Component 1 Caitlin Man theme; appearance vs reality
Concept: Fame My theme of Appearance vs Reality is to show the two contrasting perspectives that contradict each other and how this opens another vision for the viewer to see the bigger picture of scenarios expressed in a visual format. There are always two sides to a story where one is usually unspoken about and the other side is how it appears to everyone. This can lead to trickery and deception as not everything you see is as good it seems. This is established in my work as my main focus is to delineate the possible contradicting perceptions within range of concepts. In the concept of fame, aim to show the viewers the backstage scenarios of celebrities that the public is unable to see as the reality of fame life is excluded to the world. This is to remind the viewers that although it may seem that celebrities may be rich and famous to the public, they are still human and no different to any of us even though emotions are hidden, celebrities mainly put on a façade to satisfy the general public and look presentable. Controlled test description: appearance vs reality of fame, portrait of a celeb with everything darkly themed but her eyes
Gerhard Richter Gerard Richter is a German visual artist, known for producing his abstract works such as his photorealistic paintings, photographs and glass pieces. Richter states that ”I like everything that has no style: dictionaries, photographs ,nature , myself and my paintings, " he says , as he suggests that "style is violent, and Iam not violent". during the early 1960s, Richter began to create large scale photorealist copies of black and white photographs covered with in a variety of grays , accentuated with a blurred effect to smear and soften parts of his compositions for a more realistic appearance but later began to heavily texture abstract gray monochromes which introduced abstraction in his practices and he continued to work through the idea of figuration as well as abstraction to produce bold gestural abstractions and photo paintings such as flowers, architecture and scenes from nazi history. Richter' paintings are responsive to what he perceives , not just in the world around him, but also to the image forming on his own canvas. he illustrates with broad sweeps of colour through the use of wide brushes and later applies and removes paint with large squeegees. he process, by design, eaves much to chance, and as a result, risks and rewards for the works that emerge. according to Richter, "each step forward is more difficult and i feel less and less free, until i conclude there’s nothing left to do".
Gerhard Richter has experimented with many different art styles, ranging from American/British pop art, abstract expressionism, minimalism and conceptualism As a result, Richter has progressively grew his artistic ideas in which he has developed a extraordinary and versatile art style by adopting aspects of their range of ideologies while maintaining his own .I like how Richter has many pieces that have contrasting methods such as going from photo realism to blurred photo paintings and overtime developed a colourful abstract style and this relates to my theme of appearance vs reality as contrast is one of my significant methods I use to express my theme which is through my art styles.
Personally I think that his works tells me that art should be free and that there is no right or wrong, this is exemplified in the style of his abstract works where colours of lines are randomly placed and scraped. His style of pieces aren’t meant to have a meaning but yet symbolises freedom in the way you decide to do art.
I have also replicated his art style and created my own version of his abstraction pieces through the same application of dragging and sweeping the paint using tools such as palette knives and wide brushes in a variety of sizes. Through this piece I have experimented different ways of applying the paint in relation to Richter. This includes awkward placements of lines and the pressure I put to drag the paint and as a result it appears that blobs of paint is compressed into the canvas creating a stain. The deliberate use of colour choice is to signify the incompatibility of colour combination in relation to how your head and your heart can be incompatible at times which creates a mess emotionally and this is expressed in this piece as the application of paint and colour choice creates a very disheveled imagery. This piece is also opposing my perfectionist mindset and this experimental piece allowed me to perceive that art doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect all the time. In relation to the theme of appearance vs reality, the piece appears to be an ordinary experimental abstract work, messy and chaotic but in reality, the way the paint is stained onto the canvas is to signify the way I have applied the medium and is different to the art style I usually do. In reality, the piece shows the emotions and effort put in as well as the mistakes and errors that has been framed into the piece which is what makes the artwork imperfect. It is not just an experimental mess created without thought.
Daniele Buetti Daniele Buetti is a contemporary swiss artist known for his extraordinary multimedia practices by appropriating images of beautiful young models from magazines and alienates them with deep phrases by piercing them with a ball point pen to express his depiction of the fashion world, media codes, and our society's obsession with beauty through the uses of different media including photography, light box installation , performance, and sculpture.
Buetti modifies picture of supermodels found in magazines or on the internet by drawing brand symbols and ornaments just like scars or tattoos on the printed skin in his art in critical response to the illusion that society has of perfect but unrealistic beauty and to break it down, more recently, Buetti’s work also emphasises on our obsession for fame well as our relationship with the celebrity world, for example: when he replaces famous peoples faces with mirrors to allow viewers to oppose with their self image.
From my perspective, its as though Buetti establishes the harsh standards that society has set, through the use of emotionless models usually presented in a dull lighting to perhaps indicate how societies standards drains out the colour and life out of people , perhaps implying that people are losing their real self and identity, and by following these standards they become just like everyone else and not unique in their own way and is portrayed as dull, unhealthy and lifeless that these standards turn us into and as a result, it may also illustrate the emptiness of someone after losing their identity and not being able to be who they really are. this could be particularly aimed at the younger audience as they are more prone to be influenced by what they see on social media. however, the use of his bright sparkling dotted words on his works is what lifts the dullness of the model and draws the viewer in as Buetti claims that" flashing ,colourfully sparkling spots enthral us like moths drawn to the light. this simple, indeed crude trick allows me to lead the observers very close to the work". In some of his works, he creates deep phrases by dotting the bright spots onto the model , for example: in his work named 'why should I select you', it communicates with the viewers as the dotted rhetorical questions ask the viewers and this makes them think about the message Buetti is trying to convey his criticism about the obsession in the celebrity world through this work. In my opinion, I see this piece as my inner voice questioning my self worth due to societies strict standards, its as if though the question "why should I choose you" is being repeated over again as the bright spots can perhaps highlight the judgemental mindset of the media and that "you" are the main focus within the dullness that is everyone else who just follow the trend . I think Daniele's deliberate use of the bright spots is to make it stand out but this can also indicate a deeper meaning of how "you" draw attention because "you" are standing out whether people look down on you because you are different or if you draw attention because you are being yourself and rebel against societies standards which is what make you unique. I also love the contrast between the bright spots with the dull photograph as it also reminds me of the reference of letting the light guide you and in this case, the 'light' is formed into phrases that could also represent that its 'guiding' you through life within this piece of art. Buetti also states that: "light, no doubt is the most seductive and the most magical of all the media".
Louise Hopkins Louise Hopkins is an artist living and working in Glasgow, Scotland who is known for her making paintings and drawings that are directly onto surfaces that already contain information, through the use of maps, patterned furnishing fabrics, comics, catalogue pages ,magazine pages, photographs, folded or crumpled paper and sheet music.
Hopkins's work suggests a chain of contrasts between mass produced and handcrafted, reality and artifice, positive and negative, surface and depth . hidden and exposed." she is known for erasing significant words in her pieces through things that are usually read by people such as maps and books to enhance the way that things become meaningless when its missing significant words.
In this piece, she uses a map but erases all the names of the roads and places by adding a layer of paint so that the map is unclear and looks incomplete and useless as if something is missing almost as if it isn't recognisable as a map anymore. Hopkins intentionally eliminates the flow of printed information so that her viewers get the idea of never trusting response to the authenticity of pre-existing mark. I interpret her idea of erasing significant signs and names of the map as her way of saying that without knowing the most important, we will have no sense of direction and that we become lost. the emptiness of the map leaves the viewers confused , questioning where the location is, maybe implying that you will feel lost without any source of important information. by adding a layer of paint, the artist has made the map slightly unsettling to the viewer. it seems 'not quite right' as she uses recognisable symbols from the original map , such as the red lines signifying main roads, in places where they are not supposed to be. Hopkins uses extremely fine brushes and pens through the working process of painstaking, echoing the technique of the original mapmaker.
