BA7 + 8

Documentation File

Fine Art
Ossie Williams
(1201275)

BA6 Studio Practice

Up until BA7, I felt my practice was somewhat monotonous. At the time, my interest in
psychoanalysis through the texts and writings of its founders; Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung pushed me
to create work that focused on a constructed view of us as human beings.
I felt the social body constrained how the physical was perceived, and thus the physical experience of the
body is always modified by social categories. These perceptions all tied in with the question of personhood,
how our past experiences, upbringing mould and shape us into the people we are today. The many different
forms of ourselves we represent both psychically and digitally.
Subsequently, the past work I created in BA6 showed a degree of uncertainty and a lack of
confidence. This worked well with the subject of psychoanalysis, but I still felt I was unengaged with my
studio practice. Paintings took insufferable amount of time to finish whilst my drawings were short of
conviction.

BA7 Practice - Constructed Views

In BA7, I found my interest in Art thoroughly shifted to contemporary visual culture. One of the concepts I
was particularly wanted to focus on, was Guy Debords concept of The Spectacle. Situated during the cold war
geopolitical period, Debord argues the spectacle is the present model of socially, dominant life; authentic
society has been replaced by a representative image in the capitalist West and the communist East
The notion in which where world is inundated by images, where we are constantly bombarded left, right and
centre, on the screens of our phones, computers, and televisions. They far outnumber the required amount
of people to produce and use them. These images are a result of the visual construction of the social field
(Mitchell, 2002). Insistent and omnipresent, they create the visual culture of our society.
I used this theme of the spectacle in combination with the representation of post-colonial black identity.
Moreover, I focused on the black West Indian diaspora which, I felt was more relatable to as a St Lucian born
Briton. In the work of philosophy, Society of Spectacle, (Debord, 1967) situated during the cold war
geopolitical period, Debord argues the spectacle is the present mode of socially, dominant life; authentic
society has been replaced by representation in the capitalist West and the communist East.
From the 16th century, for nearly 350 years, European ships set sail to the West coast of Africa for the
purpose of the transatlantic slave trade. Here, waves upon waves of African slaves were presented not as
human individual conscious beings but as potential future commodities; to bought, sold and become
another mans property in the New World. But for now, they were collected as exotic goods, documented and
forcibly packed into the hull of a slave ship. To be bound and ultimately displaced in the Americas and the
West Indies.
In Capital (1867) Marx notes in capitalism, commodities are exchanged for value on a given market. This
was the predicament of the slave. But Slavery was more than this, especially one considers that [capitalism]
makes social relations of production and consumption appear to be relationships, and therefore objectified.
This is to say that it is not just the object and its physical nature that turn it into goods or a commodity, but
the social position in which it is placed. Furthermore, I argue that the production, trade, and representation
of the commodity create the desire to claim ownership over that object: the black race as the Other.
This notion of Otherness combined with commodity ties into the state the West Indies has found itself in.
Stripped of its natural resources, it is now described as the most tourism-dependent region in the world.

Archived photos of Guyana in the 1960s

BA7 + BA8 Practice - Constructed Views

A scene from The Godfather, Part Two.

In Francis Ford Coppolas The Godfather, Part Two a gathering of prominent American Mafioso
visiting Cuba interrupt their dealings to celebrate a compatriots birthday. As they lounge on a
balcony high atop a luxury hotel overlooking Havana, a cake, prominently displaying a colourfully
frosted map of the island, is presented to the celebrants. The camera then zooms in as the cake
is cut and the island nation is symbolically dissected for the enjoyment of the wealthy American
visitors. This is a metaphor for the exploited condition islands in the Carribean were left in..
Tourism is a vital industry to Caribbean nation states. For some islands, structural adjustment,
spiralling inflation, currency devaluations, trade liberalization and privatization have
combined to make tourism the backbone of their economies. Receiving strong government
support, intense marketing campaigns combine a slick media in contradictory and paradoxical
fashions. Each nation
becomes complicit in the parade of reprehensible history served up for example as ostentatious
plantation inns, towering colonial structure, and friendly natives who live to serveall made ready
for a new generation of Western adventurers in search of the contemporary El Darodo.
The Caribbean since the end of the slave trade through touristic and advertising discourses is
represented as a exotic getaway, in which one can shed social inhibitions for a therapeutic
dose of sun, sand and sex.

