Lucy Archer

B.Wurtz

My favourite part of Wurtz’s exhibition was the cooking trays he painted on with bright colours. He incorporated the pattern of the trays to add to the aesthetic of the pieces. He takes everyday objects most people throw away, and turns them into pieces of art. Another piece I liked, Wurtz had taken a stick of wood, attached wires to it which hung down, then he attached individual slides from a film reel to string and tied it to the wire. The shots showed photos from a fashion catwalk. I’m not sure what Wurtz intended for this; however to me, as this sculpture looked much like a calming willow tree, perhaps he wanted to show his daytime job in a positive light despite it not being his true passion. As an experiment, I will attempt to do something similar and create something out of an everyday item or thing. For my first trial, I used glue to make a figure shape on a plastic sheet. Both items are not traditional forms of surface or media.

Mariam Pare

Due to a spina cord injury, Pare paints by holding the paintbrush in her mouth. Despite this, she manages to produce amazing pieces of work, which appear to be mostly figurative. The boldness and colourful expression of her work shows her attempts to capture her passion for painting. One of my favourite pieces by Pare is ‘Lady in Blue’ which is painted in acrylic. The figure itself has been painted rather subtly, with the facial expressions also being minimal. To me, the use of the blue tones in this painting makes this woman look very spiritual, as if she is a ghost or angel of some kind. Another painting I like called ‘My Pascal’ shows a man smoking, with what appears to be a figure dancing in the smoke. This inspired me to experiment with the idea of creating a figure out of smoke. Pare’s method of painting has prompted me to experiment with the way I paint. As my main focus is figurative, perhaps I could think about myself as a figure and how I could change the way I hold a paintbrush.

Adam Martinakis

Martinakis experiments in computer graphics, digital sculpture and animation. I have never felt drawn to experiment with digital media; however, I still find it rather enjoyable as an art form. His work seems to be mainly figurative; however they are shown in an unconventional way. For example, ‘2boys’, appears to show two figures hugging, but by doing this, they have started to morph into each other. The textures Martinakis uses makes it seem the figures are made from water, therefore the flowing nature of water is shown in this piece as the figures are flowing in and around each other. A piece that I really like is called ‘Outside the frame’. It shows a figure with its hands and feet pinned inside a frame, with the rest of its body trying to pull free. I feel this can show how restraining conventions can be, and how much freedom you can have when you don’t stick to those conventions. There are several pieces of his artwork that relate to what I’m planning to do in my project.

Bill Viola

Viola is a video and installation artist. His work appears to be very emotionally charged, with subjects which investigate the fundamental human experience, such as life, death, love and spirituality. He explores the effects of the human condition, showing the audience through his work that people can be strong, fragile, and that we can have impulses which can unite us. Viola has been very important in the establishment of video as a major form of contemporary art. I especially enjoy his pieces involving water. Despite looking they are drawing/dying, due to the nature of the water, it feels rather clam, even though it is at the time of death. However, due to this, it could also show the acceptance of death.

Emil Alzamora

Alzamora uses a wide range of materials to create unexpected interpretations of the sculpted human figure. He often distorts, elongates, deconstructs or encases his forms to reveal an emotional or physical situation or to tell a story. Alzamora has a keen interest in the physical properties of his materials. What Alzamora does with sculpture, I wish to pursue in painting and drawing, showing the human form but in an abnormal manor. One of his sculptures I especially like, is of a torso and head, however another head pulling away from the central head. To me, this seems like a physical representation of split personality disorder, 2 spirits fighting over the same body. The types of metal he uses leaves his sculptures with either a silver, brass, black or white colour. I think by leaving them these colours it makes the sculpture quite alien-like, aiding with the abnormality he wishes to show in these figures; but also by leaving them all-over, one of these colours, he’s making the sculptures have a simplistic feel to them, they are humans, that are all they are.

Pablo Picasso

Picasso is most well-known for his input to the Cubism movement. However, I wasn’t aware that he had done some printmaking. I am going to focus on his lino cuts as I find that the most interesting kind of printmaking, which is why it is the majority of my ART190 portfolio. He created his first lino cuts in 1958. Working with lino allowed him to work much faster compared to engraving a wood block. He would often have several coloured layers to his lino prints; however, instead of doing a reduction print, he would create a separate piece of lino, printed in succession. In later years, he became more economical by inventing the reduction print. The most interesting painting by Picasso, I think, is Guernica 1937. It is a painting of the first civilian bombing in war, when Hitler used JU87 precision bombers to flatten Guernica. This painting is definitely his most powerful political statement; it shows the sufferings war can cause, especially to innocent civilians. By not using colour, it intensifies the drama. The massive size of this painting (11ft x 25.6ft) would likely make any viewer feel very small, perhaps to increase the impact of this piece, to truly show the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. How Picasso links to my work is through his abnormal portrayal of the human figure. ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ 1907 for example, Picasso throws away all known form and representation of traditional art. This painting challenges expectations that art will offer idealistic representation of female beauty by using distorted and geometric forms. I feel like Picasso had the same ideologies towards beauty in art as I do, it isn’t an essential part of painting. Often, when a figure is a bit different.

Salvador Dali

Dali is a famous surrealist painter. The thing I really like about Dali is his willingness to break down conventions in painting and his creative imagination seems to have no limits. Dali’s paintings appear to be associated with 3 general themes, man’s universe and sensations, sexual symbolism and ideographic imagery. There aren’t just 1 or several pieces of Dali’s work that has inspired me; it is his methodology and ideology during his surrealism period. I like that a painting could be literally be anything, no matter how mad it is. I used this when it came to painting figures, exploring what could be possible.

Willem De Kooning

De Kooning is one of the most celebrated abstract expressionists. His paintings show a gestural style of the movement. Despite establishing his reputation with abstract pictures, he still felt a pull towards traditional subjects, mostly female figures. Later in life, he turned to landscapes. De Kooning was strongly against naming art movements as that gave it too much restriction. He was influenced by the Cubism of Picasso, and he became a master at ambiguously blending figure and ground in his paintings while dismembering, re-assembling and distorting his figures in the process. I really enjoy abstract expressionism; however the one negative thing I could say is that there is no subject matter, it’s just colour. I think this is why I really like De Kooning’s work, because it is messy and abstract but he is also working with the human form.

Miss Van

Vanessa Alice Bensiman, more commonly known as Miss Van, is a famous contemporary artist. Her figures mainly seem like surrealist art, often inspired by pin-up girls. Often, these figures are covered in tattoos, and have some sort of animal aspect about them. These ‘abnormal’ pin-up girls link to my project due to their animal-like characteristics, however I am also interested in tattoo art. Miss Van’s work is very popular inspiration for some tattoo artists such as Jessi Lawson and Sarah Spins. I was inspired by some tattoo art to make lino cuts and several other pieces of work, focusing on the abnormal.

Herbert Baglione

I find this street artist’s project called ‘1000 Shadows’ very interesting. These ghostly shadows are painted in an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Parma, Italy. Baglione has painted his silhouettes all over the world in abandoned buildings, foreclosed homes and empty offices. His shadows tell stories of the souls who once inhabited these spaces. This project partly links to mine due to the ghostly abnormal figures. The way they are painted, to me, it seems like they are lost, trapped even, attempting to move around the space but finding no ways to escape. I find this evaluation especially applies to the psychiatric hospital, because it’s like the people’s minds are trapped there.