KELCY TIMMONS
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My first piece was centred around the concept of Realism. Whilst drawing Is This Her Chair?, I decided to venture into ideology and look at what was realism meant to them. Ideologists believe that the first and perfect existence of an object is what makes it real and all others are simply flawed replicas. With this prompt I decided to venture into a simple object, the chair, and dig into its history of who was the first to use them and build them as they are with a back rest, 4 legs and armrests. Obviously, I was unable to find a visual of the first ever chair...however I did discover that Egyptians were some of the first to develop decorative chairs made for royalty, so I decided to look into their culture. I look into the Queen Hetepheres and found that when her tomb was discovered in 1925, much of her furniture was also discovered inside it. My piece was a pencil drawing of Queen Hetepheres chair drawn to scale on white paper. I wanted to add an element of irony to this piece by emulating Rene Magritte's combination of text with her drawing of her object; "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." Over my drawing, I projected "Is this her chair?" in Arabic lettering. Unfortunately, because it was translated into font instead of written by hand, the lettering was not connected and therefore did not translate into the phrase in which I intended it to.
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My second piece was focused on the concept of the Radical. Mobility focuses on the concept of leaving traces. How things leave traces, what the temporality of these traces are, and how do these traces create new traces. After looking further into the artist Yvonne Rainer, I became interested in the movement of the body and how awkward it can be. Because of the strange shape of humans and our ability to move our joints, we are able to make a large variety of awkward shapes. I also liked the idea of impermanent traces and how can those be made permanent. I still want to use the body as an apparatus and a form of documentation in recording the awkwardness of the human body. This piece is a video displaying an improvisational hand dance that focuses on the flexibility, speed and level of extension of my hands.
My final piece is called Role Models. During the creation of this work I wanted to question the traditional conventions of drawing, specifically in a given discipline: fashion design drawing. Through class discussions, presentations and experimentation, I was introduced a lot of very strange, unique and unconventional work, which really inspired me. The work of Shary Boyle and my professor Ed Pien specifically stood out as very intriguing and interesting works. This inspired me to stray from traditional practices and look into unconventional work. I want to explore this supernatural, mythological world and try drawing something entirely from my imagination. I also wanted to experiment with uncontrolled line work and fluid shapes and abstract features. For my final piece I combined the 2 concepts of exotic, graphic creatures and croquis sketches to critique the way we standardize beauty.
The second course I took was VIS322: The Constructed Image. This course was very confusing to me at first because the course description was very vague and it never identified the course discipline. I later discovered that the course was very general and was more about the combination of objects and how they affect the viewer instead of creating pieces from a uniform medium.
My first piece is called Flight Line. With the concept being self directed, I chose to create an installation displaying my travel history. I have always wanted to document my travel history and decided it would be interesting to turn the documentation into a visual piece. The piece is composed of 54 boarding passes that were used between January 2010 and December 2015. And although all of the boarding passes are replicas of the actually boarding passes that I used to board the flights, they are exact representations or very similar representations of the real boarding passes. When developing these works in photoshop, I took into account all the different variables of flying:
- Where is the flight going and coming from? Depending on the destination, I would have a different airline, which has a different looking boarding pass.
-When is the flight leaving and arriving? Although many of the times were fabricated, the boarding times and arrival times are reliant on this fabrication but are based on differences in time zone and the duration of time that specific airlines board their planes.
- What class or seating section am I in? Depending on the flight, some planes are smaller or bigger which would affect the existence of some seat numbers.
- What seat letter would I be in? I usually like to sit in the window seat, but depending on the size of the flights the letters for window seats can be A, F or even K.
-What zone number would I be in? I am usually in Zone 3 or 4, unless I am sitting in business class.
I hung the boarding passes in chronological order and let the line droop in such a way that would represent a curved flight path. Additionally, the boarding passes are tided to a "bracelet like" braided string in specific colours. Each braid has 3 different colours representing a specific country in which I flew too, distinguishing one flight in a bolder colourful way.
The second piece, Connectivity is a hanging sculpture that abstractly illustrates my family tree. Whilst working on this project, I became interested and almost obsessed with researching and discovering more about my American lineage. I was fascinated to realize that the extent of the Timmons name reaches much farther than a few generations. In fact, my surname trails back eleven known generations, which evidently developed hundreds and hundreds of relative under the Timmons name. Additionally, since a large number of these relatives had many children, sometimes even eight or nine, there is a grand sum of individuals that I share blood with, but I had no idea existed.
