Personal Proposal - making a start

One of the main areas I will study is on the artist Jenny Saville; she is the artist who got me thinking about this subject. Two certain paintings of hers in particular brought this subject to the forefront. The first was entitled ‘Interfacing’ from 1992 which features a large woman’s face, very closely cut around the face and focusing on nothing more. The face is surrounded by roles of fat and the paint itself is thickly laid on, like much of Saville’s work its is beautifully executed and always has a garishly real feeling about it. The face has various scars and marks and also a prominent mole. The other of Saville’s works is called ‘Trace’ from 1993, which features the back of a large woman, taking up the entirety of the canvas, only allowing room around the edge to show the silhouetted shape of the large female. Noticeable on the woman’s back are red marks and folds of the skin, possibly from leaning or some kind of pressure. The back also has indented areas where the woman’s underwear has been too tight against her, cutting into the skin and leaving a bra and pants relief print.

Savilles works and particularly ‘Trace’ made me also want to explore skin in terms of daily changes, but in more detail I want to explore how marks on the skin can be personal or private. I am also interested in learning about skin in connection to the brain. Are there things like birth marks which we as babies don’t remember happening but our skin does? Is this then connected to the brain? I know that our skin does have a memory in terms of its own shape, when pushed and pulled it is able to fix itself and even join back together. The skin can also redesign itself, for example after amputation the skin simply grows over a new area where it never has before.

... work from last year to try and figure out what I'm going to do with my 3rd year personal project.
This will run the full length of the year and will run along side other set briefs we will be doing from outside and inside 'task setters'.

This is the direction i will be carrying on in. Large scale body studies. I guess thats what they are. I will no longer repress my fascination with the human body. I will embrace it and spend and entire year drawing its parts and its marks.


This one above is about twice life size. I need to get some industrial sized greaseproof paper so i can do whole bodies. The reason i work in greaseproof paper is the texture. The texture it already has and the one it creates when you apply paint. It becomes wrinkled and stretchy and still has its translucent quality. Skin.

For my third year personal project i want to focus on and explore the idea that skin has a memory. This started with my essay a few weeks ago where i wrote about the two separate organs; the mind and memory, and skin.

I wanted to to spend time researching and writing for a subject which would really interest and benefit me. I wanted to use the essay as a starting point for this third year.
I will be making a 'body journal' throughout this time period and from the photographs i take of my body, the every day marks, scratches and bruises, cuts and scrapes i will be making drawn, lino cut, painted and screen printed studies.

Zipper Mark’ 1999 a photograph by Elinor Carucci. I wonder wether to delve into other peoples skin. I'm sure i should and will but what aspect would i look at and what opinion or view should i look at? I know that skin is actually a very personal thing. This Elinor Carucci photo depicts that perfectly. It also is an image which if familiar beyond doubt we have all seen this image on our own skin. Whether it be make my a zip, by socks, by the crease on the pillow case. This image is familiar to all and i really want to explore the memory our skin has.