Project 03: Ego – Final Artworks

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1 ) Lack of time + Returning to reality = Reluctance

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As we grow older, we are caught up with many issues. There are so many things that we want to accomplish but yet so little time to work with. Snapping out of the worries about not having enough time, we return to reality, realising that work still have to be done. The time spent thinking about non-productive issues are just time wasted. Yet again, part of us are still dwelling in the mindset of having the lack of time. Hence, reluctance to return to reality.


2 ) Composed + Traffic Jam = Rage

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Undergone months of vigorous training of Officership, the best takeaway is that we learned to be composed in difficult situations, to be able to plan ahead and being responsible for the roles that we hold. However, old habits die hard. In times of traffic jam, I tend to be impatient and often lose my temper.


3 ) Materialism + Questioning Existence = Overthinking

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As we grow older, we feel inclined to buy things that look good and branding that speaks for statuses. We become vain and materialistic. On the spiritual side, we wonder, why are we brought to this world, what are we supposed to accomplish in this lifetime, what happens when we die, do we go to heaven or wander on earth, what good does all these mortal measurements do to us? These questions made me overthink of being true to oneself, on being productive and working towards a goal that I have always dreamed of achieving.


4 ) Drowning in assignments + Wanderlust = Tranquility

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In this semester, we were introduced to multiple assignments and were overwhelmed by it. Personally, I feel that time management is the answer to it. In a new environment (University), to balance Work, Social and Sleep is difficult, thus I chose to sacrifice sleep and a bit of social. In the midst of working on assignments, I often drift away reminiscing the times when I travel around SE Asia. Those days were worries-free, able to talk about life and explore new places, gaining new experiences in activities that I have never tried before. These thoughts calmed me down, giving me peace and the motivation to succeed in life, in order to retire early and travel again.


Referenced artists

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This is a screenshot that I took during my process, working on the second version of the final artwork. The images on the sides are referenced photos.

I particularly fancy the low poly art and Andy Worhol’s painting. I took the images from Pinterest, thus, not being able to find out most of the artists’ names.

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Andy Worhol’s Self Portrait. I like how he used the highlights of his face as a negative space and using colours to portray the mood. This work reminds me of our second project – Forrest Gump, using threshold images for silkscreen printing.

cubism

Rene Magritte’s cubism painting. I tried to explore different art styles, tracing back through the different periods of art movement. In this painting, he used very minimal details, shapes and colours to push the character out from the background, yet, seems like he is one with the background.

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Here’s a tutorial on Low Poly Portrait. It took painstaking long hours to create a low poly art portrait with great details. In my opinion, you should understand the structure of the head or face in Figure Drawing and head topology in 3D Modelling, as it will help you to see where are the contours, highlights and reference points of the head. I have always liked low poly art, it looks 3D but is made of flat planes using Illustrator. It is clean yet rigid.

surreal-portrait

I could not find the artist’s name for this image. I like how the face is interlaced with the same image, disfiguring the face itself. It gives a feeling of being lost in time or loss of identity. Hence, I referenced this in one of my works.

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I like how the artist removed her face from the body, but has a painting of herself hanging on the wall (inferred from the white shirt). I gives a feeling of one being there, yet not being there. The play of presence inspired me to use this technique in one of my works.

Project 03: Ego – Concept

The following is the moodboard for my approach towards Ego. It consists of artwork references and colour scripts for different settings.

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The moodboard for Self is to allow me to pick out certain designs that will work for portraying personality.
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The moodboard for setting is to show the approach of how colour can change the mood of the environment.

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The outcome is a bend of double exposure and digital paintings. I find the composition interesting where there is environment in the character itself.

Project 02: Forrest Gump – Selected Artworks

Movie quotes from: Alice in Wonderland

Design 01

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I tried to play with scale for this design as it relates very closely to the story and film itself. Showing Alice in a smaller scale than the mushrooms is of a different perception of how viewers will expect to see a girl watering plants. This will allow them to draw more attention to the artwork.


