POINT OF VIEW

stage – Michael Jackson – Nietzsche – urban dwellings – passenger – astronaut

Final work

Space from the point of view of a performer is a stage.

To a performer, the stage is a special and holy place kept close to the heart. To a true performer, any kind of space can be a stage for them to perform and create wonderful works. After all, isn’t all the world’s a stage?

Space from the point of view of Michael Jackson is a walk (in the park).

This is a double pun that I’m kinda proud of keke – the walk refers to the Moonwalk (hence the fedora on the moon) and it’s a walk in the park for Michael Jackson as dancing the moonwalk (and controlling the space) is so easy for him.

While doing this I learnt how fedoras are surprisingly hard to paint.

Space from the point of view of Nietzsche is The Void.

This work draws from the philosophies of Nietzsche, and his famous line, “And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” I wanted to try to create a visceral horror effect as the eye surfaces from the black void, hence the white lines to simulate goo.

Space from the point of view of urban dwellings is a luxury.

This was one of the compositions that I struggled with, but I eventually settled with this after the very helpful group critique! I wanted to created the feeling of cramped quarters, but also wanted to continue with my visual concept of images suspended in space (hah) so I decided to restrict the buildings to the middle. There are painted buildings camouflaged within the composition too, as physical space isn’t the only thing that is a rarity in an urban space.

Space from the point of view of a passenger is impossible!

I got inspiration from always being squashed in the mrt hhahaha. It doesn’t help that I’m short, which makes carving out my own breathing space even harder. For this piece, I decided to portray the idea of “sardines in a can” to evoke meaning of the idiom visually, instead of directly portraying people. Hopefully this makes it more interesting!

Space from the point of view of an astronaut is exploration.

This was the easiest composition for me, and the first one finalised. It’s a more literal reading of the word space, but I decided to add a traditional oil lamp instead of just showing the astronaut hanging as I wanted to give the figure a sense of purpose, and to evoke the feeling of searching in the dark.

Process/concept

Unfortunately I don’t have many photos of the process (read: almost none ;_;) as I tend to bury myself in my work when I’m working and forget about everything else…

But here are some detail shots that I have!

These were a bitch to cut out.

For all of the compositions, I incorporated some form of photographic elements but I decided to go with a physical collage rather than a digital one (like my previous project) so I could add more illustration to it.

Fishies sitting in the can.

I also wanted to use traditional collage as I wanted to create a layering effect for the images and thus make it look more real and tangible, by the different paper thickness.

This also helps my images to pop up but just a little more so they looked more three dimensional and less flat, kinda like a pop up book.

All the photos/illustrations were stuck on with blu tack as well instead of glue as I felt that glue would stick everything together too well and not let them pop up as much.

Initial composition for Nietzsche

Final composition for Nietzsche

I decided to change my composition for Nietzsche as well, substituting the drawn iris for the photo one as I wanted to maintain the consistency in using photographs in all my images, and I felt that the photo iris was more descriptive and gives a better contrast with the drawn lines in the composition.

Reflections

Personally it was very satisfying to me how this turned out;  I really liked the visual direction that this project took (unlike the previous project which left me very dissatisfied) and I got to return to traditional mediums like watercolour which I liked and was more familiar with.

I also got to try out traditional collage which I must say I really enjoyed, maybe even more than digital collage (not that I still don’t love digital collage)! It was a little tedious at times, but I like the tactile nature of it and the kind of depth that it lends to my works. I will try to experiment more in that area in the future 🙂