In this piece, I followed the theme of the celebrity world expressing the dark side of fame, how it affects celebrities, and establishing what most of the media don't see behind the scenes of a celebrity. I have discussed about my piece with others, and they responded with 'its like telling a story of an idol, mainly focused on the dark side' which is close indeed to what I was interpreting, however art is subjective and there are many ways to perceive this piece. One of the aspects Iam pleased about is how well I duplicated this piece well enough for my viewers to understand the message of this work. I love my idea of the black and white background of hate comments and colour choice to elucidate a different and unseen side, contrasted with the acrylic painting of the celebrity's eyes to highlight the piece as it was meant to draw the attention of viewers to enhance my intent f how viewers can only see what the celebrity wants you to see but hides their emotion to be 'presentable'. However, to improve my piece i feel like i should take an extra step to accentuate the meaning of the piece by burning the collage as well as creating more distorted cut outs of hate comments to exacerbate the damage that has been done when the media throws hate towards someone, it will also add some texture to my piece and make it appear less empty and more complete.
Compared to my first pieces, I feel like this piece was more complete whether its the piece itself or its meaning, which is in direct contrast to my first and previous drafts where they only included the acrylic painting of the celebrities eyes and I thought that the acrylic wasn't blended enough or that the face structure seemed off which lead to more drafts and incompletion of the piece. In the previous drafts I also had dynamic ideas on what methods to do on the piece which in my opinion is more of experimenting with different techniques to set my final decision in the real piece, in tis which led me to include art styles from different artists such as Gerald Richter, inspired by his idea of dragging and smudging paint with different colours to introduce a bit of abstraction in my piece, as well as other artists such as Louise Hopkins through the use of blocking out words and phrases in my collage of hate comments sing black watercolour and Daniel Regans idea of cracks and shattered imagery from his typeB photography series to maintain my idea of representational imagery.
However, if I could explore the same ideas through abstraction, I would follow Richters method of dragging and scraping sweeps of shades in a more of a freestyle way to deliberately mimic the idea of a messy mind of a celebrity with a eradicated mental well being. I would also like to approach the idea of using more black ink in my piece to give my piece some fluidity to emphasise the flowing emotions as well as accentuating a more abstract effect along with the acrylic painting of the celebrities eyes to maintain an equal balance of abstraction and realistic figuration in one piece.
From working with this piece, Iam pleased with how my meaning is expressed through my piece and I like the contrast in techniques used which establishes my ability to use these mediums. However, I think that my placements of the contrasting mediums clash and don’t go well together mainly because to me, there are a variety of styles compressed into one piece and sometimes it could either turn out really well or horribly incompatible. Unfortunately I think that my over use of mediums and styles made the piece seem perplexing.
Concept: Colour Emotion • appearance vs reality of motions, • a fragmented portrait to colour code the many emotions that are hidden and are not spoken about through the idea of synesthesia. Links to the previous as it is in relation to describing celebrities hidden emotions occurring backstage. Meaning: to show the viewers that there are many emotions but most of them are hidden or bottled up and no one can see how someone is truly feeling. This piece shows the viewers the many different possible emotions through the idea of emotion colour synaesthesia to work as a colour code to represent each feeling. The shattered effect is also to remind the viewer that bottling up emotions and hiding them can lead u to pain where a person can crack and break overtime
Idris Khan Idris khan is a British based artist in London known for his repetitive and layered art works through a variety of medias such as, sculpture, painting and photography. Idris takes inspiration from the history of art , music due to growing up with his mother who was a musician , and key philosophical and poetic texts where he expresses memory and his interest in 'traces that people have left behind'.
Time signature: In khans work, he stamps an oil based ink onto surfaces of glass panes to depict images of intense power and presence. he stamps text onto each pane and gradually , where words and phrases build up a surface to perhaps give pf a sense of personal reflection inspired by key philosophical and poetic texts. Usually, he creates monochromatic works but has moved towards colour possibly due to being influenced by his wife Annie who is known for using kaleidoscopic shades.
In this piece, he uses a blue base and this colour is significant as khan identifies the colour blue to be a "immediate effect on emotion whether its happy or sad'. Typically, blue has many different interpretations but is mainly known to metaphorically represent the feeling of sadness or passiveness and the colour itself helps to decompress and remain calm which is where it can signify peacefulness as well as sadness. with the expressive layering of words and phrases of the artists thoughts, feelings and responses amongst the blue, it complements and perhaps signifies a deep and conveying message illustrating the reflection of the past as khan is strongly inspired by history almost as if this artwork is khans way of communicating to his past self.
From the way I perceive this, its almost as though you can hear this artwork as each layer represents a inner voice and as the layers pile up, more voices are heard as if there are multiple people communicating through this work until its overwhelming to the point where it becomes a jumble of words, and the meaning is eradicated. but the blue base is there to keep you calm despite the clutter of messages being thrown at you. This idea of layering on blue is common in many of Khans art, including his piece called "the calm is but a wall", where in contrast to "time signature", where layers of music sheet is piled onto each other in memory of his pianist mother to represent the significance of music sheets in this piece to highlight the importance of hearing his mother play the piano during his formative years. i feel like this work holds a lot of his history as well as establishing how meaningful his past is and tells a story through his artwork This has inspired me to use colour association within my pieces to give a clearer message to the audience as it almost acts as a colour code to find the significant meanings of the piece. The colour association also helps me to form ideas of the colour emotion concept. Khans use of layering also inspired me to layer some of my developments to enhance the deeper meanings of my piece by identifying what each layer means.
In this piece, Khan still uses his idea of layering however, in contrast to his time signature piece, Khan layers secondary photographs from the 1930s and onwards and uses perhaps 70-100 images for the piece where only fragments of the image were taken and then manipulated and merged on the computer. The piece includes popular British landmarks such as the London eye and Tower Hill. The reason for Khans choice of landmarks is that these popular landmarks are photographed a million times a day and is most likely to be remembered due to its remarkability, therefore, Khan has chosen to layer it many times to mimic the imprint on someone’s mind and acts as a memory. This has also inspired me to create my own pieces as developments, however my purpose of the layering is to produce a double vision effect.
Callum innes Innes is a Scottish painter known for his use of monochromatic colours and clean two sided divisions of the perspective using both watercolour and oil. he expresses the metaphorical nature of revision and subtraction through his painting, through the process of layers of partially dried paint being scrubbed off with washes of turpentine to enhance the gradient of pigments below to create its agitated verticals, resonance, isolated forms, and monologue works.
