Year 12 Art Photography Trip to Forty Hall
Francesca Vorasso, a Year 12 Photography student from St Anne’s Catholic High School, writes about her experience coming on an Educationalvisit to Forty Hall with her classmates and how exploring and understanding Rob Kesseler’s exhibition helped develop her own artworks.
As part of our AS Photography course Year 12 were given the opportunity to visit Forty Hall to attend an exhibition of photographer Rob Kesseler’s Silken Cells followed by a workshop based on his artwork. After getting our AS Art exam paper with the theme of `Earth, Air, Fire and Water', this exhibition and workshop was an excellent opportunity to start exploring ideas linking to the theme.
As an introduction to the tripe we were familiarised with the work of Rob Kessler and how he uses plant imagery along with scientific aspects of our world to apply to everyday objects such as ceramics, silk wall hangings and tablecloths. Once we had been introduced to his techniques, the exhibition displayed a variety of different patterns created from the cells of multiple plants, for example a magnified stem from a section of a wild orchid. These presented a selection of circular patterns, line structures and tonal variations, which were a starting point in thinking about how all these cells, make up our earth. Whilst exploring the exhibition I began considering how I could use the patterns created from these cells and incorporate them with my experiments for my AS Art exam paper.
After exploring Kesseler's work throughout the exhibition and gaining a better understanding of how he manipulates the cells from our natural environment, we moved onto the workshop session.
Using a microscope to investigate the structure of different cells, we were able to capture these images as a visual recording, responding to his work. Through the cells that I had magnified, I identified the different structures that can be formed through something so small and that each one presents a different pattern. This enabled me to start thinking about what patterns could be formed through the four elements and how I could represent this in my work. You can see two examples (above, right) of my Photographic studies in response to the exhibition
Both the exhibition and workshop were both a very beneficial experience towards my AS Art and Photography course as I was not only introduced to a new artist, but the trip also enabled me to experiment and get a better understanding of different materials.Francesca Vorasso 12/4/14