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The swords in this artwork represents fight, war, superiority, overcoming fears. The white and black chess pieces represents the good and evil sides in the world. The sword is also the significant item in the movie that played the evil counterpart. In this artwork, I focused more on contrast and shapes.


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This artwork mainly uses implied lines to direct the viewer’s eyes to deliver the message. The direction that the girl is looking, leads to the signboards, which then revolves around the artwork.


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This is another version of the same quote, mainly focusing on the words used. By replacing the girl’s legs with tentacles, the idea of movement is brought up. Displaying the tentacles in a messy fashion, the direction of where the girl wants to go is unclear. Hence, bringing across the message.


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By using Gestalt, I can show collages of different objects that were shown in the animated film inside a card pyramid, which represents the card soldiers in the film.

Project 02 – Forrest Gump process

The movie that I chose my quotes from is Alice in Wonderland.

Design 01: I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then

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Design 02: I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since thendesign01b


Design 03: Alice, you cannot live your life to please others. The choice must be yours, because when you step out to face that creature, you will step out alone.

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Design 04: Alice, you cannot live your life to please others. The choice must be yours, because when you step out to face that creature, you will step out alone.design02b


Design 05: Where should I go? That depends on where you want to end updesign03


Design 06: Is wonderland really a wonder… When you have nowhere to land…

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Here are some source photos that I have referenced from:

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Process:

I mainly used Photoshop to turn the images to black and white. By using Levels and Threshold, I can control how much contrast I want to create. I created some silhouettes by masking image over other images. I have applied using Golden Ratio, Symmetry, Implied Lines, Contrast and Scale.

Project 01: My Line Is Emo

Emotion_Print Emotion_Print


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Line 01 – [ANGER] Irritation

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Line 02 – [ANGER] Rage

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Line 03 – [ANGER] Torment

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Line 04 – [FEAR] Anxiety

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Line 05 – [FEAR] Horror

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Line 06 – [FEAR] Hysteria

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Line 07 – [FEAR] Tension

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Line 08 – [JOY] Bliss

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Line 09 – [JOY] Exhilaration

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Line 10 – [JOY] Relief

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Line 11 – [LOVE] Compassion

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Line 12 – [LOVE] Desire

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Line 13 – [LOVE] Lust

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Line 14 – [SADNESS] Despair

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Line 15 – [SADNESS] Regret

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Line 16 – [SADNESS] Shame

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Line 17 – [SADNESS] Suffering

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Line 18 – [SURPRISE] Amaze

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Line 19 – [SURPRISE] Jolt

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Line 20 – [SURPRISE] Rude-Awakening

Artists Research

Ed Moses

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Ed Moses focuses on the profound possibilities and challenges of abstract paintings. His personality makes him choose the unknown over the known, thus his works are experimental. Most of his works are repetitive, all-over patterns of non-cursive and vertical strokes.

Resin PaintingsPaper Pieces were structures of diagonal parallel lines that zigzagged from left to right. Achieving a balance between Order and Contingency encouraged Moses to explore further. Some of his works he claim to be Cubist paintings, using numerous layers of crisscrossing, coloured diagonal bands into an all-over pattern, asserting 2D & 3D space. In an interview, he says that Luck and Chance are in his works. “Sometimes I feel just absolutely glowing because something come out the way it did.” To him, he feels that Life & Art are all the same.

Playing with Chaos

  • Combined various styles, methods and techniques
  • Spray gun
  • Insoluble mixtures of oil, paint, acrylic and shellac

Rafe Bone, 1958, Oil on Canvas

Untitled-C, 1958, Oil and Enamel on sized paper

Broken Wedge, 1973, Rhoplex and Pigment on laminated tissue

NY Trac, 1974, Acrylic and tissue on nylon

Two Cubist Paintings, 1978, Acrylic on drywall

OH-BU, 1982, Acrylic on raw wood

  • Breaking the structure (“The challenge is to be in that kind of momentum, in tune, and to bypass control”)
  • Learning by repetitions
  • When he paints, no plans, no strategy. Just notion.