UNTITLED LAMP BLACK / CRIMSON LAKE 2019: In Innes work, he divides his piece into 2-4 different segments in which they all include a black square followed by another colour. The use of the plain black square could symbolise many things, however black is specifically also known to be a negative colour, mainly to suggest something evil or deathlike. The fact that its plain leaves the viewers wondering what its meaning is, perhaps indicating that there is no meaning , or that the meaning could be anything. Also, the black square is backed up with other colours separated into another segment which could accentuate a contrast, duplicating two different meanings behind the piece. for example, his untitled black lamp / crimson shade painting made in 2019 is split symmetrically in half where one side is black and the other side is red. the plain and bland effect also allows the viewers to express their own perspective of the artwork as Innes states that "it draws the viewer into thinking the way I was thinking about it. I prefer people to bring their own language to the painting ." Innes work not only does it include the black shade with another colour, it also looks as if he used something to scrape off to create its agitated verticals , resonance, and isolated forms to perhaps further exacerbate a deeper and hidden meaning ,through the use of his applications than just his colour choice. To me, his untitled lamp black/ crimson lake painting depicts a sense of death as my interpretation of black portrays death and red symbolises blood. overall, I think that Innes artwork has unlimited meanings despite it being simple and bland and is perhaps more focused on the colour choice and what they symbolise. This relates to my theme of appearance vs reality as his works visually looks like its just a blain black square or coloured squares, however, in reality this lets viewers engage with the piece to come up with their own interpretation with the black square as it is designed to be a subjective piece.
As for my response piece to Innes work, I have duplicated Alex Konahins renaissance art, of a imagery of a owl using black biro pen. The choice of the owl is to represent evil and darkness of the shade black hence the black biro pen. Owls are significant night mammals and night is significant to darkness and evil which is my interpretation of Callums Innes black square. The multiple layers of detail represent the number of mistakes made within that person and is visible to the eye.
The fair use of shadow and highlight in biro pen also visually appears as a metallic knight shield appearance to show that the evilness within is being protected from being exposed which is in relation to the theme of appearance vs reality. The appearance of this piece is a detailed patterned owl whereas in reality, the significance of the detailed pattern is to show the marks of mistakes that are being shielded from exposure.
Peter Doig Peter Doig is a contemporary Scottish artist, known for specialising his paintings on landscapes and figures, merging art historical and personal references into painterly abstractions with distinctive compositions, through the use of forming powerful and extraordinary photographs of modern natures such as a childhood ski trip or an orange canoe. Doig's works are in a style of a diaristic format as well as being universally relevant. Although he has a broad range of styles, his practice shares no fixed method, and instead works well altogether that expresses insight into his personal history and political essence. he states that he’s not trying to make paintings look like photos', but ideally desires to create paintings using a photo reference just like how painters used to when photography was first introduced.
The Architects Home In The Ravine In this piece, Doig took inspiration from his trip to a French housing project called 'the unite'd habitation' where he was fascinated by the visuals of the modernised building from the surrounding thick forest, where in this piece he refers to his fascination by illustrating brightly coloured panels that enhance the front of the house but camouflaged through the brightly highlighted thickets Personally, I think that Doigs use of the yellow hint is to give his artwork a more discoloured outcome as yellow in photos usually imply that its physically getting old due to sun exposure overtime, which enhances Doigs choice of painting as this may indicate that Doig may paint his landscape references slightly yellow to mark the history of it and to encapsulate the scenery like a photo.
Development
His series of winter pieces has inspired me to re create my own. Through this piece, I have used my own photos of a coast location with snow to match Doigs common subject and have replicated his style using acrylic paint. In his pieces ,there are hints of yellow in the sky or ground. This is perhaps to represent the dangerous substances within the snow as snow is usually portrayed as purely white and beautiful, however this is contrasting the idea of white snow. The yellow hint is also perhaps to enhance the history of the environment and art as yellow fades in artworks or photographs can usually signify a painting getting old which marks history within the piece. My use of curvy lines in my piece alongside with the yellow tint gives the piece a bit more of a mysterious energy, almost as if its like a fantasy setting which relates to my theme of appearance vs reality as my piece shows a unrealistic fantasy version compared to my actual reference which is opposing the hint of yellow and curvy lines.
I have also made a few developments of this piece in relation to appearance vs reality. I have created multiple self portraits in the artists style and this relates to my theme as the yellow is enhanced in my face along with the greyish shade to accentuate the shapes within the pieces also done with curvy lines to create a more abstract effect. In relation to appearance vs reality, I have developed this further by including the significant patterns from my response piece of the black square of Callum Innes. The piece I created was inspired by Alex Konahin through the use of black biro pen. The reason for the pattern and medium used is to make it appear like a tattoo on my face. A tattoo is usually permanent and the pattern applied to the face is almost like a warrior appearance. Alongside with the hint of yellow, the combination of the pattern and yellow is to signify how yellow is the symbolisation of happiness which links to my controlled test piece of emotion colour, and the pattern acts as a shield to lock in the happiness as its only on the face. However with the pattern in the way, its as though you can no longer see the yellow happiness so therefore my piece is left with a fierce looking portrait.
This is developed further, as I have also created a purple version of the piece through the use of painting purple ink onto a photo copy of the piece which is then photo copied onto acetate which acts as a layer over the original. This is inspired by Khans technique of layering. The purpose of the colour choice of purple is to balance out the colour as purple takes away yellow. This is to accentuate my theme further and it also relates to my controlled test of emotion colour where fear is associated with purple. With the colour choice and layering of the piece combined, this is to imply the fear of being happy. The piece itself appears to bean equal percentage of yellow and purple but in reality, this portrays the idea of being feared of being happy.
This is also further developed by photocopying the patterened piece onto asatate to act as a layer on top of both the original and the purple layer and this is the duplicate the idea of being trapped in your own fear of being happy. The piece seems as though it’s another patterned portrait but with purple highlights however in reality it establishes the many layers under the “shield” which is the pain of being trapped in some sort of emotion. It also represents the strength you need in order to protect yourself but also symbolises that the pain won’t ever go away as the pattern is also a representation of a permanent tattoo. The final development of this piece is a photocopy of all the layers combined into one acetate and this is to establish the double amount of everything in the last development , however in this development the layer is shifted to the right to create a glitchy, blurring imagery to signify dizziness due to the intensity of emotion therefore resulting in feeling overwhelmed
Human Fragility Human Fragility to me is what weakens a human as a whole, whether its mental or physical. In this piece, I have duplicated a imagery of a models face but added a broken glass effect over the portrait in order to explicit the imagery of human fragility through the use of acrylic paint. The purpose of this piece is to visually represent how broken someone can be mentally as well as looking healthy physically. The generic shattered glass effect indicates how "fragile" the glass can be in order to break, however, this can also elucidate how fragile human strength can be until they reach their breaking point emotionally. This draws a line between the appearance vs reality of a humans physical vs mental well being. The idea of the appearance vs reality of emotion is further developed with the idea of emotion colour synesthesia which is inspired by Idris Khans use of colour significance to represent a meaning ,artist Daniel Mullen who follows the idea of synesthesia as well as Daniel Regans appearance of cracks in his photography
Daniel mullen Daniel Mullen is a Amsterdam based painter who explores geometric and angular shapes of architectural volumes and constructed space. However, following the idea of architectural structures, Mullen has collaborated with artist Lucy Engelman who has a neurological condition of synaesthesia, she is able to visualise time and numbers through colour. “In Lucy's case, when she sees or thinks about time and numbers […] she experiences a different colour sequence in her mind's eye.” “Essentially, she has an ever changing complex and luminous filter to view the abstract concepts of our world. ”This has inspired Mullen to explore this extraordinary sensory phenomenon through his painting series called “synaesthesia”. In this piece, it seems like an organised geometric row of colourful glass panes lined up, however this is a steadily painted imagery of how Engelman synaesthetic perception of time where a time period is visualised through colour, such as the 1950’s-80’s are pictured with 3D sheets of vibrant pink, orange ,blue and green.
