Project 2: Nursery Rhymes

This project is inspired by the idea of surrealism being put into my representation of nursery rhymes. I’ve decided to do each line based off different nursery rhymes to give more variety to the work instead of telling a story. I’ve also chosen the lines to be less of an action but more of a statement because it gives me more room and ways to make it as surreal as it can be with that particular line.


The Final Pieces

 

1) Three men in a tub

Nursery Rhyme 1

2) The cat and the fiddle

Nursery Rhyme 2

3) Jack and Jill went up the hill

Nursery Rhyme 3

4) I’m a little teapot, short and stout Nursery Rhyme 4


Artist References


1) Rene Magritte

René Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist best known for his witty and thought-provoking images and his use of simple graphics and everyday imagery.

Son of man  Rene Magritte 2  Rene Magritte

2) Salvador Dali

Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dalí’s expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.

   

3) Jacek Yerka

Jacek Yerka (born. Jacek Kowalski in 1952) is a Polish surrealist painter from Toruń. Yerka’s work has been exhibited in Poland, Germany, Monaco, France, and the United States, and may be found in the museums of Poland.

  

4) Vladimir Kush

Vladimir Kush (born 1965) is a Russian born surrealist painter and sculptor. He studied at the Surikov Moscow Art Institute, and after several years working as an artist in Moscow, his native city, he emigrated to the United States, eventually establishing his own gallery on the island of Maui in Hawaii. His oil paintings are also sold as giclée prints which contributed to his popularity and led to the establishment of further galleries in Laguna Beach, California and Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2011 Kush won the First Prize in Painting at the Artistes du Monde international exhibition in Cannes.

  

These artists have inspired me to create a sense of illusion through everyday objects and making it into something that has a totally different meaning. Each artists has his own style and way of manipulating these images to make it realistic.


Development


1) Three men in a tub

Nursery Rhyme 1 (DRAFT 1)                    Nursery Rhyme 1 (DRAFT 2) Nursery Rhyme 1 (DRAFT 3)                    Nursery Rhyme 1 (DRAFT 4)

2) The cat and the fiddle

Nursery Rhyme 2 (DRAFT 1)                    Nursery Rhyme 2 (DRAFT 2) Nursery Rhyme 2 (Draft 3)_                    Nursery Rhyme 2 (Draft 4)_

3) Jack and Jill went up the hill

Nursery Rhyme 3 (Draft 1)                    Nursery Rhyme 3 (Draft 2) Nursery Rhyme 3 (Draft 3)                    Nursery Rhyme 3 (Draft 4)

4) I’m a little teapot, short and stout

Nursery Rhyme 4 (DRAFT 1)                    Nursery Rhyme 4 (DRAFT 2) Nursery Rhyme 4 (DRAFT 3)                    Nursery Rhyme 4 (DRAFT 4)

 

Impossibilities Of Being

The Concept

My photo series is built upon the idea of ‘Limitless Possibilities’. The main inspiration behind this photo series is the idea of giving life to inanimate objects and how it interacts with the real world.
My 3 key transformations are teleporting to different places, origami and finally lego.

For the first set, ‘Teleportation through different places’, I was inspired by how it is always a hassle having to travel from one place to another. In the Singapore context, I can imagine the frustration for someone to be travelling from the east to the west every single day just to get to school, especially if it involves early mornings. The process can be very tiring and time wasting. Therefore, I imagine myself having the ability to teleport to different places and giving me this superpower to manipulate space and be wherever I want to be with a blink of an eye.

Next, the introduction of origami in the next part of the series is inspired by how we can be manipulated to become anyone or anything for a day, just to have a little taste of what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes. Basically, the idea of morphing and giving life to inanimate objects allows me to better understand this object and how it interacts with the world around us.

Lastly, the introduction of lego inspired me of how if we had the ability to create something, out of anything without any form of boundaries. As compared to the real world now, there is no cash involved and you have the free inventory of materials to create anything you want based off of your imagination.

The stop motion style helps me to animate inanimate objects to become real and alive and is seen to be moving on its own. I created the sequence in such a way that the whole 3 key transformation is interconnected in the same world and its not 3 separate ideas altogether.

Artist References

This video is by MICHAELHICKOXFilms.

I’m a really big fan and collector of Lego so I watch a lot of little Lego stop motion videos that inspired me to use it for my video. I love how smooth the movement of the characters in the video and how their shots have a sense of focus to the main character.

Another great example of the use of stop motion is by a Youtube User called PESfilm. He uses everyday objects that people tend to overlook and use it to his advantage by adding in to represent another object. I like how he is so creative in his work and how this video itself is enough to represent what stop-motion is really all about.

 

Final Photoset

In this photo series, I start out sleeping in my room as the camera zooms in my head to reveal my imagination. My imagination takes me on a journey of me teleporting from a public transport, to different places, where I end up at park. I revealed a bunch of scrunched up coloured paper from my pocket and it forms to become a origami butterflies. The butterflies fly away as I release them. One butterfly ends up sinking into a pond which then turned into a whale breaching above a bunch of Lego creatures doing a whale watch in a boat. The Lego boat docks on an island which reveals a house, which contains a guy lying on a wooden bed. The camera zooms in to the Lego head to reveal back to me sleeping on my own bed.

Reflections

Overall, I had a really interesting experience making this whole project come to life. At first glance, it may seem like a lot of work for me to do considering the amount of time given to complete this project. However, as I slowly touch on each individual part, the whole sequence became much clearer for me and I was able to piece out the whole sequence with ease. I’ve also learnt a few camera composition techniques and how each composition can achieve different effects for the audience.

Project 1: Lines

Lines as expressions

Final Product 

Picture1Picture 2

Picture 3Picture 4


Top 3 Picks


 

Systematic

Picture 2-2

A minimalist approach towards getting different thickness and ink with simple lines. Systematic don’t always have to be complicated, but the simplicity of it all is what makes it unique for me.


 

Turbulent

Picture 2-3

Turbulent reminds me of choppy waves, and how the sea can be a really rough place for people on ships. I replicated the idea of choppy waves in the sea, giving a sense of turbulent, like a ship in a storm.


 

Psychotic

Picture 2-4

The expression, psychotic, meant a disturbed state of mine characterized by restlessness, illusions and incoherence. I mixed black and white ink for this piece to give a sense of illusion, unable to determine what is right and what is wrong, and having lots of negativity and hatred towards something.


 

Experimentations and research

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Picture 006

Picture 008

Picture 007