Snail Struct & Antman, 1987, Acrylic and Oil on canvas

Densely Arked & Untitled, 2004, Acrylic on canvas

Loite & Franko-L, 2007, Acrylic on canvas

Chico Esquela, 2009, Acrylic on canvas

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Using expressive lines and tones to create space.


Agnes Martin

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She has six decades of painting and drawing experience, which can be seen in her endless varieties and subtle artworks. Her works are systematic; Grids, Symmetry and Stripes are elements are shown in her works. Her famous pieces are early 1970s self-imposed template of vertical or horizontal stripes & reduced colour palette, she is modest in form & subtle in colour though with ‘an immense presence’ and ‘powerful energy that almost takes physical hold of the viewer’.

She is a minimalist and privileged 1) Experience over interpretation, 2) Feeling over understanding, and 3) Inspiration over planning. She edits out paintings that doesn’t meet her standard of perfection and her working style changes over time. Her works include expression of essential emotions (preferred by the older generation) and Methods of repetition, geometric format and reduced means (preferred by the younger generation). Agnes initially started out with early portraits, still life-s and landscapes (early modernist painting) then progressed to abstract works influenced by cubism, surrealism and early abstract expressionism and finally to geometric compositions (pencilled grids on large square, seemingly blank canvases).

Her 1963 paintings emphasise on the material presence of the object, while comprehension of the process; Making something grand and beautiful from small, simple repetitive gestures evokes more ambitious, expressive content. As can be seen in her works: 1) Grids are never absolutely square, they are rectangles, 2) A little bit off share destroys the power of the square, and 3) Imperfections in her line shows Flawed by the human hand.


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Referenced artist: Jackson Pollock. Using Drip and Splash style, avoiding any clear space and patterns. The line is created disregarding the size of the canvas.

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Referenced artist: Andy Warhol. Using Decalcomania, creating a piece with symmetry and different tonal values. Subtly showing a contrast of Similarity and Differences.

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Referenced artist: Steven Spazuk. Using Fumage, creating an abstract piece of soot-based work with gradients of fluid strokes. The concentrated burnt marks depict the intensity of emotion throughout the canvas.


References:

Ed Moses – ND237.M776E21

Agnes Martin – N6537.M38A272, ND237.M24625A272

Jackson Pollock – http://www.jackson-pollock.org

Andy Warhol – http://www.themodern.org/blog/Its-All-In-Your-Head-Warhols-Rorschach-Paintings/166

Steven Spazuk – http://www.boredpanda.com/soot-art-fire-paintings-steve-spazuk/

 

Early Explorations + Mark Making Tools

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These are the initial sketches that I have come up with to explore with different mediums for expressing emotions.


The mark making tools that I used are as follows:

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1. Pandan leaves

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2. Aluminium Foil

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3. Garlic Mesh

IMG_4232IMG_42304. Different types of brushes


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The bottom left section is made with Tool 3, using the garlic mesh. The rest of the 3 prints are made from Tool 1, using different parts of the pandan plant.

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This mono print is made from Tool 4, using different brushes with Chinese ink. 

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The above mono print is made with Tool 1 and 2.

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The above mono print is made with Tool 1, 2 and 3.

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The above mono print is made from Tool 2, strings and masking tape.

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The above two mono prints are made with Tool 1, 2, 3 and strings. The garlic mesh showed results of an interesting pattern by itself. The prints made with garlic mesh and aluminium foil looks geometric while prints made with pandan leaves and the strings looks inorganic; this balances the whole composition.

The second mono print is made with the leftover ink from the rubber piece after the first piece, showing greater contrast. The negative shapes allow the viewer to identify the difference between the textures of objects.