Through exploring Daniel Mullens synaesthesia work, this has inspired me to follow the idea of exploring into the neurological condition of colour emotion synaesthesia through a synesthete I personally know where I duplicate her experience of visualising emotions through colour. However, many people associate colour emotion synaesthesia with just typical emotion colours such as blue means sad , red means angry or yellow means sad. In my piece, I express how colour emotion is really perceived through my synesthetes experience. The idea of emotion relates to my idea of establishing hidden true emotions of a person. The colour association acts as a colour code for a synesthete
Daniel regan Daniel Regan is a photographic artist who is known for his exploration of difficult and emotional experiences where his focus is on themes of well being and brokers dialogue around taboo topics. This is inspired through his socially engaging projects that he holds. Daniel Regans has created a photo series called 'typeb', that explores the idea of a borderline personality disorder which is distinguished through common mood instability, interpersonal relationships, self image behaviour. This disorder could lead to a range of dangerous and impulsive coping behaviours such as heavy drinking and self harm and Daniel spreads awareness of this topic visually through his photographs. Through this series, Regan has differentiated each piece with the same model where they perhaps each represent a different characteristic of the disorder.
In these pieces I have chosen, this duplicates a fragmented faced model with a lack of colour which personally I think is to portray the damage and draining of mental health, which has inspired me to follow the idea of fragments in my piece to show the damage done of bottling up your true emotions, as well as Regans lack of colour in these pieces that made me form the idea of adding black and white fragments.
Statement of intent
From my previous pieces of human fragility I’ve created, I have followed my chosen theme of appearance vs reality through the use of acrylic paint and I expressed this theme through a depiction of a portrait with a shattered effect inspired by Daniel Regan, alongside with the wide range of colours using acrylic where they each symbolise the stereotypical colours associated with emotion (red= angry, blue= sad, green= disgust, purple= fear, yellow= happy) where this idea was inspired by Idris khans significance of the colour blue in his pieces ,as well as the use of other colours that aren’t commonly associated with emotion . this is inspired by someone I know who has colour synaesthesia which has opened my eye and given me a realisation that their perspective of emotion colour is not like how the Stereotypical colours of emotion like how people think it is. This relates to appearance vs reality as I have portrayed the piece with large and small fragments where in the largest fragments, I have used the ordinary stereotypical colours as many viewers are more likely to pay attention to the larger segments of a piece, and in this case, it is the ordinary colours of emotion.
Lastly, some segments are in black and white to signify the outside appearance and the lack of colour symbolises how the outside is truly meaningless to how someone is feeling , which accentuates the idea of appearance vs reality as this can be established as the outside doesn't matter as someone doesn’t necessarily show their feelings through their face or body language as it is possible to conceal your true emotions and keep them within you, hence why the smaller segments are in multiple colours to resemble the true colours of someone and the finer details about that person. Overall, the message of this artwork is to tell the viewers that you may not know how someone is truly feeling even if you think you know and this message is enhanced through the smaller segments showing multiple colours that represent other emotions rather than the typical ones that everyone knows. The idea of the larger fragments coloured in the simple stereotypical colours of emotion is to exacerbate the fact that people will think that’s how you feel but they don’t pay attention to the smaller fragments will tells a whole different story of what someone truly feels and this is expressed by using the idea of someone’s emotion colour synaesthesia where other emotions such as anxiousness, nervousness and content are associated with more than one colour and acts as an aura. Which is why the cracks of the piece are highlighted with a contrasting range of colours to also highlight the true colours of someone.
This piece also links back to my mock piece I did last year and acts as a response towards it as both themes duplicate the theme of appearance vs reality, however in my last year's mock piece it appears to be less colourful compared to my recent one as it talks about the appearance vs reality of the celebrity world and how viewers only see what they want to show u but in reality a lot goes on in their mind and this is expressed through the highlighted eyes to show that the audience can only see a glimpse of a person and the eyes are highlighted to establish that eyes is the most powerful facial feature that holds and tell a lot of emotion and thought. My recent responds with the use of various colours associated with emotion to go in depth with how someone actually feels but the monocoloured fragments don’t represent the hidden side of someone but in this piece indicates the outside of a person and exacerbates how meaningless the outside it in comparison to the deep inside.
Development For further development, swiped a plate of aligned paint onto a photo copy of my human fragility piece to experiment with paint applications as well as utilising the idea of colour to emphasise the concept. This Is then developed more by compressing my piece onto fabric and is printed onto the material using heat. Continuing the development, I have also experimented further by splotching warm colours to create a conflict or war like imagery along with Paul Kentons technique of the continuous line aligning with the cracks of the glass as well as the eyes. This is to represent the mess of many types of emotions someone can go through in a dangerous situation that could heighten the adrenaline that is evident in the eyes, yet feeling overwhelmed from the amount they feel hence the deliberate mess of this piece.
For further paint application experimenting, I created this shows the thick layering of acrylic paint with the use of many colours that are slightly blended. This is to distinguish the many hidden layers of emotion that are then blended to portray the overwhelmingness of bottled-up emotion and since this is based on the concept of colour emotion, the blend of colours is almost like a visualization of how my synesthete perceives the overwhelming of emotions. Iam satisfied with the resulted texture, However, the colour choice could have been chosen better by using complimentary colours.
Aleksandr Neliubin. Aleksandr Neliubin is a Ukrainian artist specializing in painting the beauty of the city , landscapes, architecture of streets and the world we live in, that projects a positive effect on ones physical and emotional health based on his emotions and feelings. He creates a series of abstract paintings in his own time as a form of relaxation and art therapy to form not only a visual but also a sensory perception. This is created through the combination of materials and techniques such as layering with acrylic using the water colour technique and oil painting using a palette knife for the final stage, enabling various strokes and textures. In this piece, Neliubin illustrates the night scenery of the city life through the use of oil paints and is painted in a way that eliminates the defined lines and is perhaps applied with a palette knife in order to achieve the abstract effect. I like the way Neliubin sheerly divides the line from the reflection and the city itself by spearing parts of his painting at the bottom half of his piece which creates a subtle blur. I also like the significant contrast in the dark and extravagant colours to differentiate the gleaming city lights from the night sky. Normally in the city during the night, city lights are gleaming and reflects a glow in the night sky and I think that artist Neliubin has effectively replicated that imagery due to his blend of dark and bright colour palette. The combination of the blurred reflection as well as the abstractive application of the painting using the complementing colours creates a atmosphere of a rainy night in the city. I associate this atmosphere of a mood where someone takes a stroll through the city as a distraction from their problems and walking through the city is like a therapeutic method which can project to Neliubins statement of creating abstract paintings as a form of relaxation. This mood has inspired me to create my own cityscape paintings with the use of synaesthesia.
As a response piece for Artist Neliubins night city painting, I have attempted to use acrylic paint and brush it in a vertical direction repeatedly to replicate Neliubins blurred effect and layered it with a thicker later using a wider brush to depict the defined shapes of the building in order to differentiate the buildings from the background. However, in contrast to Neliubins piece, my piece is set in the day and the background is followed by my idea of colour emotion synesthesia which is evident through the blended background. Through the process of this piece, I have asked a synesthete to describe what they see when they feel many emotions at once while walking through the city for relaxation. They described that they usually see a coloured aura around objects depending on how they feel, if they feel many emotions at once the multiple objects will have different colours surrounding them. So from their description I have decided to attempt to portray what they may see in order to explain ones emotions. Iam satisfied with the colour choice as I think those colours used complement each other. However, it would be better if I painted my piece with less definition in order to match Neliubins style better, especially with the reflective side of the city scape, I feel like my piece does not differentiate the reflection and the skyline very well due to my lack of blending in this piece. So, in the future, I will be aware of my blending and blurring techniques to match a reflective imagery.