With all of this in mind, I began my project by looking at the concept of invisibility. In my eyes, I define the concept of invisibility as something that exists, but is imperceptible or unknown. If it doesn’t subsist or have material significance, it would not be invisible, it simply would not exist. This is how I began project 2. From continuing to explore my family tree, I came to realize that there is still so many individuals and so much information that I am still blind to. Although I am aware of it, I cannot see/know the extent it goes to. Understandably, it is most likely impossible to become aware of the full extent of my family but I have enjoyed exploring what I am able to discover.
This piece is a wood panel hung upside down with hot glue droplets dripping, forming a tree-like form. Most family trees are drawn beginning from the base, but I believed that it should start from the top because that is where it all began. I chose to create one droplet for every family member I had discover at the time, which came out to 183 individuals. Since then I have found a multitude of more family members. I chose to tangle the strands of the glue to form a tree-like form, but also to make a denser colour near the bottom of the tree. When the strands of glue wrap together, the pigment of the strands slowly becomes an opaque white because they are being layered together. This decision was important to show that the individuals I am more aware of and have more information on are those that are closer in relation to myself.
My final visual course in my second year was VIS323: Painting Contemporary Practice. This course was where I completed some of my most successful paintings. I enjoyed this course because it not only challenged me conceptually, but it also helped me develop my painting style. This course focused on stylistic elements of painting including the stroke and volume.
My first piece is called A Week in September. This piece is centred around my father's 9/11 story and his choices to move our family to Vancouver. This three part story, depicted in the three sections of this pieces, shows whereabouts before, on and after 9/11. Additionally, the pieces also the whereabouts of his family (my mum, my sister, and I) and the location of the twin towers. Much of his story is about his location and the events that caused him to transition from one place to another. To depict the story in full detail, here is the fully version written by Tom Timmons himself:
Once…
upon a time…
in a land…
far away…
in a village…
called Discovery Bay…
There lived a scappy Irishman, nicknamed Dash Riprock (DR), who grew up a pauper, after being born the son of a loving, but very poor, immigrant refugee.
Dash had an adoring family who worshiped his very being, and clung to his torso with affection; but whom cringed in disapproval when his effervescent scrappiness took a toll on various numbskulls who crossed his path. However, that same scrappiness gave Dash the tenacity to push thru the many obstacles and barriers of his life journey to achieve his many opportunities.
The events, and collateral impacts, of 911 are merely one such obstacle; although admittedly a big hairy, scarry, and audacious obstacle.
FRAME OF MIND
To set the stage for understanding Mr Riprock’s sensivity to the events of 911, its important to know that after growing up impoverished for 35 of his 41 years of riding the little blue ball, it was only the most recent years in which he was finally able to make enough money to support his loving family to a modest middle class level based on a Hong Kong standard; and he still felt very insecure financially.
In the weeks prior to 911, Mr Riprock had been working aggressively to make money, and negotiating offers to acquire distressed real estate projects located in Bangkok, Thailand (which was still a basket case after the 1997 financial crisis); and he had negotiated a contract to buy a residential project called Green Tower for $25million from a former steel tycoon (aka Khun Hot Roll), even though DR didn’t have any money to actually buy the project.
At the same time, DR had made an offer to acquire 88 Pine Street, New York, New York from the owner named Tung Chee Wah (aka Blockhead) for US$121million; and of course DR did not have enough money to acquire this project either.
STRATEGY
Therefore, DR arranged a trip to fly from Hong Kong and visit some large investors located in Boston (Sept 11, 2001) and New York (Sept 12, 2001) with a goal of having them become partners and invest in Green Tower, 88 Pine Street, and other projects.
In Boston, DR scheduled a meeting with Baupost (Seth Klarman) known for being one of the saviest investors in the world, scheduled for 9am Sept 11, 2001.
And also scheduled an appointment with Lehman Brothers for 10am Sept 12th, at the World Financial Center in New York (located next World Trade Center; see map); hoping to source the money to acquire the projects DR had already negotiated to acquire.
As an added level of sensitivity, the assets that DR had already invested in (ie current investments), were Riverside South in New York, and the Anchorage in San Francisco; each with huge exposure to any cataclysmic impacts to New York or Tourism. https://www.anchoragesquare.com/
DAY 911
Our Hero, Mr Riprock, arrived Boston Sept 10th, and stayed at the Marriott Courtyard located at Logan airport.
