Graveyard Art Gallery, Edinburgh

Greyfriars graveyard in Edinburgh is home to some of the most beautiful graveyards I've ever seen. But not only are they beautiful, the composition of them around the graveyard is mesmerizing. The graves are hung on the walls of the church and the perimeters of the graveyard like paintings in a gallery. 

The beauty of each individual grave is fascinating. These date back centuries as so are worn with age, creating pieces of art. Great numbers of them look as though they have been stained with ink, varnish or coffee, and have partly crumbled with age. 

The texture is also brilliant in some, with weeds and grass growing from within them. As the graves have aged layers beneath have become visible. The colours and depth to these is like art work, that should be hung in a gallery.

A-Level Exhibition

Last week was this years A2's final A-level art exhibition at Thomas Rotherham College, where we all exhibitied our coursework and ESA's in the art department. 

"Growth and Evolution: the evolution of Broken Dreams" 

 My exam ESA was based around the broken dreams of Ophelia and Miss Havisham, with my final piece during the exam being a wedding dress made from old dress patterns, shown on the mannequin. I made this in a twelve hour timed period from butter-muslin, lace and dress patterns. The stitching is purposefully loose, showing the fragility of the dress, with it being coffee stained to show age and antiquity inspired by Havisham in Dicken's Great Expectations. I layered the back with coffee stained lace, dress patterns and butter muslin with intaglio prints of somebody underwater, inspired by Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Exhibited along side this is all of the work that led towards this piece, including broken prints, stitched together hanging from the ceiling, and my mock final piece dress printed on, which as part of my experimentation leading to my final piece was frozen and filmed in the Bronte Falls. 

"Inside, Outside, Inbetween: Holy Wars" 

As well as exhibiting my ESA, I exhibited my courework which makes up 60% of my final A2 grade. This was based around the concept of "Inside, Outside, Inbetween", where I looked at "Holy Wars" or religious conflict, on the level of individuals. I am very interested in the concept of religion, particularly as I don't myself have one, and I am almost in awe of this mass belief that holds people together. But with conflicts constantly being shown on the news with some sort of religious dimension I began to look at how these can be represented within art, and looked at the individual level of conflicts and how these can trap people. I presented my journal for this inside an old suitcase, the same type and style that my own Granddad used when travelling to Cyprus for his national service.

For my final pieces I scanned my body, pressing it tightly against the glass of the photocopier inspired by Jenny Saville and Glen Luchford's collaboration, to really show this feeling of being trapped. After looking at artists who work with texture, I decided to experiment with mixing my paint with mud for the background, resuliting in thick almost gravelly paint that was brilliant to work with. I finished my paintings with French Polish, giving a layer of colour that showed antiquity much like religious architecture.