I have been working on to develop the practice piece. I want to create a fictional female YBA who is Welsh and present a retrospective exhibition and book of her life’s work. We discussed the possibility of contacting real artists and art critics to respond to her work in some way with them being aware that the project is not a hoax but a celebration of the British conceptual art movement of the last twenty years. The practical would be made up of narratives reflecting on the work of the artist by ‘friends’. This could be a combination of digital stories, a series of photographs and an accompanying book.

You suggested the following things to work on:

Polish my Lit review and develop it in light of our discussion during the meeting:

• Write a one page proposal for the practice. Key things to consider would be to clarify the central idea

• Consider possible artists and art critics to contribute to the practical piece