On the morning of Sept 11 around 8am, feeling jet lagged and insecure, and wondering how to convince these large sophisticated investors to invest with him, DR took the subway to Cambridge (same location as Harvard and Baupost). After emerging from the subway station DR sensed something was not quiet right, some kind of eeiry feeling, but there wasn’t anything specific to create that feeling.
DR arrived slightly early for his 9am appointment with Baupost, and the receptionist gave him a cold hard stare; fortunately DR had years of experience in dealing with cold hard bitches, and so ignored her frosty demeanor (DR having no idea what had already happened with the first plane) .
She arranged for DR to sit in the conf room, and then several minutes later the executives came into the room, also with a cold hard stare. With DR’s training in dealing with assholes, he presumed this was just another hardass approach, and so proceeded to work on warming them up to what an opportunity it is for them to meet him, and describe the phenominal opportunities available to acquire assets in Thailand.
They then asked if DR was aware of the plane that hit the World Trade Center; and DR said no in a serious manner; (at that moment, most people did not know it was terroism, thinking it could merely be a very bad accident). So they start talking about investments in Thailand again; and having a very intensive business discussion about risk and opportunity.
After a few minutes, somebody walks in the conf room, and says “a second one just hit”; and they all immediately jump to their feet in a collective conniption. They invite DR into their boiler room, which has numerous TVs, all with the same images of the planes hitting the towers. And then, on live TV the first tower starts to collapse, and everyone freaks out.
One guy suggests that DR should book a rental car to NY, because there is no way to fly; and the next guy says, no, you should rent a car and drive to Canada. DR calls the rental car companies immediately and they are already sold out.
DR then realizes he is stranded, no planes, no trains, no cars; and he had already checked out of the hotel, no where to go. So he calls the hotel he had stayed at previous night hoping to rebook a room; the receptionist said they were already full, but after pleading said OK they had one room left. Then DR tries to call home, but phone lines are all impacted and jammed; so takes hours to get thru. DR ended up staying at that hotel for 5 days; waiting until transportation started again. Lehman Bros evacuates its building in NY within two days.
5 days later DR can finally book a train from Boston to Montreal, and then flys to Vancouver. Montreal airport is utter pandemonium with people trying gto go in every direction. While in VCR DR hangs out with his buddy Mike Marosits; and DR decides to move his family to VCR (without ability, approval, or Visa’s; but DR makes a determination that it will happen, and it does).
The Hero and his loving family live happily ever after…
A Week in September shows Google Map aerial snapshots of the locations that display the grand transition from Hong Kong to Vancouver due to the tragedy of September 11th.
Panel 1: 55 Seabird Lane; Tom and family's home prior to 9/11
Panel 2: 225 William F McClellan Hwy; Hotel in which Tom was staying during 9/11
Panel 3: 03 285 Fulton St; The World Trade Centre
Panel 4: 55 Seabird Lane; Where Tom's family was during 9/11
Panel 5: 925 Eyremount Drive; Tom and family's first home in Vancouver following 9/11
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My second piece, I March For My Sisters, is a triptych painting depicting three proud American women. Due to the controversies over the 2016 election, there was massive protest, one of the larger events was the Women’s March on Washington. The Women’s March occurred on January 21, following Trumps inauguration the day before; and although the rally was directed towards and centred in Washington, it became an international event. The Toronto’s women’s march gathered tens of thousands of women, and men, marching in the street with a grand number of provocative signs. This was the specific inspiration for my project. Many of these signs, read immodest phrases, however many of them spoke truth of women of being proud of who they are. I wanted to make my piece depicting naked women in strong poses, to represent the strength and confidence that shall not wary during Trump’s presidency.
I was inspired by Salman Khoshroo’s work. I used his piece as a basic reference when looking at technique and composition. Although the work I created is similar to his, there are distinct differences. Firstly, I have limited my colour scheme. Khoshroo, combines many colours to creates what can be perceived as a colourful skin tone. Secondly, Khoshroo’s work depicts light and shadows. By using darker colours in areas where there should be shading and lighter colours in areas where there should be highlights, Khoshroo gives the figures a sense of environment. This is something I did not want to do. Although I represented them as American women, through the muted patriotic colours, I wanted it clear that their culture and native backgrounds should be entirely unrelated to their title as ‘American women’.