It is this constructed view of the Carribean being exotic that made me question the West Indian
identitys representation in the wider world. I immigrated from St. Lucia with my parents in 2004,
leaving behind a culture that had been mine for 10 memorable years. It was only when I arrived
in a cold somewhat ethnocentric Britain that I began to realise how much an impact coming
from that background had on both my persona and my identity as The Other. The question I also
received from my peers at high school: Dont you miss the sun and the beach? or Why would
you come here?.
The answer was very simple, to have a better opportunity than I could ever hope to obtain in St.
Lucia.

In Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997), Stuart Hall argued that the concept
of Otherness is derived from George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels concept of the dialectic; the colonial relationship of Master/Slave, where in the first instance the Master had absolute authority and
dominion over the submissive slave, who in turn, has to unquestionably address the needs of his
superior, whilst fighting against his inner yearning for freedom. Nevertheless as time passes on,
the slave becomes more adept in role, through this control of his responsibilities.
He transcends his Master, who is now dependent upon the slave to retain his identity as Master.
The Other therefore, is dependent on binary oppositions, e.g. master/slave, white/black. Nevertheless, I argue that Hegels approach in which the Other the black subject is represented in
visual culture is over-simplistic, it fails to mention that one of these two opposites is dominant in
power.
In the past the adverse representation of the Other was used to condone the practices of Europeans on their subjectified slaves. Europe maintained the belief that through the presence of their
dominant colonial empires, civic institutions of law and the restraint of their sexual and social life,
associated their society with the concept of culture. In contrast, they believed the black
expressions of open emotion, reliance on customs and rituals, and their apparent lack of civil
institutions was a form of natural primitivism.
But the modern day constructed view people had of a West Indian as the Other, encouraged me
to explore my identity as I remembered it. By scanning and using old albums and photos of my
childhood, I started to piece together the past through memory; combining the ontological
chemical process of film and the digital graphical process of Photoshop, I created work that both
constructed and documented life in the West Indies.

Screencapture of scanned images.

Theres a certain sentiment of nostalgia in family snapshots, they lack a trained eye but to me,
the composition of each subject, the washed colours and decay of the final prints certainly add to
its aura: its uniqueness in this world of visual images.

I started off by looking at the different ways I which I could experiment with the photos in Photoshop. Incorporating my newfound research on Kara Walker (her style of black paper tableaux
zsilhouettes) and using a newly acquired Wacom graphics tablet, I traced myself from an old
family photo.
But it felt surreal to completely black out my own face, it was almost as if I was erasing my own
identity or existence in history. Or even that I was looking back on an image that was much more
antecedent than the actual photo I was experimenting with; one that was set during the 20th
century perhaps.

I then started to explore how I could form these images into compositions that mirrored the
lifestyle and culture of the Carribean, whilst still maintaining underlying tones of a region
exploited as a form of commodity.

These are international phone-cards I scanned. Theyre used to contact friends and family that
over special occasions like birthdays or Christmas. Seeing one of these immediately brings
back memories of the many long, telephone static-charged conversations I had with family
around the Caribbean. Theyre are about size of a debit card, which on a further subtext reinforces the notion of using a commodity to connect with the ones you love.
The aesthetic of these cards reinforce cultural identity as each island in the Caribbean has one
that portrays an important icon in everyday life. Whether it maybe a national sport, animal or just
a nations noble laureates.

Lesser Antilles, 2015. Print

Lesser Antilles was the first piece I
created using a collage of 2 Phone
cards and an old photograph of My
mother, sister, aunt and myself.
The title refers to the a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Which
form a long, partly volcanic island arc
between the Greater Antilles to the
North-west and South America.
I chose this title first as it referenced the geographical
location St. Lucia was situated in. It also connotates the
marginalisation of the West Indian identity when compared to other black identities.
One paticular motif I think symbolises this, is the opaque
despondent boy on the crescent moon, intently staring
across the Atlantic Ocean at the African continent. It is
alike to a child watching on as his friends play whilst he
sits on the sidelines, unable to join in.
Another geographical symbol I chose to bring attention was the silhouette of the island of St.
Lucia and the continent of South America, thereby, once again subtly bringing the Carribean into
viewers direct gaze, which in turn reinforces the notion of the West Indian identity to the viewer.

