Monday, 12 February 2024

Unit 1

 Learning Outcome 1:

Formulate, describe and implement a challenging and self-directed programme of study, relating to your Study Statement.
(Assessment Criteria: Enquiry)


I have created a programme of self-study to investigate how art can be used to challenge social taboos around death and mental health, as documented in my study statement. I have already begun work on reading the books I have identified as relevant, and creating relevant artworks e.g:

  • Mental Health Postcards for the interim show, which explores participatory art

  • Rivers of Silver which builds on earlier use of my face in my art, but also starts to explore physical artworks as well as digital ones

  • A month in my head which explores creating a piece as a series over an extended period with elements of performance art

I have also managed to get my work exhibited twice at the Bill of Health exhibition and the WYF exhibition (in pursuit of my objective of building an audience).

Learning Outcome 2:

Implement appropriate working methods for building an independent and effective self-organisation that enables the critical engagement with practice-based research.
(Assessment Criteria: Process)


I have attempted to document my practice and how it feeds my art - I feel my practice is supported by developing three skills 1) the ability to notice things, research them, and uncover the connections between them 2) the ability to create art pieces with a wide range of tools and 3) the reflective skills to curate and refine the art I create


Some examples of these skills in action:

I also have some examples of reflecting on finished works and how I could improve them, but that feels like something I need to work on… How do I reflect on how successful a piece of art was when I don’t really get any feedback? How could I get feedback? What feedback do I need? Huh…

Learning Outcome 3:

Communicate a critical understanding of your developing practice.
(Assessment Criteria: Knowledge, Communication)


  • I am quite ‘young’ in my practice, and so it is developing quickly and occasionally chaotically.

    • I am creating a very diverse range of ‘stuff’ from fake books, to digital prints, to masks… 

    • I am making art with a diverse range of styles from quite ‘formal’, to pastiche, to photo manipulation. I am now attracted to other forms of visual art like performance, and participatory art. 

    • I was worried by this at first, but I think it’s a feature, not a bug (as we’d say in my old job) - given a lot of my art is ‘concept led’, I think it’s natural to experiment and abuse different mechanisms for making that art real.

  • I am evolving my understanding of what ‘art’ is for me, and moving away from the idea of art as ‘things’ and towards the idea of art as the action/event/experience e.g. from early awareness of performance art, to my more formed thoughts on Aura, Spectacle and conceptual art

  • I am also exploring meaning in art, which I find fascinating and unsettling - meaning is very important to me, but I am attracted by the obscure, but I am also frustrated by the seeming lack of meaning in some artworks e.g. Early musing, to context and calling things out as meaningful, and now Pope.L and the limitations of meaning

I am exploring the way conflicting emotions can be used to help people digest and process difficult messages e.g. humour with horror, sadness with creepiness. E.g. humour in the work of Pope.L, layers of meaning in art, and the virtues of populist art  

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