The series is made up of 3 wood panels all 18x24in. They each depict a different person, my two roommates and I. I view my roommates and I as a strong group of women and I thought that representing them specifically would be well suited. I wanted the colour scheme as a whole to be muted patriotic colours, to represent how Trump’s presidency may try to undercut feminism and female rights in an attempt to darken our spirits. This is also why I chose to composed the figure in strong confident poses, to represent how American women can and will persevere through the dark time.
My third piece is called Strokes. This project was centred around the idea of gestural and constructed brush strokes. As a class we looked at artists such as James Nares and Roy Liechtenstein. In my initial experimentation I struggled with painting a stroke that created the depth and splotchy nature of the brush strokes of Liechtenstein's work. I than realized that to construct a brush stroke in a pop art style, most of the work needs to be fabricated.
Strokes focusing on the construction of a brush stroke and reflects what I learned while experimenting with brush strokes. Brush strokes, for the most part are incomplete. And although most are relatively rectangular in shape, each stroke can develop a specific pattern unique to only that stroke. This is what I tried to represent in my piece. I used primary colours to play within the theme of pop art and a series to show the subtle differences of one stroke to another.
The series is made up of 3 wood panels all 18x36in. They each depict 1 stroke, each in 1 primary colour and all incomplete. It was important that the strokes looked similar enough to resemble the repetitive nature of brush stroke experimentation but still be distinctively different.
My fourth and final piece in VIS323 is Branded. For this project, we were tasked with painting on fabric. I have always been interested in street wear and the paradoxical nature of streetwear brands. A simple white or black t-shirt is suddenly a precious item once it has been branded with an iron label or embroidery of the name of the brand. I wanted to critic this by switching the name of brands with their iconic logos and see if it changed the viewers experience with them. Is it about the name, the logo or the status that appeals to the streetwear obsessed community.
The series is composed of 4 white hats that I painted logos on to. I chose these 4 iconic brands: Supreme, Adidas, Pablo, and Off White, and traded there names and labels. From left to right, Off White's name is shown on the Supreme logo on Hat #1. Supreme's name is show on the Adidas logo on Hat #2. Adidas' name is shown on Pablo's famous t-shirt phrase "I feel like Pablo" on Hat #3. And finally, Pablo's name is shown on Off White's logo/famous t-shirt design.
During the summer of 2017, I decided to dedicate my time evenly between work and school. My only visual studies class during the summer was VIS313 The Body. We looked at different categorizations of the body each week and analyzing them through group discussions and readings. Some of the categories were the Gendered Body, the Extended Body, the Abject Body, Wearables and Body Art. This class was a very enlightening experience for me. We looked into very deep concepts and had, at times, very controversial debates about art and bodies within art. I overall appreciated this class, but struggled with at times.
My first piece for this course, Unconscious Activities, examined how the dreaming conscious could be viewed as an extension of our body. When we dream, it is as if we unconsciously activate an extended body that exists in an alternate fantasy world. Most commonly, the conscious body in our dreams moves and thinks and breathes in this alternate reality alone, however sometimes these actions and conversations can translate into real life. This translation can cause us to speak and move in our sleep as if our real bodies were exhibiting the same events and surroundings as the body in our dreams. I’ve found myself awakened from many of my dreams when my real body outwardly experiences my unconscious activities. Additionally, my boyfriend can contest that I speak in my sleep as if I am having a conversation with someone. For this piece, I considered the activities of the unconscious conscious as a construct of the extended body.
This piece is an abstract depiction of myself and my boyfriend’s sleeping bodies. These shapes were developed based on frames captured from an aerial time lapse in which I took overnight whilst we were asleep. I chose these specific frames because our bodies were oriented in dynamic positions. In terms of the medium and framing I wanted to focus on the basic shape of each figure instead of the details of each of the images; because of this I chose to make the piece very graphic and monochromatic. I chose this frame size because I wanted the final piece to be approximately to scale with the proportions of the video when shown on my iPhone.
