Greene-ware 2020 Year 12 Charlotte P Project

IA2 Project Phase 2

ARTSIST STATEMENT

My focus for the body of work is studying how people perceive juxtaposition in aesthetic visuals and linking imagery to the perception of the unknown and fragmented, as my inquiry question asks, “How does the audience’s personal experiences and perspectives reflect the way they view the artwork?”

Humans are known for their view on the unknown, which most would find strange or terrifying. By creating a fusion of different flora and fauna, a bridge of understanding what is seen and what is perceived is developed. I hope to trigger the primal “Something is off” response in the brain of the audience as they view something that does not familiarize itself in the mind. This can be considered Cognitive Dissonance, which challenges conflicting thoughts and emotions. By looking at Simply Psychology, this mainly produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviours to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.

I plan to create a contrast between elements/principals and visuals. To further explore the range of fragmenting expectations, I used a deck of fifteen different playing cards around the house to discover unique ways to incorporate this technique.

RESOLVED WORK: We as a human civilisation tend to create interpretations through media and perceptions. My collection of miniature paintings uses horror as well as rococo and renaissance elements to portray contrasting magnitudes and volumes of what is truly viewed as horror in beauty and visual portrayals. My collection of gouache paintings are individual designs on fifteen playing cards that are intended to develop a connection of flora/fauna.

The touch of gold and cream coloured background serves as a stylistic decision to make the body of art seem like a object you would find at an antique store, portraying a more ancient and primordial atmosphere. The eerily sense within this collection is valued, as the intention for the audience is to be from mentally confused to being discomforted by the visual set in place.

On the Flip Side 13 panels Gouache and acrylic on cards

RESOLVED WORK:

On the Flip Side 13 panels Gouache and acrylic on cards

RESOLVED WORK:

On the Flip Side 13 panels Gouache and acrylic on cards

RESOLVED WORK:

On the Flip Side 13 panels Gouache and acrylic on cards

RESEARCHING:

DEVELOPING:

Research influencing my central context:

Personal context – inspired by the film ‘Annihilation’ and how they portrayed elements of beauty and aesthetics using colour and concept design of animals and plants in a horror movie.

An artist by the name of Nunzio Paci was well-known for creating visual uneasiness, developing a practice which is concerned with scientific and environmental issues with particular emphasis on anatomy and the man-made relationship. The main paintings that he constructs are anatomically accurate renderings in medium such as oil and graphite.

My focus of technique comes from the Rococo period of art, studying horror within a renaissance process. I chose this art technique because I thought it would be great to incorporate the chosen medium and style into the artwork and transform the audience’s perspective on the presentation.

REFLECTING:

“Ivy that dreams of running far” By Nunzio Paci

My visual understanding creates a fractured identity of the cards, showing different layouts of ideas while focusing on the flora/fauna. Each card design shows a completely different manifestation but still concludes to creating a uneasy and uncomfortable atmosphere.

The purpose of the art works was to develop a contrasting juxtaposition viewpoint using cognitive dissonance. The constant repetition within the cards of flowers and skulls show a deeper meaning to death and mutation, as we celebrate it with bright and soft aesthetic pastel colours to be a modification of life, whether negative or positive.

My original planning for the cards was to have 15 cards in total (so there would be an even number of groups of cards such as a queen, king, jack, ace and joker), but I thought it would create more mystery to have only 1 joker, which would make the cards to be a deck of 13.

“Let me rest between brome and stones” (2019) By Nunzio Paci

Some of the cards have paintings that are displayed in symmetrical patterns ( like being a centre piece), while others exhibit a profound and are more of a show-presentation. While the front of the cards are all unique, I had chosen to make the back of the cards identical with a dark blue background and golden outline, representing the original format of a deck of playing cards.

Mutated deer scene from ‘Annihilation’

REFLECTING: One of my experiments consisted of a watercolour piece of a bright orange octopus in a bed of pink cherry blossom flowers, since I thought a creature normally found in a oceanic atmosphere would be confusing in a bed of flowers.

However, I figured that the use of watercolour didn’t link to the inquiry question well, as the hue of colours was too vibrant to match the chosen technique of Rococo.

I painted this while experimenting my use of gouache, capturing the highlight and shadows while utilizing blocks of colour to do this. For this experiment, I decided to paint a realistic portrayal of a rabbit, since my focus was on the relations of animals.

Since my art piece included variations of tones and texture using colours, I felt like gouache proceeded to make the design on each card stand out with a washed-out, milky, neutral colour scheme. I later used this creation of the experiment in one of the card illustrations.

This experiment, however, was used in the final art piece because the outcome of it was a success., along with 12 other card designs.

