Hi my name is Rachel and this is my Park Life project. It is a project I am doing for an MA in Fine Art and I wanted to share it with you so you can see how a park changes over time and hopefully so you can understand and appreciate my final artworks. It is a step into my mind and how I look at the world around me which is something you might relate to.
The idea behind this project is to look closely, almost forensically at a park I think I know well. A park where my daughter learned to walk when she was 3. A park where we go at least once a week and in lockdown would take her wheelchair there so she could get some exercise. It is a park she loves and where we search for conkers every year. I wanted to represent this park in a series on paintings and artworks using a mix of media such as acrylics, oils, photomontage and digital art as I would like to explore the idea of mixing contemporary and traditional media and their place in the world today.
In order to do this I wanted to examine the park over different days and different times and from different areas in the park and really look at the people and what their stories might be, as more start to go again after restrictions lift as well as the terrain, the views and the trees. Noting things such as rubbish, wildlife and anything else I discover. The park has a side that is unpleasant as well as a place to relax or play.
Watching archeological digs on telly made me think that I would like to dived the park into various areas and study one area on one day. I paced around the park to measure it Luckily it is quite rectangular in shape and it is 216 paces up each long side and 115 on each short end. I divided it into 40 areas each 27×23 paces and have mapped these which you can see on the introduction page. So 40 sections over 40 days in the life of our park.
I hope you enjoy this look at park life and I hope you will like my finished pieces. There will be a virtual and hopefully real life exhibition at the end!
Parklife 