Philip Barlow Philip Barlow is a contemporary artist who specializes in his photorealistic oil paintings of an out of focus view by blurring the edges of geometric dots of highlights in combination with the indefinite surrounding subjects, flowing into one another to create a visual representation of a blurred perspective. The meaning through Barlows work is to remind the viewers of how even if we live in a damaged world full of doubt, he shows us his optimism to enlighten the viewers eyes in which it gives hope, through his works by simply illustrating a scenario that is rather prevalent.
In this piece, he duplicates what it seems to be a ordinary city scenario but is through a out of focus vision. This scenery is set in the night time in the city where usually city lights start to glow and reflect light onto surfaces. The bleed of colours makes it seem as if objects are multiplied almost as if it’s a double vision effect as the light reflections are circulating a merge of subjects together. I like the visual of this piece as the details are highly defined through Barlows excessive blend of oil paints in order to achieve a photo realistic approach. This shares a similarity with artist Neliubuns work as both artists portray cityscapes during the night in a abstract format. However, in relation to the theme of emotion through colour emotion synesthesia, Barlows blurred vision effect enhances more emotion compared to Neliubun as I feel like the bokeh effect can also signify the vision of ones teary eyed vision.
Artist Barlow has inspired me to create my own bokeh effect pieces through the use of acrylic paint and a variation of dark and light tones to achieve the photorealistic look of circles of confusion in a unfocused photograph. Iam satisfied with the way my colours blended together especially how my background bleeds into the circles of confusion. However, I feel as if the painting of the bokeh effect is misplaced in terms of how some are placed very close to each other along with huge gaps between the circles of confusion, which makes the bokeh effect less realistic as the circles are not spread out like how it would be normally.
After exploring Neliubin and Barlows style of abstraction, this has inspired me to create my own piece where I depict a city scape set in the night in order to have a colourful glow of light reflecting in the dark. The purpose of this depiction is to exacerbate the relaxation method of taking night strolls as a distraction from problems and emotions. Typically, emotions don’t just go away easily and they stay in your head for a while. Linking back to the idea of colour emotion synesthesia, I have attempted to portray my synesthetes vision of the colours they see around subjects when feeling too many emotions at once. So, in my piece I attempted to blend all the colours used, vertically as the background. The combination of the reflective night glow as well as the synesthete's vision intensifies the bleed of colours into the background.
Speaking of emotions, crying is a way to express ones emotions, so in this piece I have duplicated the bokeh effect to give a visual representation of teary eyed vision, and this results in a mixture of colours surrounding buildings as well as the bokeh effect where some circles have 2 colours mixed in together, placed in between the different subjects to give more of a bleed effect. The synesthete told me that seeing too many colours blending in with each other can cause headaches as it makes it hard to see what's going on with colours in the way. So typically, seeing all different colours at once while feeling so many different emotions can cause an overwhelming experience and the synesthete said their vision can be messy overall in this situation. So in my piece, I attempted to combine incompatible colours to replicate the confusion in this situation as well as it being fairly hard to identify.
Concept: Innocence and evil • Appearance vs reality of innocence and evil, portrait showing someone's innocence and beauty with the contrast of evil demon like skin. • Meaning: to show the viewers that someone could appear beautiful with an act of innocence however, there is always a undiscovered evil side which can lead to trickery. However this links to both previous pieces as the idea of pain is introduced through the idea of wounds filled with healing flowers to explain that evil usually comes from somewhere and in my piece it depicts that evil can come from past pain. In reality, the evil person is just someone who has been hurt and grew a villain arc to express pain.
Marcelo monreal Marcelo Monreal is a Brazillian artist who is known to have created portraits that have been digitally cut open the faces of pop culture, celebrities and supermodels that are motionless, to reveal extraordinary blooms underneath. This has inspired me to include the use of flowers in my piece with the idea of leaving open wounds of a motionless face in order for the viewers interpretations to vary.
From Monreals point of view, he feels like people hardly express who they really are but instead, they keep parts of their real selves concealed, which is in huge relation to my concept of evil being their real selves and is hidden in order to become sly with their innocence. This has inspired him to speak about this message through his collages and reveal the beauty that’s behind their appearance. However with my piece, I decided to oppose this idea as I took inspiration of Marcelos process of cutting wounds into the visage and a response to Marcelos work. replacing them with blooms. I also took inspiration from Cal redbacks photography as I wanted to express my piece in a more 3d format
Cal redback Cal redback is a French digital artist and photographer who is known for his enhanced skills in digital photography through the process of retouching and manipulating bodies and faces with photoshop and has formed a series of surreal compositions to duplicate the deforming and reformation of individuals with the natural world as a way to show his visual interpretation of ‘human nature’. His idea of the surreal photography series metaphorically explains and symbolises that man is part nature and is not a separate detail of the components of nature exacerbating the concept of human fragility through nature. This is inspired by the theory of evolution as theoretically speaking, the ancestors of all living organisms are plants and are full blooded relatives of mankind and representatives of the human race but has been evolved and forgotten about their presence to the modern living world.
In this piece, named ’herbraiser’, he portrays a individual mainly covered in the presence of almost deal flowers as well as the manipulation of rose horns growing out of the face. Redback decribed this work to be "There's a difference between somebody who wants you and somebody who would do anything to keep you. Remember that.” where I think in this piece, the flowers are the source of attraction in order for someone to “want” you, however, behind the flowers is a face of thorns perhaps elucidating the flaw behind the attraction which in a real life scenario, that someone would leave after seeing the glimpse of the flaws instead of doing something to keep ypu, which further exacerbates his statement of his work. This piece has inspired me to portray the imagery of evil as to me, the horns hatching out of the face looked like a unhuman creature with horns, almost like a features of a demon or devil and I have integrated this idea into my piece to support my idea of evil.
Statement of intent In my current working piece, Iam expressing the theme of appearance vs reality through the idea of evilness, by portraying a beautiful girl with a makeup brush against her face. However, her face is parted, and half of her face is covered with red scales. The red scales have significant meaning as it may appear to be looking like a red snake in contrast with the beautiful face. This is a reference to a Macbeth quote spoken by the character Lady Macbeth where she says, "look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it". Furthermore, the red scales could also symbolise the belief of the devil's appearance as the red is significant in the portrayal of hell as it is associated with darkness and flaming heat. The makeup brush is also significant in my piece, as it appears that concealer is being applied to the face to justify that her face is being concealed to hide the evil truth behind the beautiful lie. However, there are hole I’ve created with blooms blowing out of them. this idea was inspired by the artist; Marcelo Monreal. The holes in my piece represents wounds and this links back to my previous 2 pieces as they both express the pain that has been hidden, but in this case, blooms are exploding out of the wounds. However, these blooms aren’t just ordinary blooms. The flowers I have used are flowers known for healing whether it’s physical or mental. The reason for these flowers is to portray the healing process of past wounds that used to hurt a lot. And after every wound that heals, a character of a person can develop in both good and bad ways. In this piece, I illustrated a bad character development, which gives a reasoning to why someone turns evil.
