Artist Analysis- Maggi Hambling

Maggi Hambling is a British contemporary painter and sculptor. Although my focus on this artist is her painted pieces, some of her most famous work is also sculpture. More specifically, the ‘Scallop’ and ‘a conversation with Oscar Wilde’. Although both are extremely figurative which I am not specifically interested in this year which is why I am sticking to studying her paintings instead.

Wave crashing, Oil on canvas, 2009, 30 × 41cm

  Wave returning, Oil on canvas, 2009, 152 × 244cm

Hambling uses oil paint on canvas but throughout her other pieces of work she also uses, charcoal, ink and monotype on paper as well as plaster, bronze, granite, war coffin (which is a small, rough sand-cast bronze sculpture with some areas of paint patina applied to it. It contains a horizontal coffin shaped frame which are attached to four upright structures on each corner, then connected to two parallel parts below) and also stainless steel but she only uses these materials when creating sculptures, despite this I still want to experiment with them as I could use them to build up texture on top of paintings.

Some work that I have already completed based on this artist is a mind map which I have created in order to link each artist through several aspects in order to discover what part of each artist will be best to focus on. During this I have written about how difficult it will be to make similar pieces to Hambling’s work due to her paintings being based on wave movements. Due to the fact that we live in area where the Ocean is over 100 miles away, it wouldn’t be an easy task for me to get down there in the period of a storm which is when Hambling would create her pieces because of the dramatic waves produced by the weather. Despite this I did visit Wales during the bank holiday Monday meaning I was able to photograph as much relatable content as possible which included several different shots of small waves crashing on the shore, taking more than one photograph ensured that I could capture as much movement as possible.

Below is the best of the images I took, I think these show the best movement of before, during and after the crashing of the wave.

 

Within these photos my main focus is the flash of white which is produced when the wave crashes, this is the part that demonstrates most movement in the wave because it looks rough and aggressive, I could replicate this effect by gathering textured materials and surfaces that I could build on top of, such as mount board and homemade paper.

Another piece of work I completed on this artist was an experiment sheet using different mediums, I got the same outcome as when I used these materials for my other artist (Scott Naismith) in that the best ones were the materials which provided texture, although they didn’t have such good blending ability which meant the painting looked more unrealistic and neat. Although this may seem a downfall with the materials, Maggi Hambling does produce some expressive compositions that don’t encounter much realism. But also (especially in Hambling’s work) a rough effect needs to be made in order to create more movement.

One way that I think I could begin work using this artist is by using a collaberation of my own photos and Hambling’s work and building on to them to form texture but also keeping in the curvatious form of the wave at the same time.

My favourite and most varied work I’ve completed on the bases of this artist is during class with three materials; fine liner, pencil and charcoal.

my drawings went on, they became rougher and more elegant due to me loosening my grip on the charcoal, this would really well in terms of creating sharp fast movement but during this I began to lose the curvaceous shape of the wave which is really important to maintain.

As development for this mark making exercise, I have recently created a composition that has more personal aspects such as inspiration from photographs which I have taken on a previous holiday to Wales and a trip to Leicester. These drawings and Maggi Hambling’s work came into this piece throughout the centre where a curvaceous shape is formed. The reason I did this was to create a break between the busy outer edges of the board and it also demonstrates the crazy and unpredictable the human mind is.