Plan for a Future Project

During a visit to a recent exhibition with my partner I came across some work by the artist Imran Qureshi. Qureshi regularly uses coloured handprints and footprints in his work (see Image 1) and has developed his output to produce some quite complex and (to my eyes) aesthetically pleasing work.

Image 1 (Imran Qureshi)

At the time I wondered whether I could develop the idea of using handprints and footprints in my own work, with the plan of blending the prints with one image (‘image 1’) and blending the space around them with a second image (‘image 2’), so that images 1 and 2 were juxtaposed and each related in some way to the hand. I was quite enthusiastic about incorporating one or more images of this type into my current project, but felt both that any message produced by this type of image might be a little too strong and also that it would be difficult to harmonise the image(s) with those that I had already produced.

Dominant issues in my life, which are reflected in my day to day photography, are wildlife and the environment. I have now developed a plan for a future project in which the handprint or footprint represents man’s impact on the environment. As an example, a (preferably red) handprint could be blended with a photograph of a rhinoceros (I’ve got plenty of those photos!), whilst the ‘negative space’ around the print could be replaced by human activity and/or a man-made environment which relates to the illegal poaching and killing of rhinos in order to obtain and process their horn. Elephants, tigers or the many animals closer to home that are threatened by human activity and climate change, illegal or otherwise, could be the subjects of other images.

On paper at least this proposal comes closest to satisfying my need to produce work that is relevant to my major interests, has a (campaigning) purpose and yet can be considered to fall within the remit of conceptual art. I need to check that I will not be plagiarising somebody else’s idea first and it is very unlikely that I will start this work before I finish my OCA course work, but if I do go ahead before assessment I will write another blog post and perhaps include an example.

I hope that this blog post demonstrates that I am thinking beyond my OCA course work and trying to integrate the knowledge that I have gained whilst working towards my degree with major personal interests in order to potentially produce creative artistic output that carries a message – something that will be critical for me to gain satisfaction from producing any art in the future.