It was a study of using gouache on an actual card canvas, which was my 2nd idea for this task while my 1st was to paint a singular large interpretation of a card on a normal 18” x 24” canvas.

DEVELOPING: I first selected 30 cards from an old deck that I found in my house, and then decided to paint them with about 5 layers of white acrylic paint. I then separated them in half, so I could have one group’s purpose to displaying the front designs and the other displaying the back.

For the front design, I had used a cream yellowcoloured acrylic paint for the initial background. This was because I found that a great way that I can subtly portray uncomfortable elements into beauty was to develop an origin/story with these cards. For this project, I decided that they could have been found at an old antique shop, creating dust and grime as they age.

For each of them, I wanted to have a border/frame around the cards like ones that you would find on a classic deck of cards.

I didn’t use suits in the cards because they would have to have been separated into larger groups, so I just developed 5 groups of 3 while claiming them as being either a King, Queen, Ace, Jack of Joker. However, I changed this to be 4 groups of 3 cards (being the King, Queen, Ace and Jack) and one singular card are the Joker. This is supposed to further create mystery and “fog” the perspective of the audience.

Repeated themes and patterns can be found in each of the resolved paintings, such as the significance of natural elements like flowers and petals, which links back to my focus.

As I said before, I’m very fond of creating shadows and highlights by only using blocks of colour.

This can be seen in this specific card, as the blues and whites blend together by only using elongated brush strokes.

By stylizing the Rococo technique onto my art project, I used a maximum of four colour palettes for each card.

With gouache, I have found that the medium is waterbased so it can easily blend together and create layers of colour and texture within the focused design.

The intention for the back of the card was heavily inspired by this picture that had already originated from a card deck. I incorporated this idea to further enhance the prospect of developing confusion in the audience. I had only used gold paint for the details and dark blue paint for the background.

Using gold acrylic paint, I first created an abstracted form of an eye in the central subject, with one long line coming from the centre of both the top and the bottom eye lids and two smaller lines on the outskirts of the eye.

The next stage of this design was to create a fractured border only along the short edges of my cards. Then, structure two identical branch-like illustrations on either side of the eye.

RESEARCHING: Nunzio Paci’s artworks such as “Ivy that dreams of running far” and “Blueberry chicken that thinks about tomorrow” display horrific details and was a recurring influence while in the developing stage of my artwork. They both combine juxtaposing traits that create a sense of confusion and a uncomfortable thought process in the audience, depicting various high and low lighting as well as visual representation of the metaphor depicting brutality and mutation using natural elements. I was very fond of his works and how he created his pieces.

This vintage playing card of a mirrored skeleton illustration developed by Mike Willcox has also inspired me with multiple characteristics in my art project, as it shows a vintage-olden day layout using neutral flat colours.

Skeleton Card by MineWillcox

Nunzio Paci’s artworks helped me explore visual characteristics and metaphors through the use of cognitive dissonance in multiple adaptations in my final painting series.

Jacqueline Scotcher was another abstract artist who used mediums such as acrylic and pastel chalks to develop investigations involving landscapes. By doing this, she uses layers of different paint to create a dream-like environment that has the capacity to reveal deeper understandings of her surroundings.

I used this technique to further study my understanding in my paintings.

“Bleuberry Chicken that thinks about tomorrow” and “Ivy that dreams of running far” By Nunzio Paci

Jacqueline Scotcher’s painting

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE:

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE:

SUPPORTING EVIDENCE:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ebert, G., 2020.Wildlife, Fruit, And Vines Merge In Surreal Paintings By Nunzio Paci. [online] Colossal. Available at: <https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/01/nunzio-paci-surreal-paintings/> [Accessed 25 March 2020].

Jacquelinescotcher.com. 2020.Jacqueline Scotcher| _Artist. [online] Available at: <http://jacquelinescotcher.com/> [Accessed 17 March 2020].

Jacqueline Scotcher| The Cairns Institute Research in Tropical Societies. 2020.Jacqueline Scotcher| The Cairns Institute Research In Tropical Societies. [online] Available at: <https://www.cairnsinstitute.jcu.edu.au/jacquelinescotcher/> [Accessed 13 February 2020].

Available, W. and Upcoming, _., 2020.Biography. [online] Nunziopaci.it. Available at: <https://www.nunziopaci.it/p/bio.html> [Accessed 7 February 2020].

Galeriestephanie.com. 2020. Nunzio Paciâ&#x20AC;˘ Galerie Stephanie. [online] Available at: <http://galeriestephanie.com/artists/nunzio-paci/> [Accessed 22 March 2020].