Blog #4

Part 1: Rough Draft of Artist Statement

I have decided to continue with the big idea of Uncertainty. I feel like there are plenty more themes and topics that relate to uncertainty and can be further explored. Right now, I am really drawn to the idea of Age and Uncertainty. Maybe I could do a project on the Age of Uncertainty. I think that the age of a person can obviously play a huge part in their life and the direction they are headed. On the surface, the theme I would like to explore for my final project may not seem clearly related to uncertainty or even my past exploration of being lost and fearful. However, I think that if the ideas are given more thought, the connections can really become apparent. As for the visual strategy, I would love to continue with the seemingly bold and simplistic style. I want to create something that isn't cluttered, but contains certain levels of complexity. That might be contradictory though, because age can be a messy subject and is a pretty confusing concept to come to terms with. If I can find a way to portray that conflict in a concise way, that would be ideal. Maybe I could explore how people think they know who they are and how their age affects them but then study the conflict they are feeling inside about it all. I honestly am not sure what context the work could be used. Maybe it could just be a picture in a self help book for people who are completely confused about their life. The caption underneath could say, "Does this picture sort of describe how you are feeling right now?" That's kind of ridiculous though.

Part 2: Three visuals/material that have influenced your work for the final

Gabriel Orozco is one contemporary artist who I find inspiring. I think his work is a perfect example of something that appears overly simplistic, but really took a lot of time and effort. In some cases his work is really too simplistic, but there is always a lot of substantial thought behind what he does.

You might not know this by looking at it, but, Orozco cut this car, and put it back together and reconstructed it in a physical and mechanical way!

 Horses Running Endlessly, 1995. This piece is metaphorical for life, and it represents "thinking between the big picture and the big scale," according to Orozco

Black Kites, 1997. This is graphite on a skull! It took Orozco 6 months. He was analyzing, "How we perceive volume and tri-dimensionality, and in the end, how we perceive truth, through filters of light and dark."

I know this is sort of unhelpful but I was unable to find a link to a very interesting article I read by Gabriel Orozco, co written by Susan Collins. It really explains his work and ideas in more depth.

Another artist that I am inspired by is Trenton Hancock. His work, shown above, is not really simplistic. In fact, it is very busy. However, I really admire this artist's originality and creativity. if anything, i hope to implement the same whimsical quality he has in his artwork. I also find a lot of his work to be strange and unnerving, which can relate to age and uncertainty. There's more explanation of this artist at this link. http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/hancock/

Finally, a third artist that I ended up turning to was Francis Bacon. What really drew me to this painter was his exploration of human faces. I find the way he distorts these portraits very interesting. Especially when you pair the idea with uncertainty. I think the Bacon's work shows a side of torment to people being unsure of their own identity or age.

Part 3:  One new photoshop technique that will hopefully be incorporated into final

I found a lot of really amazing techniques on worth1000.com. One of which was making people look much older or much younger, which I think would be appropriate in a project concerning age.

http://www.worth1000.com/contests/26346/fountain-of-age-15

But I don't know if I want to limit myself to only learning that technique. I'm almost positive I'll end up changing my mind.

Quiz 4

These are the two movie posters I studied for my quiz, both great movies, but very different in pretty much all aspects. Hopefully, I was successful in my attempt to make Mean Girls look like a guy pick in the picture below.

It was an interesting experience to compare and contrast the movie posters for Mean Girls and Inception. Analyzing the various elements in both posters opened my eyes to the fact that most movies in the same genre really do set up their advertising very similarly. Chick flicks really use bright colors and happy or humorous pictures while action films go for darker images and hues. To begin with, it is very easy to find contrasting qualities between Mean Girls and Inception. The films are vastly different, from the aspect of target audience all the way to film content.  The poster for Mean Girls is very feminine, the background and text are various hues of purple. All the people on the poster are young adult females, and they are all very well dressed and pretty. There is no background content, leaving you to focus primarily on these girls and what they look like and how they are dressed. The girls in the background are all dressed similarly in pastel pinks, which are typically pleasing to the female eye, or at least associated with girls. The main character, Lindsay Lohan, is larger and dressed more boldly, but still looks clean and perfect. The lettering in this poster is also very playful and girly, large in some places, small in others. The alignment of the movie title with the main character’s body is very interesting and accentuates the separation between Lindsay Lohan and the clique of girls to the right. In general the poster is bright, colorful, and playful in tone. So, when you look at the Inception poster there are stark contrasts evident. To begin with, the overall hue of the poster is very dark with an eerie blue. There background image is very busy and important, the maze city is the primary setting of the film and where the action and adventure takes place. I feel that it gives a vibe of action and intensity to the poster. There is a lot going on with perspective in this poster, it really keeps your eye moving, as opposed to the stationary qualities in the Mean Girls poster. The text on the Inception poster is very simple and spaced out. It is smaller and less accentuated than the text in the Mean Girls poster. All minor text on the poster is white, but the title is in a bold red, with larger font than the rest. I notice that the text information on the Inception poster is very centered and blocked in, reading left to right, top to bottom. However, the text on the Mean Girls poster is used as a way to make your eye move on the poster in strange directions. The characters on the Inception poster are different from the ones on the Mean Girls poster since they are not impeccably dressed and polished. There is a rugged feel to them; some of them are even holding weapons. Their clothing is also very monochromatic and dark. A comparison I have noticed between the two posters is the composition of the people. In both posters, the main character is larger than the others and your eye in drawn to them first. There is also a clear spacing between the characters in both posters. The Inception poster lays everyone out in a nice consistent way, a tactic that seems to be used in most action movie posters. The Mean Girls poster uses’ spacing in a similar way, but it is grouped three to one. The facial expressions are surprisingly similar on both the posters, very pensive and serious. However, the rest of the information provided in the separate advertisements lead the viewer to different assumptions about why the expressions look the way they do. Basically, the Mean Girls poster lends itself to the “chick flick” label the second you look at it. The Inception poster however, attracts the male eye with its dark and manly qualities, and a setting of mysterious adventure.