In this piece Iam using acrylic paint to illustrate the ordinary human parts of the piece, on the other hand, I have created handmade flowers crafted with the use of icing sugar to represent how “sweet” the innocence can be to fool anyone. another purpose of my use of sugar icing flowers is to reinforce the fragility of the fake layer of innocence to highlight that the evil side can easily “break” through it which is in contrast to my previous works. The damaged sugar flowers also indicates the weak mentality and heath of someone who turned evil. The red scales are also crafted by icing which are dusted using black and burgundy dust to enhance the texture of the piece and to give a smoky appearance towards the piece. The use of sugar icing for the red scales are used to create texture and gives the piece a bit more of a 3d effect which is inspired by the artist Cal Redback to enhance the contrast between the acrylic paint of the beautiful woman and her evil side. This is to show that no matter how much to try to conceal your evilness with your innocence and beauty, your evil side would still pop out. The purpose of the snake like appearance is to imply the slyness of how the supposedly innocent people are sly with their actions to hide their evil side and using their innocent act as well as their beauty to get away with things. This also elucidates the topic of pretty privilege and how society bypasses peoples mistakes due To their physical beauty.
This piece gives a message of how evilness can come from past pain and how overtime this could affect someone’s mind set for them to make bad decisions, this could relate to lying, betrayal or revenge. The appearance and reality of this piece is that someone may appear beautiful and innocent like a flower, but they are the serpent underneath. The reason for that serpent underneath is due to the past pain signified in the wounds which are healing. I took inspiration of Monreals process of cutting wounds into the visage and replacing them with blooms. I also took inspiration from Cal redbacks photography as I wanted to express my piece in a more 3d format to add texture. Both of these artists follow the idea of the use of nature but for different intentions. Monreal used flowers in wounds to speak about how people don’t express their real selves and are hidden. redback used the idea of nature to express how human kind is still nature but is forgotten in this world, as well as expressing the difference between ‘someone who wants you and someone who would do anything to keep you’. Both of the artists concept relates to my concept of innocence and evil as Monreals expresses the concealing of true self which in relation to my piece is the demonic evil side being concealed with the imagery of the make up brush. however, Redbacks concept establishes the idea of flaws and whether someone would do anything to keep you despite the flaw. This relates to my piece as my work explains the flaw being concealed with innocence and beauty in order for someone to keep you and hides the true self.
Concept: Love and relationships and unhealthy addiction Appearance vs reality of love : a visualization of chemicals within the body when reacting to addictions of love Meaning: this concept is to break down the heavenly view of love that most people think it seems to be. In reality behind the thin bubble of the bright side, love can be hard and can be damaging in a way which can lead to unhealthy consequences. Most people desire to be loved and they usually think of the great romantic things when they think of love. However, in this concept I dive deeper into what can actually happen and how in reality, love can go wrong. It also refers to the quote: ”love is like a drug” where it gives u a nice sensation of happiness as well as the metaphorical side effects of addiction such as being attached and obsessed as well as the literal addiction of a drug which in this case is used to establish that drugs can be taken to relieve pain until u become addicted. But this can also refer to a scene where medical drugs are taken to heal.
Statement of intent For my theme of appearance vs reality, Iam following the concept of the how love and relationships could lead to unhealthy addiction and heartbreak. This is established through my photography of my organisation of setting a mix of some candy and medical drugs. The candy is to signify the sweetness and pretty side of love and relationships, however the idea of medical drugs embedded within the candy signifies how the unhealthy reality side of relationships that are barely seen. The use of medical drugs is to symbolise the unhealthy addiction in love and as a result, after a break up, you long for the presence of love back into your life again but you can’t get it back, therefore it turns into an addiction as you are so used to being in that relationship. Therefore, overtime this leads to some sort of mental illness and can be so bad that they have to take meds in order to get better. I have chosen candy such as “love hearts” and “Parmaviolets” as these sweets are in a powdery consistency which matches well with the use of pills in my image. However, the powdery consistency also looks very similar to illegal unhealthy drugs such as heroine, meth and cocaine. When you crush the “love hearts” it symbolises a literal meaning of your heart being crushed but metaphorically, this symbolises how heartbreak turns into unhealthy coping habits such as addiction to substances like drugs and alcohol. This imagery shows the audience of the appearance of a relationship as well as the hidden, dark reality. Through this piece, iam going to use acrylic paint in a section and portray in a realistic manner, however further down the piece, the realism starts to fade and it goes down to the whole piece and this will be duplicated through the use of melted wax to indicate the toxins taking over your mind and body. Lastly, in the bottom corner, ink will be used and patched in very awkward areas to signify the incompleteness of someone just after a breakup as their “other half” is suddenly no longer with them. The use of ink is also to show the fluidity of emotions, almost looking like tears streaming to accentuate the persons emotions that are occurring. The colour of the ink are going to be red and blue which contrast each other to merge into a purple shade to support my idea of appearance vs reality as purple is the significant colour associated with fear however the red and blue are associated with amber and sadness. This links back to my previous controlled tested work of emotion colour. The ink will also be layered by a continuous line to portray the instability of a relationship as well as to signify the persons mental unstableness due to the toxic love.
Through this piece, I will be experimenting with new mediums such as melted wax and ink to expand my use of mediums and to see which medium I’m suitable with. This will allow me to create developments using either one of the mediums to accentuate my ideas further and whether to use it for future concepts relating to my theme. Through my developments, I have photocopied 5 images where I move my original image around in the photocopier and this has resulted in my copies looking distorted and stretched which elucidates the persons vision and side effects of taking addictive drugs which supports my concept further as it illustrates a deeper meaning and a continued story from my final piece. Some copies are not coloured to symbolise the emptiness or lifelessness which is in contrast to the fully coloured developments to show the fulfilling side of love
Emma lindstrom Emma lindstrom is a Swedish artist where she pursues her theme of energy through her series of pour painting. Where she aims to portray the visualisation of the unseen creative energy that operates in the unknown but connects everyone together.
She claims that: “By letting go of any preconceptions and thought processes when I create, I allow myself to become a mediator of this life giving force. How it expresses itself in my work is however a very subjective matter. One viewer might see something resembling the universe as seen through a telescope, and another something that can be found in a lab, under a microscope. No matter what you see though, it’s more important what you feel. Because that feeling, I believe, is a response to the energy that radiates from the artwork, part of the same energy that flows through me when I create. What can be seen and felt in my artwork are ultimately just different expressions of the same thing, of the same creative energy, and it’s this connection I want to convey through my work.”
Lindstroms idea is based of her own perceptions in which in the theme of appearance vs reality, this expresses the way appearances of her works can create so many personal perspectives and can be turned into ones own reality
In this piece, Lindstrom has created a pour painting of what it seems to be the ocean or her depiction of the universe. Either way, her idea of energy is subjective and to me, looking at this painting makes me feel relaxed and relieved. Just looking at the fluidity of the piece brings a sense of peacefulness, perhaps through the use of a blue shade. Blue shades are typically known to be the calming colour that resets the energy to be nurturing when you look at it. Not only does the colour swift the serenity across the piece but also the pour paint is set in a ocean like depiction. For instance, some parts of the piece looks similar to ocean waves and the froth when waves are clashing. On the other hand, from another perspective, this could resemble the imagery of the galaxies in the universe due to the darker colours illustrated in this piece. Both the ocean and universe are usually the quieter locations where humans presence is limited, therefore the peacefulness in both locations is projected into Lindstroms painting. I like how this pour paint has turned out to appear like two tranquil places as pour painting is a free flowing medium and is not usually controlled by hand but instead sets itself in place once poured. Her idea of energy expressed in her pieces correlate to my idea of chemistry in the love and addiction concept and with her style of pour painting, this has inspired me to create some pour paintings with my own interpreted ideas of love and addiction.
