STAGE 1

Initially, I was really clueless as to how to approach this project. I was a methodologically result-oriented person, so this project was a huge challenge to me, as we were limited to finding images on the web. That posed as a huge hurdle for me, as I couldn’t recreate the exact imagery I had in mind.

Furthermore, I could not settle on a quote as I did not want to limit myself to selected quotes in case the end-result compositions turned out badly.

But due to the project timeline, I had to march on ahead and come out with compositions. So my initial approach was to list out quotes from my favourites movies, choose a few, and try to make compositions out of them.

Here are the results:

“I’ve mastered three!” – Hugo, 2011

“In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.” – The Great Gatsby, 2013

“Dear Diary: My teen angst bullshit now has a body count.” – Heathers, 1988

However, after consultation with Joy, I realised I had been approaching the project wrongly. I misunderstood and thought that I could not use literal imagery to illustrate the quotes. That resulted in an artist block, as the quotes I had chosen were very poetic, and thus, when thinking of the end composition, it was unavoidable to have some sort of literal imagery.

Therefore, to avoid literal imagery, all my compositions turned out disjointed from one another, and were just a mish-mash of images put together, not properly integrated into a design.

In reality, all this project aimed for was to have an overall theme in all our compositions. This was to help us build a style and visual vocabulary that was unique and identifiable as ours. It was like having our visual filter placed over our chosen quotes.

Thus, with that takeaway, I proceed into the second stage of my explorations into trying to create a filter to see things through.

STAGE 2

After reviewing the list of quotes I had, I realised there was a primary theme of sex and death. So I decided to make my designs based on sexual imagery with a tinge of morbidity, to highlight the sexualization and romanticisation of death.

“Fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Teresa?” – Heathers, 1988

The first composition I attempted, I use the pomegranate as a symbol of the vagina, and the background landscape to form the female anatomy. This resulted in a rather subtly graphic and vulgar design of a female impaled on a cross. (The perspective is one from the bottom of the female body)

“We’ll be forgotten. We’re machines for the processing of desires.” – Helter Skelter, 2012

While in this second composition, I increased the contrast of the female anatomy to make it look more abstract and blend in with the rest of the landscape in the background. I lengthen the neck and jaw of the female so it became a phallic imagery impaling a pomegranate, that the “female subject” seemingly wears like a halo. While, the gas pump was to represent the machinery image, and at the same time emphasise the sexual connotation of the image.

With these two compositions in hand, I headed to the second consultation, and silk-printing workshop, which I will be covering in a second process post. Head there to read up more on my collage-printmaking journey!