Midterm Artist Statement

To begin with, my big idea is Uncertainty.  From the start, my concern was that this big idea would be too broad, since it can be interpreted in various ways. However, in the end, I feel like that actually was a huge help throughout the entire creating process. While brainstorming I was focusing on the vast amount of themes that tie in with uncertainty.  I gathered pictures representing religion, relationships, identity, life choices, and so on. My modulating meaning project presented the challenge of finding connections between my images and arranging them in a creative and equally thought provoking manner. The end result turned out to be a bit overwhelming with information, and in some ways, I even felt it was too obvious. I looked back to one of the very first artists I researched towards the start of the quarter, Vija Celmins, and her philosophy of making people find the significance in something simple in her artwork. I decided to implement this idea in my final midterm project. I looked more closely at the themes I was building off of in Blog #2, confusion, being lost, perplexed, and questioning. Of all of these, I truly identified with the theme of being lost. I was able to find incredible inspiration in the images off flickr.com relating to this subject, as well. Reflecting on how uncertainty and being lost go together then led me to the theme of fear. So these themes, being lost and fearful, are the two I specifically address in the final diptych project. After those two themes are grasped, I feel that the rest of the ideas associated with uncertainty, such as identity and confusion become easier to discover within the work.

      Finding other artists who focus on uncertainty as a big idea proved to be challenging, however, I did discover Martin Creed, a man of many talents, who uses uncertainty as a theme in the majority of his pieces. There was a certain quality of Creed’s work that I was drawn to; a sort of minimalism and bold style that I thought was useful in getting his ideas across. So again, I used that as inspiration in my own work. My project is meant to be seen as a diptych, but also works simply as a series. I was very liberal with my use of the brightness/contrast tool in Photoshop, giving both sides of my diptych a bright, washed out look. This was to give the piece an eerie vibe, lending itself to the theme of fear. Both parts of the work also have a blurred quality, to in general make the viewer feel unsettled and a bit uncomfortable. At first glance, there is not a lot of visual information going on in the diptych, as I was relying on the simplicity to help make a bold statement in the piece.  One half of my midterm was the combined faces of a grown woman, and a very young boy. I was hoping that the merging of these two images would be haunting. The facial expression is also very apprehensive and discontent. In both eyes, which are wide and unsettled, there are images of dark figures in long endless passages. This is to emphasize the idea of being lost and uncertain about what is ahead. The other half of the diptych uses an escalator and train tracks as a metaphor for paths in life. I purposefully made the image of the escalator blurred and hard to focus on, suggesting that it is hard to concentrate on one path in life and it is easy to lose your direction. This is why there is also an image of train tracks going straight into the escalator. There are two hikers placed right at a crossroads, deciding whether to continue on the train tracks or going up the escalator. So, they are also uncertain and being faced with pressing decisions. At the top of the escalator there is a dark image, but I made it very blurred and difficult to focus on. Ultimately, it is just a shadow that hardly resembles a physical being at all, and is simply ominous. This could be symbolic in various different ways. The image could represent that there is always something, or someone, waiting at the end of a difficult path, whether that be spiritual or human. It could be even be interpreted as an unsafe or foreboding image and push the idea of fear further. In general, the brightness and sterile quality of both sides of the diptych come across as bold and simple, but when you really look at them you can see the different themes and complexities at play.

     The reason I picked the big idea of uncertainty is because of how much I can identify with it in my life right now. In many ways I feel that uncertainty, and all the underlying themes that come along with it, are what drive my life currently. I feel torn between the person I am and the person I was to be. I am not saying I am deciding between being a grown woman or a little boy, but I suppose that is an artistic way to get that point across. I am fearful of the future and, since I am a control freak, I hate not knowing what it holds. But, I have found that it is impossible to get a good grasp or focus on, and no matter what, things are changing. When it comes to being lost, I am a professional. I literally do not know what direction to go with my life, between deciding a major and career that follows and all the other responsibilities that come along with my impending doom called adulthood. Studying and developing an artistic project based on uncertainty was significant to me because I was hoping to find some answers. I may not have exactly reached that goal, but this was a fantastic way to release some frustration about my life right now.