This is my first attempt and experiment of doing a pour painting where I created my own pouring medium by mixing PVA glue and water to create a thin consistency and is further mixed with acrylic paint with a 1:1 ratio. I have also used a blow dryer in order for the paint to spread and even out the layers in paint to reveal the change in colour beneath the surface layer which is revealed in the form of cells. Cells are the holes formed in pour painting. I am satisfied with how the pour paint set after blowing the paint into different directions in which it created a appearance of a chemical explosion. However, my colour choice makes the piece difficult to identify as I used orange blue and green but the blue and orange were leaking into each other that created another shade of green and therefore this limited the colours shown visually. So next time, I will attempt to create pour paintings experimenting with other colour combinations to prevent the piece from looking like one colour.
Developments A continued development of pouring paint consisted of me experimenting with a range of colours and techniques, such as pouring different coloured paint through a circular cutter in order to get a gradual change of colour.
Developments continued For further development, I have explored the process of pouring paint where I mixed pva glue and water with acrylic paint in order to get a pourable medium. Through this process, I have attempted to use the imagery of my previous developments as a reference as in this piece I attempted to portray the mess and explosion of emotion as well as chemicals in and after a toxic relationship. The deliberate mess and jumble of colours is to duplicate ones state of mind and overwhelmingness of addictions.
Sarah graham Sarah Graham is a photorealist artist based in the UK known for her peculiar use of oil on canvas paintings to establish nostalgic and childlike fascinations by Combining vivid colours and realism but specializes in imagery of toys, sweets and adolescent subject matter to release a sense of sheer joy and nostalgia Her work is a brightly coloured depiction of still life, with childlike imagery such as toys and sweets to express her satisfaction of her significant passion of colour and within her pieces allows communication to the viewers, sharing that “elusive sense of sheer joy”. However, grahams work is not overfilled with deep meaning, but is personally meaningful to her as every painting mark and reflects her own personal journey. Her out going personality is reflected through art where she aims to allow engagement with the viewer to ignite their own memories and passions through her works. Sarah focuses on the portrayal of still life throughthe idea of sweets, wrappers and desserts that include a various range of colour. her choice of Sweets, cakes and desserts are flamboyant to make them appear more eye catching which allows graham to use oil paints io duplicate an extravagant blend of bight, radiant and intensity of colour as well as deepening the variety of light and dark colours to produce a bold luminous result,in order to fulfil her desire of portraying a rich piece of work that engages a sort of nostalgia to viewers. There is a lot of contrast and exposure creating almost white colours as well as through her extensive use of tints and shades to create a more realistic appeal. She tries to capture all details such as crinkles, creases and reflections in the wrappers in order to add texture to her paintings , enhancing the idea of photorealism that shes aiming for.
In response to Grahams work, I have taken my own photos of sweets and pills that I have layed out and used these photos as a reference to depict my own photo realistic paintings through the use of acrylic paint followed by Sarah Grahams idea of candy. However, I added a little twist in my own subject where I added medical pills camoflaged within the candy to emphasize my concept of the appearance vs reality of love and addiction. However, half way through the process of painting my piece, I concluded that if I leave most of the work incomplete, it would further elucidate my theme. The purpose of this idea visually explains feeling incomplete and empty after the loss of a loved one. The medical pills symbolise the healing process after the heartbreak and drug looking pills are chosen to represent the addiction for someone after being with them for so long, so for someone to just disapear, the human wants more of what they cant have and overtime this can turn into an addiction habit whether it’s the addiction to drugs or addicted to wanting something or someone they can have. This further proves the theme of appearance vs reality as the appearance of the piece is just a incomplete realism painting of sweets and pills but the empty areas explain the reality of a ending love and the incomplete feeling of being left by your significant other
I have developed my work by photocopying my unfinished piece and moving my piece while it was scanning in the copier in order to create a distorted imagery to represent ones vision as a result of drug side effects
In opposition to my statement of intent, In this controlled test, I have created a series of pour paintings where my focus has shifted between pour paintings and collages. Through the collages, the use of candy and pills, inspired by artist Sarah Graham, directly explains the appearance of relationships, as my choice of this particular “love hearts” candy include little sweet quotes to signify the sweet side of love. However, the pills are also camouflaged with another candy “tic tac”, to show the viewers the trickery of the sweet appearance vs the harmful reality through the idea of pills. Some students commented on my piece where most of them said “I just want to eat it” without realising the pills which further proves my point of the sweet trickery. Resin has also been glazed on the surface to emphasise the sweet but fake appearance as it acts as the rose tinted glasses that sugar coats the harmful reality. Resin is a medium that adds a nice gloss and usually gives the piece a clean finish. However, it is difficult to get rid of when unwanted and is stuck there. Resin is also toxic to breathe in. This metaphorically explains how easy it is to get “trapped” in a situation where you are brainwashed into seeing a false appearance through rose tinted glasses and makes it difficult to get out or get rid of the toxins in the relationship.
Overall, I think the collages was successful as the random and disorganised layout successfully camouflaged the toxic pills almost appearing as if it’s all just candy which further insinuates the meaning and message of the piece. Iam pleased with the idea of using candy, pills and the resin as they all went well together to contribute to the sweet appearance. However, to further develop my work, perhaps working on a larger scale or a installation could help to give a further meaning as well as risk to experiment with.
Continuing from my controlled test, this was in contrast to my statement of intent and I have chose to do pour paintings, which was inspired by artist Emma Lindstrom. The reason for the pour paint method was inspired by the thought of portraying the chemistry in relationships and addiction. This idea developed from my collage of love hearts which was inspired by artist Sarah Graham and the idea of the chemical portration came from the use of drugs in my collage and this acts as a development or a response piece, almost as if the series or works are telling a story to the viewers. The pour paint also shifts my focus from my previous work, going from realism to abstract to further emphasise my abilities in art and adds variation to my style of work. The extended time has enabled my creativity and allowed me to come up with new ideas in order to develop my work. This whole process of working with an abstract style required me taking risks and experimenting with different processes and materials. In relation to the choice of pour paint and my concept, another reason for the pour paint was due to the fluidity of the paint itself to represent the fluidity of emotions in a addictive relationship. Also, in the pour paint method, “cells” are likely to appear depending what other mediums are added and the process chosen, the use of cells help to elucidate the idea of chemicals flowing through the body as a result of addiction.
Colours such as pink and purple is also common to express the hopeless typical romantic colours seen where “love” is mentioned. However, unnatural colours spike with the pinks to establish the chemical, artificial colours to exacerbate the drugs being injected into ones body. Blue is generally and unnatural colour nature wise which strengthens the correlation of drugs and chemicals. Cells within the pour paintings are developed by the usage of silicone drops mixed in with the mixture of PVA glue and water with a 1:1 ratio of acrylic paint to achieve and enhance the idea of chemical reactions in the body after a drug consumption as well as the oxytocin chemical released when being in love.
During this controlled test, in the process of creating a piece, I have experimented and discovered different ways to create cells. One of the methods used is diluting dish soap with water and adding a few drops of silicone and mixing the liquids together in a spray bottle. Once mixed, spray onto the painting whilst its still wet and cells will form within minutes. Another way of creating cells is pouring the paint horizontally after each other until the canvas is filled and then using a thin card the same width as the canvas, scrape the paint down vertically in order for cells to form beneath the paints. However, despite the various ways of creating cells, I prefer my original method of mixing silicone drops in my paint as it achieved my desired look.
