Which is what I would think a line is had I not transferred out of engineering school.
Due to a absolute amount of luck, my sketchbook and first draft was lost overseas. However, I will discuss my inspiration behind my artwork in as much detail as possible.
I prefer simplicity over detail, and most of my works were drawn with either a pen with a 0.5mm tip, or a Pilot ‘extra-fine’ marker. These were my basic tools when I started out drawing, and became my most handy and favourite, apart from digital media.
As I still conduct teaching and conducting classes externally, I have to maintain a regimen of at least 3 hours of piano practice a day, and some of my influences come from my experience, piano theory, music history, and the pieces which I select. I would attempt to describe the above in laymen terms, as it may be harder to understand for those new to classical music.
Anxious
Anxiety is a feeling of unease or concern about an uncertain outcome. I based my artwork off Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ monodrama, Eight Songs for a Mad King. This was before he had became known for his calm demeanour in further works in the 1970s. One published version of his work is known for the arrangement of music staves in the form of bars of a bird cage, similar to the actual work where actors were placed in bird cages. The monodrama ends with the actor smashing his violin, which is literally the end of his anxiousness as well. My artwork displays a line drawn by a loosely held pen, which follows the pitch of the main baritone in Eight Songs for a Mad King. It advances slowly initially, following the king’s speech, and increases in pace as we reach the climax.
Lyrical
To me, lyrical represents the deep emotion that flows through upon a performance or act. I chose the piece that almost caused me to fail my music exams, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14, or known as the Moonlight Sonata. Specifically, I chose his third movement (in C# minor), as it is one of the pioneering works by Beethoven where he shifted the most important movement of the sonata to the last movement. It is very fast and agitated (presto agitato), has heavily accented notes (sforzando) and many tough arpeggio sequences. It maintains its harmony through liberal usage of piano (Italian for playing softly) while creating climaxes and notable points by fortissimo passages (Italian for playing very loudly and forcefully). I used a quill pen to note points of inferences from the piece onto the artwork, where it is represented by notes, rests, key signatures and clefs. The lines connecting the notes are squiggly, irregular, but connected without sharp angles. This represents not only a display of emotion, but also a sense of direction linking one note to another, and progression.
Bizarre
Bizarre is just plainly, strange. I based my artwork off multiple influences, which includes H.P. Lovecraft’s non-human organisms, fate, and guilt, specifically from the Cthulhu mythos. Additionally, they include an amalgamation of biological tissue with machine parts, seen from the Digimon series, and extraterrestrial and mecha elements from the Evangelion series. My work involves a huge wall of a single element, with individual objects being connected to each other via guts, metal parts, pipes, wires or related items. There is multiple usage of metal parts bolted onto flesh, and tentacles writhing from random crevices. The medium used is pen, and any mistakes done during drawing were converted to another object instead, increasing the strangeness of the entire piece.
In the final presentation, a clump of synthetic plastic was stuck onto the artwork (which was initially used to mask a major mistake). It provides a feel reminiscent of fur, yet thin enough to be hair. The colour is unnatural. It was done by melting down synthetic wig with dye, and forcing it at high pressure into cold water through a casted mold. The dye is not fully mixed, resulting in patches of light blue and white. It accentuates the weirdness factor of the work, an essential part of being bizzare. The line from left to right loosely represents Cthulhu (Lovecraft), Ochu (Final Fantasy), metal-based Digimon (Digimon), Marlboro (Final Fantasy), Angel 01 (EVA), Tentacruel (Pokemon)