Untitled

Above is my final piece in conclusion to my project ‘The Surreal Vessel’. I have titled the piece ‘Untitled’ as I want the viewer to add there own meaning toi the piece, amost titling it themselves. I also think this makes the piece more thoughprovoking and less mentally distracting for the viewer. I am very pleased with the final result of my painting and believe my choice of colours for the skin tone makes the piece particularly strong and interesting to the viewer.I believe that this piece achieves as I set out to push the viewers perceptions and get them involved in my work asking themselves questions.

Initial Painting

I decided to do a painting which draws all of my idea together for this project, this will also help me collate ideas for a final piece, hopefully improving upon the ideas in this painting. I took a reference photograph to paint from of my own face, I wanted the canvas to be primarily taken up by the portrait as I want the facial features to be prominent. Once the painting was done I took a scalpel and cut and ripped the area around the eyes letting the canvas hang down the painting.

 

I then added the fake flowers to the piece by taping them in to bouquets and poking them through the holes I created. I now only have the wax to add to this piece before it is completely finished.

Development from Collage Work

I took inspiration from my last collage and decided to turn it in to a painting. I took some reference photographs and then painted a portrait with the mouth replaced with an eye. I like how this plays around with a persons senses and may also make some people feel uncomfortable, I want to be able to provoke a reaction in my viewers pushing their perceptions of y work.

I believe this painting has been very successful, I really like how the eye stands out because of the bright colours compared to the rest of the painting.

Work Influenced by Surrealism

Whilst investigating surrealism I looked at the artist Man Ray and his piece ‘Le Violin d’Ingres’ in which he juxtaposes the image of a female nude with a violin. I really liked this idea of making the body into an inanimate object and so decided to investigate this further. I came across the artist Fran Herbello who creates similar work to Man Ray’s piece and cleverly juxtaposes the body and skin with objects in his photography. After researching his work and also reading in to ‘The Book of Skin’ I came up with an idea for a painting. I decided to juxtapose the feet with a pair of leather boots.

I am very pleased with the outcome of this painting, I feel the two subjects work well together and definitely pushes the perceptions of the viewer. I decided to continue work in this area, juxtaposing objects with body parts, and my next idea was to paint an arm and a piece of wood. I liked the idea of combining natural objects with the body as I feel they flow well together.

I am again pleased with how this painting has turned out, however I feel the first painting may be more succesful in terms of the execution of the painting. This painting is more successful though in the scale, it is much larger than my first painting and I like how this gets the viewer involved in the painting more. I also like the combination of the body with nature and would like to explore this further.

Distortion Paintings

I wanted to start adding colour to my work and chose to do so through paint. I first created a painting inspired by a different one of my line drawings using watercolours. I was pleased with the result and liked how the colour worked with piece but felt like acrylic may be more successful. I also preferred the composition from my pencil drawing and so decided to go back to this for an experiment in acrylic paint.

My acrylic painting is much more successful than my watercolour. I love how the colour brings the piece to life and how i have added a background to give the piece more atmosphere. I also really like the elongated scale of the piece, I have made the legs even more distorted in this piece and am very pleased with the effect this has had.

 

Reverse Gravity – Final Piece

After deciding to move on from my bird paintings I came up with the idea of reverse gravity and took some new photos to inform this theme. I hung upside down and captured gravity working on me .

 

My idea was to paint a portrait I would any other, the only difference being that gravity was playing a part on some parts of me in the wrong direction. My hair flowing upwards and my necklace also undergoing this reverse pull; I want this to challenge the viewers perceptions and make them question what is going on. After drawing up some concept sketches I was confident this was what I wanted to pursue and so I began a large scale a1 painting. Below is it in progress.

 

I am very pleased with the final result which is shown below.

Defying Gravity – Acrylic Paintings

I started exploring my figures more and coming up with ideas of how exactly they could be defying gravity. My first acrylic painting idea was to paint my figure against a background of stars. I chose to use acrylics and to paint on a larger scale as I thought this would make it possible to make my painting seem more realistic. Although it is not quite as realistic as I would like it to be it certainly a step in the right direction from my illustrative watercolours.

I then came up with the idea of having one of my figures help up by birds with string. This painting turned out a lot more successful than the first, I think this is because the background was less of a distraction from the focal point of the painting, the figure. I also liked how the birds add another level to my theme of gravity; because in reality it would not be possible but it makes the observer question this. I chose to use birds as it makes the painting more relatable to the person viewing my work. Also, I researched that blackbirds symbolise the energy of Mother Nature which is what I am trying to ‘defy’ and so this adds a juxtaposition to my work.

Progress on Art and Science Project

 

So after my oil painting workshop went so successfully I decided to explore this imagery further, I found some macro photography of the iris which inspired this painting above, I am very pleased with outcome.