Artist Research Part 1

Sara Richard

Richard is an illustrator who likes to paint strange juxtapositions and creating a visual image to things that cannot be seen in the real world, especially the wind. Her work is incredibly detailed, and somehow is quite colourful but neutral at the same time. All the women depicted in her work, Wonder Woman for example, all appear to be strong and powerful, giving perhaps a political context, speaking on the topic of feminism. A prominent theme throughout Richard’s illustrations seems to the mystical and mythical, and she brings them into contemporary culture by also referring to Disney films inspired by myth in her work. In my illustrative tattoo designs, I attempt to add a vast amount of detail to the drawing, to bring the mythical into the real world, making the unseen seen.

Odilon Redon

His works concern the world of dreams, fantasy, and the imagination. He first became famous for his noirs series, monochromatic compositions that exploit the expressive and suggestive powers of the colour black. His lithographs, which often reworked earlier drawings, became a means to broaden his audience, as well as to explore in series specific themes or literary texts - he was particularly drawn to the Romantic and Symbolist works of Poe, Flaubert, and Mallarmé. Later, Redon began to slowly adopt a more colourful palette, so that his pastels and oil paintings are riotous with colour, linking it to my own practice, which predominately consists of very graphic and colourful painted works. His lithographs and noirs in particular were admired by the Symbolist writers of the day but also by later Surrealists for their often bizarre and fantastical subjects, many of which combine scientific observation and visionary imagination. I feel that myth is a very attractive theme to surrealists due to the subject matter. The nature of surrealism is to paint what you see, not what is actually there, it’s a very dream-focused movement. Mythology is stories, which were perhaps once someone’s truth and what they saw in the world, or what they wanted the world to be.

Sandro Botticelli

Botticelli is perhaps one of the most famous of the renaissance painters, well-known for his mythological interest. He combined a decorative use of line with the classical tradition, which can be seen in the composition of his figures. They are usually portrayed as melancholy but thoughtful. A new mythological language became current, inspired partly by Classical literature and sculpture and by descriptions of lost ancient paintings and partly by the Renaissance search for the full physical realization of the ideal human figure. Botticelli first began painting the mythical when those would request a martial painting for newlyweds, romanticising mythical stories seemed very appropriate, idealistic for the new married couple. The figures certainly do not enact a known myth but rather are used allegorically to illustrate various aspects of love. When discussing myth, despite not being relevant to contemporary or modern art, it’s important to mention the Renaissance painters, as they began the idea of the idealistic form through mythology. Perhaps even the importance of aesthetics in our modern western culture was derived from these unobtainable goals set by the Renaissance painters such as Botticelli.