Worth EC$40, 2015. Print

Worth EC$40 was another piece focusing on
the marginalisation of the West Indian identity. A
silhouette of myself as child again stands backgrounded to an image of a phonecard.
The title Worth EC$40 refers to the Eastern
Carribean Dollar, the currency of eight of the nine
members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. One of which is St Lucia.
The paintlike textures of the phone card with its
vivid colours, combined with with the figures of
locals playing traditional music strengthened the
theme of The Other to the viewer. As the Carribean is known for its lively, high-spirited festivals like Carnival.
A final element in the piece, to underpin my
belief of the Carribean identity as being marginalised was the severing of the C in Carribean.
As well as having connotations of the resources
of the region being exploited, it also remarked
on the independence each country gained from
their colonial masters. Half of the C was whole
and complete (Britain) and the other empty and
hollow (West Indies)

St. Lucia Jazz, 2015. Print

I particularly liked this one as my Dad was heavily into Jazz music when we lived in St Lucia.
Unfortunately his interest in it has subsided, to say the least. Mainly because of the responsibilities he has at work. I left in the decay through the watermarks at the top of the image as I
thought they supported the concept of UK having a profound impact on his person. It as if, immigrating to a cold, wet Britain started to errode a very warm culture and identity.

Fuelled by this new found way of working, I bought a Canon AE1 and Opticfilm scanner to continue my exploration of constructing and documenting a certain view or gaze.
When you compare film photography to digital, you begin to the notice the differences:
One area where film is more desirable, is in natural light. The exposure isnt as profound in
highlights as as easily as digital cameras.
It also reacts much differently to light, it captures a greater dynamic range as opposed to
most digital sensors
The higher the iso, the more drastic the film grain. When compared to a digital camera, the
higher the iso the more noise. Ive never heard of anyone saying they like noise in a digital
photograph but the film grain in a negative can add to the image.

I was paticulary attracted to the use of BW film in other to create a stark constrast to the work I created using
the phonecards. This was new way to create work, as I could compose each photograph, shoot, develop, scan
and finally edit to remove any scratches or dust on the film.

Developing Film
Guide

Norwich, 2015.

Dick Clarks Top 12-7=5, 2014. Acrylic on Canvas board

Dick Clarks Top 12-7=5 was my final piece in BA7. It depicts Dick Clark an American radio and
television personality pointing at his famous Top 10 board. But instead of names of chart hits, the
rows feature the major news headlines of 2014. The outbreak of Ebola, the Islamic extremist group
ISIL, the fallout from the Global recesion that ended in 2010 and finally the 2014 riots in Ferguson,
Missouri. I thought this would be and interesting way to refer to the constant bombardment of reptetive news headlines were so used to seeing.
It also underlines the way in which broadcasters rearrange news segments and information to tug
at its viewers hearts.

BA8 Documentation

Whilst in BA7, I constructed a view based on my memory, for BA8 I decided to continue my documentation into my diasporic West Indian identity in a different way; by combining both digital and
analog mediums into a collage that showed the end result of moving to Britain. I travelled back
to Hemel Hempstead, a large town in Hertfordshire.Where a two bedroom flat called Livingstone
Walk was our first home away from home, in the United Kingdom.

I started to realise that these images on their own, were completely void of any reference to West
Indies. To the viewer they were just stark B&W photos with surroundings noticeably in the UK. I
needed to include elements that were compatible with the work I created in BA7.
One of the most noticeable symbols of another culture is a nations flag. So tried to subtly include
solid vectors of the flags of Guyana and St. Lucia.

94 Livingstone Walk, 2015. Collage print

94 Livingstone Walk, again was a reference to the flat my family and I first lived in when we immigrated to
the Britain. Combining two images of the same location supported the idea that we were initially stuck in a
quite destitute area.
The intercom, like the phone cards in previous work was a symbol of communication for both the viewer to
the residents inside, and for the residents to family overseas.
Finally, the superimposed St. Lucian flag on the 94 intercom dial, signalled to the viewer that someone of
West Indian origin clearly lived here.

