Concept led work workshop

 My aim for the pieces of work that I created in today's workshop was to depict what it is like living with intrusive thoughts. I wanted to document the experience; the repetitive, obsessive nature of the disorder. It was significant to me that my work was of a large scale, bold, jarring, and possibly a bit controversial. I wanted it to be really busy and fast paced, in order to truly reflect how I feel, and what it is like in my head. Giving the audience a taste of Pure O, even if it was just for a minute, was exactly what I attempted to achieve. 

We were asked to create three pieces in this workshop. For the first one, I wanted to portray the level of intensity of intrusive thoughts I experience. The thoughts twist and knot and loop; I thought that the best way of showing that nature was through string. So, to begin, I put some nails into the wall, so I had something to wrap the string around. I then started cutting pieces of string off, tangling them in my hands and putting them up using the nails of the wall. I used a couple of colours, to represent the thoughts belonging to different themes, tangling and knotting the string as I went, and letting some of it hang down. This piece can be seen below.

I wanted the second piece to be very jarring and shocking to the audience. Though it required a lot of bravery, I decided to write down some of my intrusive thoughts down on paper. That way, I could really show others what it is like living inside my head. To begin, I used blue tack to hang up six A1 pieces of white paper on a wall, in order to form one big 'canvas'. I then used black ink and a variety of brushed, ranging from small to large, in order to start painting on the words. I used ink, as it has quite a thin consistency, enabling be to create a lot of drips, and make my work look messy, to reflect the nature of my thinking. Varying in size, thickness and font, I wrote down some of my intrusive thoughts, like "Stab her.", as well as my responses to them, like "I don't want to hurt him." I also splattered some of that same ink onto the page, to create drips, and make the piece look almost disgusting, and frightening. I decided to use black ink, rather than a different one, as I did not want any connotations that are associated with, for example, blue, or red; just simple black on white. I also wanted to relate it to the idea that my thinking is quite black and white. I'm either a good person, or a terrible one. No in between. This piece can be seen below.

For my last piece, I decided to go back to the piece made using string, and focus on an area of it. I wanted to capture a small area of the stings, capturing the leading lined, knots and tangles. I did this through simply taking a photograph. Then, I used wire to create an impression of this photograph. I wanted to capture the movement of the lines, as well as the loops. Looking back on it, it ended up looking quite cartoon-like, due to its simplicity. This cartoon-like style is something that I would possibly lie to develop further, as i find that the simplicity of it creates a contrast between the deep issue and struggle that is living with Pure O. This piece can be seen below.

The zoomed in image:

The recreation using wire:

I believe that I managed to achieve my aims that I had set out at the beginning of this workshop. I want my work to have a wow-factor; I want it to be potentially controversial. Something that the audience will look at and think, "Wow, she really did that. I have never seen anything like it". I want my work to be raw and honest, and for it to challenge people's views, opinions, and perceptions of OCD, and especially Pure O. And I think that that I was quite successful at achieving that today. 

I would like to continue working with text, looking at how it can impact the work and the audience. I would also like to experiment with different materials within my work, to find out which is most effective and impactful for my chosen project theme.