I am currently creating my final peice, which shall we say, is rather tedious. I have come across many different ideas over the past 4 weeks, finally bringing them together to hopefully create what I can see in my head.
The Artists I am taking insperation from are:
- Robert Mapplethorpe - for his ability to really grab the attention of the onlooking audience, through means of shock and disturbance. I came to the conclusion that this method is the strongest of all and provokes a serious reaction.
- Barbara Kruger - For her stab at the heart type word play, its amazing how upfront she can be even on a metaphoric level.
- Andy Warhol - For his unpolished, rough, vibrant style.
You will notice in my images I am not going for perfection, far from it in fact. This art must represent my soul in some manner, and as it is corrupt as everything is on this planet, nothing should be perfect.
Heres a few images from things ive worked on:
This image came from when I was depicting myself in a more Cartoonish type manner. Ive been experimenting with the construction of lines on my face, which build up the anatomy to become recognisably me. I decided upon a photograph, which I had sketched (look in my previous post about self sketches) and kept working from it as I felt the angle of my face with the given expression gave a lot of heart about my character. Although somewhat cliche, observe how im surrounded by darkness, with the light being pinpointed on my face. This represents how ive felt vunerable in the past, how ive been put on the spot many times and how ive faced many other difficulties in life, such as epilepsy. The red stands for blood, where the shading would be. This shows how even though I am my own blood, I dont understand it. The use of the blue in my hair is saying, who really are we? Why are our visual identities as they are? Can you tell who I am from something else? This is just a mask of questioning such ethics.
This image represents how I am hidden inside myself, to find me you must get close to me first to see within. I wasnt actually finished with this image but for some reason I felt inclined not to work any further. The rough, messy finish also helping to portray this identity clash: the person people think I am, or expect I am, is what they expect from themselfs. I am constantly shrouded by ongoing perceptions of myself, just like every other human being. Therefore, do we truely know our identities? Its a very messy subject indeed. I for certain am not clear about who I am at all.
This image is truely taking a leaf out of Robert Mapplethorpes book, I aimed to shock my audience. In fact, theres clear insperation from Barbara Kruger as well via the text. Although on first glance, someone may think "Chris is suicidal!", thats not what the message is at all. Im trying to depict the image that to know yourself you must look inside, not be ashamed of who you are. Notice how the barrel of the gun aiming at my head symbolises how precious life is, how were only flesh and blood at the end of the day and we dont live forever. This is also shown through the blood around my eyes. I appear to be looking away from the Gun, almost ashamed, somewhat intimidated. Time is of the essance if we want to learn about ourselfs, so just as the image depicts you've got to dare yourself to look inside... Again this image isnt to be perfected, its still got rough edges which show how unless we actually bother to observe ourselfs properly we will never be complete.
This image was purely just playing around with metaphoric concepts to describe identity. I was going to recreate this image, but I felt it was somewhat weak and there wasnt much else I could do for it. The images meaning however is rather strong, purposfully inflicting horror and disturbance towards the onlooking audience. You will notice the text around my face is worded as if the alien is speaking to me. The text depicts the message of "who am I?", making my character appear lost and uncertain about my mortality. In a sense, the word Alien means unknown, therefore the whole image is simply a paradox of itself. The Alien, is actually me, on a quest to find oneself.
In my task to understand the structure of my face for my portrait, ive produced many sketches and a few paintings of myself. Ive used different styles to depict my image, from Charactures to two tone posteration. I felt I needed to do this because my final peice relies strongly on the lines that structure my face, so becoming familiar with them is important. Notice to capture the lines efficiently ive used a thick brush for the above painting.
AND HERE IT IS! Im working on my tedious, time consuming final peice.
It is built up of words used to describe me, which is also contrasted with my reactions to the opinions. I even put in random text from "of the moment" thinking, thus making this image feel far more alive and a part of me than any of the other concepts. It will have some colour to it when completed, with other text based layers following different themes to my questioning of identity.
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