London - 5 October

On Thursday I went to the Tate Modern in London. I found that instead of sketching sculptures and parts of painting that interested me, I was more drawn to sketching people viewing the artwork there. I did this because I didn’t see anything in terms of art that particularly grabbed my attention.
In the sketch below I have drawn people viewing Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream speech'. the bench in front of the TV screen was packed full of people, with no spaces in between one another. Usually you find that people are quite aware of their personal space when being in the company of strangers, but the unity that I felt watching them watch the speech was quite intense. I wanted to capture this specific emotions that I felt when seeing people of all cultures come together to respect a big movement that has happened in our recent history - black Rights. This made me realise how in many ways we are all the same and how we experience things much the same. It made me think about how Kafkaesque states can differ culturally as well as individually. Someone who lives in England will experience a Kafkaesque state that relates to something completely different to someone who lives in the Eastern side of the world. Point is, we all experience the same emotions and are all susceptible to mental illnesses like depression.

I took a lot of pictures whilst on the way from Tate Modern to The Photographer's Gallery of the buildings and places that offered interesting colour themes. In Waterloo, we passed a place where there was an aray of restaurants that had bright marketing colours. There was a food truck (pictured below) that had a raspberry pink on it which I caught my attention, along with vibrant yellow benches where customers could eat. Whilst I walked past, a man with a hi-vis jacket walked up to the stand and so I waited for him to get into the frame of my picture as his jacket was part of the colour palette. Throughout this picture there is now a illuminous green/yellow colour that can be seen at the top, middle and bottom and so there is a balance in this photograph. As these colours aren’t typical eatery colours, like red - associated with food a lot for example restaurants like Frankie and Benny’s, Nando’s  and KFC - this makes the food truck catch the buyers eye. This juicy, refreshing colour palette links to how an individual uses escapism to revitalise their life to try and overcome things like depression. These colours seem to offer an avenue of rejuvenation and happiness which definitely fits in with my theme that is running through my personal investigation.

I also took a photograph of some graffiti on a wall which linked to current affairs, for example, Donald Trump's presidency. The graffiti on this wall reminded me of Mark Tobey's work due to the angular marks that are made and also how a bright red is used. To study Mark Tobey in more depth I think I should look at graffiti and creating textures that appear weathered, like on a wall. I could do this by tearing materials and layering them onto a surface. These sharp marks reflect a depressed individual’s frustration in a situation that they are dealing with. The importance of mark making is evident as it provides an angry mood to the wall.