V&A MEMORY PALACE

DAY 2



Today I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. The main aim of the day was to visit an exhibition named memory palace, although the rest of the museum offered some great visuals both relevent to the project and some not relevent at all however they all inspired me. The picture above shows the first view you have as you walk into the museum with this great modern installation contrasting against the strongly traditional arquitecture prevelent in the background; I found this contrast of age very interesting in how the two worked well as a composition.



This is an image I took of an installation in Hyde Park (near the V&A) which states: "This section is for future dedications, paid for by a generous donor to celebrate wonderful people and memorable moments". This ties in very nicely with the current project based on memories, around a central big bird statue were many different 10 cm long rectangles with short statements about memories of people or messages to the future and many other interesting things that could inspire me for my project.



Above is an image of the outline of a head with the inside filled with a cartoon landscape with creatures and other interesting visuals. What took me a while to notice was the suited eyeball in a tophat was actually positioned perfectly to represent the eye of the outline of the head- I would love to do my own version of a style like this,; I love the fictional fantasy land here where no strangeness seems out of place.



This piece was part of the illustration awards section; the artist was a runner up in the competition but what I think makes this piece so impressive is the dedication to accuracy in that the straightness of the lines and perfect circles portray a style which reminds me much of one that could be compared with Leonardo Da Vinci's works.



This artist was also in the illustration awards section, they won first prize in the book cover catagory. I admire the use of bold colours and sweeping lines which have a simplicity that is very appealing to the eye, which can easily interpret the image as what it is- a boat on waves even though the varying tones of blue do not obviously represent waves.



Another piece by the same artist from the previous image again shows sweeping lines to create hills and depth. Yet again I really like the bold simplicity of the outline of the trees which actually create a strong effect of darkness and potentially a creepy mood in the forest the artist has created.



These two images are dream-like/ nightmare-like visions put onto canvas by the artist. I am fascinated by how something so strange as a cats head on a bird or the ghost figure (on the right side image) can fit in with the composition so freely in that oddly they do not look too out of place when realistically they obviously are but I love this effect.



Another image from the illustration awards shows what can appear as a half finished work is actually a very atmospheric creation. A sense of abandonment from devestated homes (possibly war torn when considering the presence of tanks), also goes hand in hand with a similar sense of abandonment by the artist leaving his work half finished. Whether this is the intended effect I do not know but it goes to show that sometimes you can overdo certain pieces of art when you could leave at a simple stage and it will still be good.



This is a small section of a much larger piece but I have focused in on my favourite part of the piece. What is great is how the background and foreground blend in a way that nothing stands out and you really have to look at the piece closely at the individual strands of detail to understand its true beauty. The way in which the horsemen seem to be riding through thin air and the scale of them being much larger then the smaller fences and houses is compelling.



'Memory Palace' is the title of the exhibition that was the main reason for this visit to the museum. Unfortunately photos and sketches were not allowed within the exhibition so I have no visual to present however verbally I can describe the whole thing as a stimulating spectacle. The artist created a post apocalyptic world where memory was banned and he has created a random assortment of compilations where he is trying to remember certain things. My favourite part of this exhibition was a witch doctor character with a cart of provocative and bizarre objects and paintings all in a strong contrasting black and white colour scheme.

REFLECTION

I enjoyed this visit to the Victoia and Albert museum, the vast range of styles of design and general creations helped encourage my imagination to visualise how I could interpret each individual style in my own way and how I could take aspects from the exhibition which I admired most and try and merge it with my own style. I feel that I was successful in getting inspiration and photographic material for future reference however I didnt find much time to do any first hand sketches so in the future I think it would be a good idea to dedicate some time into actual first hand studies of gallery and museum material. With such a large gallery it is hard to decide whether to focus on a small area in detail or to explore the whole space, the latter I did at the V&A. So perhaps next time I will focus on a smaller part of anything I visit although I don't think this will have a massively positive or detrimental effect either way.

CHC