This project reinterpreted Gustav Cailbotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day, as pictured above, while retaining the umbrellas. The Art 21 theme used was "secrets", and the three creative strategies used were: coded communication, silhouettes of shapes, and expressive line. Overall, the painting has to do with lies, in this particular case, cheating. This piece, through working with it, has quickly become an emotional attachment to me. A lot of myself, specifically that of past relationships, is poured into this piece, but not explicitly. I wanted to make it as abstract and indirect as possible (while at the same time being aesthetically appealing) but just direct enough where someone can sort of get the idea as to what the figures were, humans/individuals and maybe a trace of its symbolism.
The coded communication, which is done in morse electric telegram messaging, reads "Lie" and is seen on the sides of the building in the distance as well as in red paint on the yellow figures, and also on the rectangular shape between them. The silhouettes are of people, or other bodies. These represent association with the figure with the red dot for a head. In fact, the warm colors in this piece are of association with this figure. Notice the targets all over the figure's body and those colors' distribution throughout the painting. Expressive line wasn't used primarily throughout the piece, but it's there. (I didn't fully read the criteria before I started the painting, so it was sort of implemented late into the process which is a fault on my part). The intentional expressive lines are the wavy ones, which represent uneasiness/disorientation. This again is symbolic, and all ties into to a specific idea within secrets. I enjoyed this piece overall. Even though I made errors early in the work, It turned out to be one of my favorite pieces ever for me on a personal level, as a lot of my emotion was translated into this piece while still retaining the original paintings proportions and general placement. The lyric I used for this piece was "Another day staring at the ceiling", from Breathe by Telepopmusik (http://www.lyricsmania.com/breathe_lyrics_telepopmusik.html)
Originally,the design would have been more complicated, I forgot initially the the primary focus had to be on the symbols, in this case, binary (replacing 1 with a triangle, 0 with a circle), so I took away some of the complications so that the symbols/code acted as the complications, made so by the intricate contrast of the pattern covering the surface of the foam head and wine glass. This piece represents lying down, staring at the ceiling for an extended amount of time while affected by some sort of depressant, in this case, alcohol as represented by the wine glass. The glass also acts as the line of sight for this individual, staring upwards. The clockface replacing the eyes and nose represent the eyes themselves in a stationary position for an amount of time. I chose binary (replaced with shapes) so a more minimal approach was used, I didn't want over-complexity. The difference between the black sharpie and white head and glass were complex enough as mentioned above. I'm really fond of the surreal, especially in sculpture/model form in which they exist as dimensional objects, so I'm proud of the end result. The main difficulties were cutting the back of the head as an even (sort of) surface so it could lie on a surface. I only used an x-acto blade, so it took some time. Another issue that arose was gluing the wine glass to the clock-face, both plastic surfaces. With the painting, I cropped out the area of the initial college that had at least one obscurity. I wanted to make sure the painting was as interesting if not more interesting than the collage. Using the triad color scheme (yellow-green, blue-violet, red-orange) was interesting. I've never been too fond of these colors being together, I wanted to pose a challenge for myself. Working with them by organizing and balancing their values, however, I found ways to make it all visually interesting, at least to me, and especially with the sharpie to really enclose the shapes.
(2nd row on the right was my final choice) With this piece, I made sure to cut out many frame shapes so objects could layer on top and underneath these frames to give a further sense of depth alongside the already present differing values. The frames themselves act as the "border" side of this piece, alongside the faces on opposing sides looking at each other. The consumption is represented by wine bottles, the strawberry, and the consumers, the humans. I wanted to make this particular piece interesting even to those who don't grasp the overall, symbolic meaning, so I included the wine bottle with a leg to act as the focal point. It's surreal and bizarre, adding a touch of humor or individualistic style to the piece.
We initially had difficulty figuring ways of depicting time in a single, real life image, but with our props of a baby doll and small wooden figurine of an elderly person, ideas began to formulate. With symbols of a beginning and an end (or old age), we began to arrange and situate them in a thought provoking manner.
The first image represents the beginning of life. The only real part of the human body we see are the hands, symbolic of creation, and that these hands are softly, gently placing or putting the finishing touches to this new life that is human itself. This life also acts seemingly as a light source, giving significance to it within the dark environment. It acts as the beginning of the life cycle, the beginning of time for this new form. The second image is a depiction of looking back in time rather than forward. My partner has her head turned towards the baby, the past, with the figurine of the elder acting as the future. Some things we took into consideration were lighting. The "past" side where my partner looks is bright and lively (symbolic in the means that the past is clear and tempting/easy to reminisce on), as opposed to the darker side with the elderly figure. Notice also the tree behind my partner, medium sized, signifying her current area in the life timeline (it also just looked aesthetically pleasing). The third image represents an elderly individual staring into a vacant scene, contemplating his or her life. I related this to time in that this individual would be looking back to his or her memories in an are familiar to them. The photo has a sort of gloomy yet comforting vibe to it. BackstabberThis installation is comprised of a simple wooden chair on its side with the feet enclosing a "snake den" of red string and shreds of paper from an adult coloring book. The majority of the model is untouched and clean. The seat of the chair has four strips of paper with a simple design as opposed to the highly designed strips in the "den". The overall superficial simplicity quickly transitions to the focal point, the den, full of overlapping strips and diversity in direction and shape. It's a quick shift from simple to complex, from calm or boring to chaotic.
|
Archives
October 2016
Categories
All
|