CROSS COURSE POSTGRDUATE FORUM, 28 February 2014
Students:
Jake, Gareth Morgan, Yadong Wu, Hugo & Guoxin Fu.
Gareth Morgan: Post graduate forum
Gareth Morgan MA PGF 28 Feb 14
Overall aims and objectives
To explore how drawing can be used to communicate scientific and medical concepts, particularly around diabetes mellitus.
Practice
To produce work integrating scientific/biomedical understanding and drawing.
The purpose of drawings will be:
i) explanation of ideas
ii) expression of emotion.
The drawings will combine the use of figures & portraiture and may contain humour & text.
The interaction & optimisation of these components of the drawing will be explored, with an emphasis on the mechanisms for effective incorporation of text.
Research
Practitioners and collaborative projects combining science & drawing will be studied.
Of particular interest will be an in investigation of cartooning and caricature as methods for communicating ideas around science and health, as exemplified in the caricature of Charles Darwin and the theory of evolutionary.
I will study the relationships between my own work and that other artists working at the interface between science and art. I will also examine the work of artists representing the human condition. Many of these artists & their subject matter inform my work.
The initial starting point of the study will be the work of artists such:
Pen Mendonca (graphic facilitation)
Bobby Baker (diary of drawings during her recovery from illness)
Nigel Holmes (explanation graphics)
Otto Dix and Francis Bacon (expressionists)
John Callahan (cartoonist and artist dealing with macabre subjects and physical disabilities)
James Gillray, Ralph Steadman and Steve Bell (political and social caricaturists and satirists)
Professor Frink (cartoon scientist in The Simpsons).
Exhibitions
Beautiful Science: Picturing Data, Inspiring Insight at the British Library.
Discussion from forum:
If your not slightly uncomfortable doing it, is it worth doing?
Contentious issues / statements get people talking about you work.
Who is the target audience? This can be variable.
Drawing can be use to catch people’s attention.
Humour may be dependant upon experience & cultural background.