Colour choice is significant in this concept as they act as a code to break down the meanings of each piece. This is because visually, pour paintings are harder to interpret a meaning or that meanings can be very diverse depending on the person so the ideas of using colour significance eases the meaning as colour association can narrow down other meanings and focuses onto a few moods it can give off. For example, the significance of blue expresses the calmness and relaxation due to a consumption of a drug. This is layed out in a ocean like form with rocks on the side to enhance the peacefulness. Clear rocks are included to remind the viewer that they are also similar to the imagery of the crystal meth drug. This is stained with yellow and blue resin to visualise the chemicals leaked in the body in order for a moment of peace and relaxation after relationship grief. In addition to the story told by this series, this is visually explaining the after effect of consuming a drug,where the person falls unconscious however drugs can make a human to feel very relaxed and in another reality.
Furthermore for my controlled test, I took a step further and used two colours as the base as well as including store bought crystals to resemble the drug of crystal meth. This imagery as a whole represents the chemicals leaking out the crystals to give a visual representation of the overtaking of leaked chemicals from the drug, diluting the purity of ones body which is shown through the colours intertwining with the division of the black and white base. White generally signifies purity and black usually signifies poison or toxins in a chemical case so the idea of the colours spreading into one another breaks the barrier of the healthy and toxins within this piece. This visually explains the continuation of the series, telling a story or process after the drug usage after a horrible break up and the want for love.
However, some aspects of my pour painting were unsuccessful as they failed due to large amounts of paint being applied to one area which made some of my pieces look uneven or they ended up cracking. Another unsuccessful deed was that my paint and other mediums mixed with it were at an uneven ratio, this has resulted in my pour paint being too watery which went through the canvas making the details of the pour paint less visible. On the other hand, with many attempts and practices, in the meantime my pieces turned out successful, from being evenly layered, finding ways to create my desired cells as well as my extravagant colour choice to exacerbate the meanings that each piece has.
This collage has developed into another collage where the same idea of pills and candy were used. However, to develop it further, the use of pour paint with rose tinted colours and cells emphasize the dreamy idea of A relationship. But the cells are visible to signify the chemical reaction of oxytocin being released in order for someone to feel delighted. Finally, words from a particular chosen song strengthens the idea of hopeless romantics in rose tinted glasses and gives the piece a clear and straightforward meaning through the use of lyrics.
Furthermore, I have also created another collage explaining the reality of some relationships. In this piece, Iam establishing a toxic relationship where I select song lyrics talking about an abusive relationship. I feel as if song lyrics are a direct way to express ones feelings due to the use of words which explains a story without a visual representation. However, I think that a combination of meaningful song lyrics that tell a story, with a visual representation of what it is further accentuates the scene, almost as if its live or a live enactment
Developments
Through my developments of the distorted image of my photograph, I have explored a unusual clumsy style through the use of indian ink, where my cartridge was on stand instead of flat to allow the drippy effects of the ink to create a natural fluidic effect in oppose to sarah grahams style. The purpose of the drippy effects is to represent the flow of emotions that someone goes through during a heartbreak as well as the fluidity movement representing tears streaming. Speaking of heartbreak, the piece itself appears to look like a clumsy mess of a imagery of the actual heart organ diagram though it is a reference of my distorted photograph of the candy and medicine., the bright red can signify oxygenated blood and the blue can signify deoxygenated. However, another interpretation of the ink is the colour choice where I have used red to support the idea of blood as it links to health, on the other hand the blue represents the unhealthy chemicals that a drug contains and lastly the black ink is to symbolise the poison that goes into your bloodstream after consuming the drug. Therefore, this piece acts as a response to my other works based on love and unhealthy addictions. With all three colours sloppily mixing in with each other, it creates the actual shade of venous blood which opposes the blue portrayed in scientific diagrams.
Altogether, this piece appears to be like chemicals blended with each other however metaphorically this represents the "chemistry" within two people and the black poison gets in the way which turns everything into a toxic mess. I have also used tissues to soak up the accidental spillage of black ink on the table and from there, I came up with an idea of intertwining 3 strands of black tissue to form a braid. The purpose of this braid is to depict a 3rd party intertwining the relationship and as a result, it intoxicates the relationship and poisons the chemistry hence the black colour. The black poison in general could generally represent a third party in the piece itself considering that it is what darkens the mood in the piece. this could also act as a response piece to Innes's black square as I associated the colour black with evil energy. The reason for the binded tissues is so that they can act as bandages to soak up all the pain. It seems as if though most of the poison is soaked up yet its still there. Also, in scientific terms, tissue can also be related to the heart organ as well as the oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. Lastly, added in Paul Kenton's style of the continuous line with the use of a black and white fine liner to reinforce the mess in the piece in order to fully enhance the chaotic disruption of one stuck in intoxicated love. The undefine lines outlining the shapes could symbolise the instability of ones mental and physical health when being in a toxic situation. The continuous line with the white liner on the darker parts of the piece on the other hand explains that there is still light even in the darkest moments and is a glimpse of hope within the piece.
For further development, I reused the same process of the dripping ink but smeared hand sanitiser before applying the ink to separate the inks in order to prevent he colours from bleeding into each other and as a result, this gave the piece a abstract effect and almost resembles poisoned veins (reference to my first controlled test) in the heart. The purpose of the use of hand sanitiser signifies the toxic ingredients within the drugs or the toxicity in a relationship, on the other hand, it could also represent the purity that was once there but is now ruined by the toxins The developments of these pieces also relate to my theme and concept as overall, each piece is a visual and deeper insight of the chemical reactivity of cells as well as the literal human subconscious reaction.
Final development For a final development, I have used the same collage method, inspired by artist Sarah Graham, through the use of candy, pills and resin to cover a mirror frame with the collage. Though artist Sarah Graham works are inspired by childlike deeds and nostalgic aspects, in relation to appearance vs reality, my frame represents the naivety of a child which can be compared to how people can see toxic relationships just as naive as a child can through rose tinted glasses hence the pink dyed resin glossed all over. On the other hand, I have used a mirror that was inspired by Daniele Buettis mirror works to elucidate the idea of reality through my piece.
Mirrors are also mythically called portals in a spiritual practice called 'Feng Shui' and is a portal for spirits and ghosts to come through in a common chinese belief. In this case, this mirror acts as a portal to reality, escaping the nostalgic nature, as it reflects yourself and you are your own reality. This can also be perceived as a portal to freedom, leaving the sugar coated toxicity behind, creating new beginnings. The mirrors in my pieces are layered, where the surface layer is smashed to symbolise how broken the reality is. Generally, being in contact with shattered glass or mirrors can cause physical pain as the edges can cut. This is to further explain the pain that reality can give to one. Although the physical pain hurts, the pain is temporary but the pain that your false narrative can give is mental pain that can cause trauma. However, the message of this piece is to tell the viewers to get their head out of a false appearance known to be a toxic relationship. Some may not see the toxicity through the rose tinted vision you made yourself so Staying into the false appearance can cause mental pain in the long term. Although reality may be difficult to accept and is harsh, its better to know the truth than stay trapped in your own pretty lies. Through out all my works of the love and addiction concept, this piece acts as the ending story of a toxic love cycle.