Borough of Dacorum, 2015. Collage print

Screencaptures of photoshop

Small Team, Big Reponsibilities, 2015. Collage on Print

I returned to a more traditional way of exploring my identity through the medium of oil paint. Using an old
album photo, I started a new piece on board of my sister, mother and brother called School Run

School Run, 2015. Oil on board

Climb the Ladder, 2015. Ink on Canvas board

Climb the Ladder is the second in a traditional approach to refering to my West Indian identity.
This one is based on the colonial trade.
Colonial trade was one of the sources of the primitive accumulation of capital. Under these conditions, the primary components of colonial trade was the slave trade and the sale of poor-quality wares at high prices in the colonies. It also depended on the outright exploitation of the
colonial nations through which unequal exchange ocurred where the colonies were gradually
assimilated into the world capitalist economy and turned into agricultural and raw material appendages of the capitalist countries like the British and the Dutch Empire.
I tried to incorporate techniques similar to the collages I created in previous work by superimposing the figures on a ladder in the foreground, whilst a modern day trade boat stands in the
background.

Stuart Hall, 2015. Oil on board

Stuart Hall was a Jamaican born cultural theorist that based his studies on West Indian diaspora
and race in visual culture. I heavily referred to his work in my dissertation so I thought it was only
fair to paint a portrait of him.

For my last series of work I wanted to focus on major themes that I think have an impact on the
black community as a whole. Again using photoshop, I created collages that explored the issues
the black race faced both in past and present day.

The imagery I sourced for my work was from Jet magazine; an American weekly marketed toward African-American readers first issued 1951. Jet is notable for its role in chronicling the
American Civil Rights movement from its earliest years as well major events such as the Montgomery Busy Boycott, the March on Washington in 1963 and the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Black Heroes, 2015. Collage print

Black Heroes is the first in a series of pieces that explored the issue of the representation of race in the
media. This in paticular referenced Bill Cosbys accusations of sexual assault by over 40 women.

Mother, Jugs & Speed, 2015. Collage print

Mother, Jugs & Speed is a reference to the 1976 black comedy film Bill Cosby starred in. He plays a talented antihero who drinks alcohol on duty as ambulance driver, harasses nuns, and behaves brazenly towards
practically everybody he meets. The titles has connotations of drug use and sexually objectifying the female
body.

Have an ultra white, ultra bright skin, 2015. Collage print

Have an ultra white, ultra bright skin is piece referencing the increased culture and use of skin
whitening in the black community. Many believe a fairer skin could be a chance to a better life. It
is quite popular in black West Indian nations like Jamaica. Where most bleachers use over-thecounter creams, many of them knockoffs imported from West Africa. Long-term use of one of the
ingredients, hydroquinone, has long been linked to a disfiguring condition called ochronosis that
causes a splotchy darkening of the skin.

Screencaptures of photoshop

The Difference in pain relievers, 2015. Collage print

The Difference in pain relievers is a reference to the apathy concerning alcholism in the black community. Historically, black culture condones heavy alcohol use or intoxication at any age. Alternately, the dominant culture doesnt view drinking as a young adult or moderate drinking as problematic as what is generally
found within the African American culture. Additionally, low income black men encounter a greater risk for
alcohilism. This group also had less access to positive life influences that would discourage drinking, such
as steady well-paying jobs, family responsibilities and stable support systems. As a result, their partners and
children face the consequences.

Ferguson, 2015. Collage print

Ferguson is a piece refering to the ongoing series of protests that began after the fatal shooting
of Michael Brown by a police officer in August 2014. The unrest sparked a vigorous debate in the
United States about the relationship between law enforcement and African Americans, the militarization of the police.
The juxtaposition of Malcolm-X against a lone firefighter portrays the way in which civil rights leader fought against institutional racism in the 60s only for it to become rampant again in present day
society. Additionally the fixed gaze each subject has, reinforces the notion that the issue is out of
sight, yet not of mind. Therefore encouraging the viewer to join into the debate.

PREPARING ARTWORK

Degree show planning

By separating the two areas my practice was based on in my last year, I allowed the viewer to see the chronological order in my practice, my exploration from my own identity to that of others through social issues.
I decided to frame the pieces on Identity in white finishes, as in my mind it retained an element of pureness.
A culture, still not tainted and exploited by the outside world. On the contrary, pieces based on the them eof
the Spectacle were framed in black.
This places the viewer at a crossword between, a diasporic exploration through my identity and documentation of issues the black community face, through the concept of the Spectacle.