The second project's theme, coincidentally, was also on the Extended Body. I decided to go in a very different direction from the first project and look at physical extensions of the body and the progression of prosthetics into the future. In this day and age, technology has advanced enough to a point where prosthetics are slowly resembling the functions and the abilities of living human limbs. With the most innovative technology that exists, a lucky few individuals are now experimenting and rehabilitating themselves with robotic hands controlled by them. Innovation in this field has skyrocketed over the last century; with the transition from wooden and leather prosthetics to lighter weight and more resilient materials. Furthermore, with alterations for specific actions and activities, prosthetics have actively evolved and become significantly similar to a human limb. However, there is still an abundant amount of differences between prosthetics and living limbs, but with work being done to develop touch sensation and fully functioning robotic bodily systems, the future in prosthetics is incredible and unimaginable.
This piece is a drawing of the evolution and innovation of prosthetics (focusing mostly on limbs) since the Middle ages. Inspired by the movie Chappie as well as articles on Johnny Matheny, I was intrigued by the innovation of prosthetics and curious about the future in this field. In this piece I wanted to considered the future’s endless possibilities and question how far can the prostheses field go, specifically, can an entirely robotic body operate under a human’s conscious.
I based each of the drawings on prosthetics from each period through photographs of museum artifacts and replicas of them. I used descriptions of their material and make up from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre Health Beat’s Timeline: Prosthetic Limbs Throughout the Years to depict them as accurately as possible. This timeline gave me a basic outline of the designs and materials used in prosthetics dating back to 950B.C. For my piece, I decided to focus in on the last two centuries, because there was so little innovation of prosthetics between its earliest known use and the Renaissance. I wanted the figures to be non-binary and the colours neutral so that it didn’t indicate a gender or a race. It was important that this timeline showed a human’s journey, unspecific to any demographic.
My third, and final piece is about shit, or more specifically, how we deal with it; thus it is called Dealing With Shit. Slavoj Zizek has spoken on several occasions about his fascination with toilets. He speaks to the ideological and political differences between the countries of Germany, France and England and parallels between each country’s design of toilets*. With Zizek having so pleasantly pointing out the ideological differences between these countries’, I decided to centre my piece on his interpretation of the purpose of each country’s toilet design and how that coincides with how they each deal with the abject, or more specifically, their shit.
In the opinion of Zizek, the German’s ‘upfront’ and bold toilet design speaks to their conservatism. Having the hole in the front of the toilet allows individuals to examine their feces for medical reasons, therefore accepting it as a representation of their health and eating habits. The French have the hole farther in the back with no landing or water, thus making the excrement disappear almost immediately. Zizek believes that this speaks to the French’s radicalism. Finally, the Anglo Saxon/English toilet is seen as the compromise of the two. By filling the bowl with water, the poo is visible, but not for inspection, supposedly representing English liberalism.
For my final piece, I wanted to centre my concept around the abject. Through this course I have grasped a more thorough understanding of different subjects that I have studied before, however I had never been introduced to the abject body until this course. With that in mind I was very keen in diving into the abject and experimenting with a new field.
The work is composed of 3 boxes, each abstractly representing how each country deals with their shit. By laying the drawing of Germany’s toilet on top of a clear box, I wanted to show their undisguised acceptance of the abject. For the French toilet drawing, I cover the drawing with an opaque box. I wanted the drawing to be hidden to represent the French’s radical disapproval of their excrement. Finally, I put the Anglo Saxon toilet drawing inside a clear box, representing the acceptance of its existence, but still with a clear boundary between it and the viewer. The drawing is stuck to the top of the inside to emulate the “floating aspect” of the poo when the bowl is filled with water. Additionally, each drawing of the toilets is done in feces. I wanted the abject to not only be shown in my piece, but also between the viewer and my piece; essentially I wanted to see how viewers would react when having to deal with my shit.
This piece comments on how different countries, specifically Germany, France and England have decided to deal with the abject body through their choices in the architectural construction of toilets, based on Slavoj Zizek's interpretation of ideology and his toilet paradox.
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2017
2017 is about testing my artistic boundaries. This year I began to venture into advanced techniques in mediums that I am comfortable with. In January I began 3 300 level Visual Arts Courses that covered the disciplines of drawing, painting and the constructed image. As a sophomore I hadn't yet enrolled into a 300 level course and was anxious and excited for the standard of work I would need to uphold.
The first course I took was VIS308: Advanced Drawing; Experimental Practices. I was most excited for this course because I quite enjoyed its prerequisite: VIS205: Drawing; Experimental Practices and was ready to challenge myself even more through the following advanced course.
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