BLOG #3

The first artist I researched was Martin Creed. There were many different things that interested me in Creed's work, however I was really drawn to him because of the variety of his work. According to his website, "In recent years Creed has worked on music, dance, writing, sculpture and painting: pieces ranging from compositions for symphony orchestra and music for elevators to architectural commissions, public monuments and dance and performances which combine classical ballet with talk, music, film and animation." I also chose to look at Creed's work because he focuses on uncertainty as a theme at times in his work, which is my big idea. The website explains, "His laconic and ironic art is always puzzling and makes us question what the author meant. ‘I feel that people may interpret my work as they like it. I don’t think I should explain anything to them,’ says the artist." and, "Creed’s work is all-encompassing and seems to seek both to reassure and to confound expectations: ‘Trying to do what you want to do, trying to be free and trying not to do what other people want you to do. If you can do that, it’s amazing,' says Creed."

I think that I find the minimalism of Creed's work most intriguing. He works with the readymade style sometimes and takes regular objects and makes them art in his own way. I also just like the simplicity and bold style of his painting pieces.

When it comes to my final project, I think I will use the same approach as Creed when it comes to the questions I ask before and as I create my work. I also may try to implement Creed's bold and simple style.

 Work no. 1109, 2011, Martin Creed
Work no. 1098, 2001 Martin Creed

This piece above is from an exhibition called "Numbers" showed November 4-December 5, 2020 by Martin Creed
http://www.mmoma.ru/en/exhibitions/petrovka/martin_krid_chisla/
http://www.hauserwirth.com/exhibitions/812/martin-creed-mothers/view/

What I really like about Steven Peters is that he was not a digital artist to begin with, but a musician. I am having a hard time grasping whether or not Peters has a big idea. Honestly I feel like he creates just for the enjoyment of it. But I feel like there might be some meaning behind this statement I found on his website, "Doing something creative for this charity event was the catalyst which started me on my journey towards creating more original artwork, which share a bold palette of colors, merging eclectic styles of art with photography and digital artistry with a whimsical re-design of nature." I find the playfulness of his work to be interesting, and his pieces remind me a lot of advertisements. He says on his website that he is often inspired by the scenery in his home state of Florida, but I don't see that influence in some of his other images, so I do question his inspiration in his other pieces. I am hoping to really channel some of Peter's creativity and fun in my final project. I also think it is a good idea to look to my surroundings for inspiration! Unfortunately, the work of Steven Peter's that I found to be the most interesting wasn't easy to obtain legally, so these are some of his other pieces that portray his fun colorful style that resembles advertising to me. Also, I love "Clueberries & Dreams." I think I would maybe like to implement that style of having something focused and strong and the background kind of be crazy like that.

 Daisy World - Steven Peters

 Clueberries & Dreams - Steven Peters

Kaleidescope Man - Steven Peters

http://www.stevenpetersart.com/index.html

Responding to Brainstorming

ART ED 252
KNOCHEL

REVIEWING & RESPONDING TO THE VISUAL BRAINSTORMING

Write a 100-150 word description of your Big Idea. Include the following in this short
passage:
1. Clearly state what your Big Idea is
2. Provide relevant connected issues and concerns in relation to the Big Idea
3. Discuss visual themes in your Visual Brainstorming assignment and the
relationship they have with the Big Idea
4. Provide an explanation for the significance of this Big Idea to you. Why did you
choose this Big Idea?

My Big Idea is Uncertainty. I think some relevant connected issues and concerns in relation to my Big Idea, would be things like being lost, questioning your surroundings and life in general, looking at aspects of religion, and just being unsure of what the next step in your life is going to be and how it will affect you in the long run. In my brainstorming assignment I started out with images of long winding roads, halls, or paths, some have people wandering on them, some don't, to sort of portray that aspect of either being lost, or just searching for something. I think the roads and paths are sort of metaphorical for our "roads and path in life" as well. I also found some images of stair cases and rail road tracks to represent that complex repetition of following a certain path, if that makes sense. I tried to find a good range of human faces, all wearing concerned or confused expressions. I also found some images of road signs and maps to further explore the idea of being lost r finding the right direction in life or just literally. I put in a few images of churches to represent that religion is tied in with uncertainty a lot as well. This Big idea is significant to me being I feel really uncertain in my life right now. I am scared to be growing up and I hate how much responsibilities are piling up in my life, I don't enjoy my job too much, well I like one of them, but not the other. I also am uncertain of what I should do with my life, if art education is the right major for me or if I wouldn't be good at it. I could seriously go on for hours about all the things I am uncertain about right now and it's really driving me crazy (that's just a figure of speech though). So, I feel like I can connect with this Big Idea, my only concern is that it's too broad and no one else will  grasp it.