Ali
This crit talked about the work presented, and focussed on 2 things, contextual research, and opening up possibilities in the work.
The group agreed that the work deserved a more applied contextualisation – lots of references were given, from book illustration, to new yorker cartoons, to aubrey beardsley, to captioning in newspapers, to educational illustration from the 50s (posters of organs in the human body, or types of food etc). A suggestion was that Ali get some of this contextual stuff up on her studio wall that draws from a range of sources – and in doing so, begin to soak up, process and respond to the modes of address they use in communicating to a viewer (and to consider what kind of viewer this assumes).
With regards to opening up possibilities in the work, it was suggested that ali work in a more open way, to not necessarily illustrate her ideas by presenting them quite literally, but to step back from the work in progress, and stop as soon as it does something interesting, (even if you don’t know what this is) stop. David Shrigely and Phillip guston might be some useful artists references.
Lastly
There was a general point that was discussed through many of the crits, the value of trying out a range of forms of presentation as a means of opening up possibilities in the work. In relation to this, I suggested that this is a good way of working, but to keep in mind, that it is a year long degree, and that it was good to also working in the mode of studies or tests at this stage, in a very open way, and then to perhaps closer to the middle of the year return the conversations around possible forms of presentation
