Project 1A: Strange Encounter

Debris of the underwater train floated in front of me as I slowly opened my eyes. Did we crash? Frantic, I turned my head to look for the others. I needed to make sure they were safe. Before I could get up, I heard a loud screech and saw three beings charging at me: 

Poisonous Warrior, Boxxy
Goddess of the Balinese sea, Nyai Roro Kidul
Weapons Specialist, Mimica

Planning & Conceptualising 

I wanted to make a story that didn’t start normally. So I played around with the idea of travelling, that instead of travelling to a place, that maybe I was travelling through something. 

Inspired by sci-fi, inter-dimensional travel, and my fear of the deep sea, I decided that my idea would revolve around an underwater world. With the fact that humanity has explored less than 5% of the ocean, this means that there are other things out there, in the deep sea, that are more terrifying than the things that we have already discovered. This gives me an autonomy of creating whatever I wanted with an underwater theme. 

For me, I wanted to give each of these characters a sort of storyline and relationship with one another, and make the character of myself also part of the story, creating a relationship with me and each of the characters. 

The Process & Information Gathering 

Trying to keep my work relatable to some degree, I decided that I was travelling in an underwater train through the Balinese sea. As such, I spent some time researching on the Balinese folklore of the ocean, as well as the different kinds of sea animals in the sea. This explains why each of my characters have Balinese make up, Headgears, and weapons on them. I felt that this gave a nice twist to an underwater kingdom, different from western stories of Atlantis. 

The original pictures were all from national geographic or travel blogs, where people talked more about the fascination of these beings as species or folklore. I used the story of an actual Balinese folklore, Nyai Roro Kidul, which explains why she is wearing a green “dress”, as it is according to the folklore. 

In terms of methodology, I used Photoshop to put the pieces of found images together.

Challenges 

I had to google pictured of specific animals from the deep sea, such as the mimic octopus, box jellyfish, angler fish. Which I am terrified off. I also found it difficult to find the “perfect” pictures that suited to what I wanted, and when I was not able to, I had to make do with other images.

Do I like my work?

Yes I do, I had lots of fun creating characters and short narratives.

Joan Miro

Barcelona based Spanish painter, sculptor, ceramicist, and muralist, Joan Miro “dismantled traditional precepts of representation” (The Art Story, 2017) through his inventive style of abstract which never fully became non-objective. His work is influenced by surrealism and dadaism, which speaks to me because I also find these art movements interesting. 

Harlequin’s Carnival by Joan Miro, 1924-25

What I particularly enjoyed about his work is that he experiments with mark making, which shows the progression of his work of when he started and when he became a professional artist. 

The Barcelona Series by Joan Miro, 1973-74

 

My Strange Encounter

California based filmmaker, illustrator, and vintage collage artist, Eugenia Loli puts narratives in her collages that kickstarts the viewer’s imagination to interpret her work. I enjoy her work because they are surreal and aesthetically pleasing.

Title: “Soft Kisses, Stinging Bites”

For this piece, the thing that stood out to me the most was that the artist placed a picture of a literal crab on top go the model’s head. Through this use of visual, I liked that the artist used the natural shape of the crab to make it look like a sort of crown, suggesting a “queen” like character. Accompanied by the title, the model putting on lipstick also gave me a message of “deadly beautiful things”. With this, this piece influenced my work through using one of my personal favourite themes because I like the contradiction of pleasant things being harmful.

Title: Inking a New Friendship

I enjoyed the narrative in this story, which majorly inspired by own character creations for my strange encounter. For instance, as the girl in the picture is on a “tiny” boat, it shows a whimsical and childish narrative of the girl going on a fun adventure. As the squid creature hands her flowers, it also shows me a playful but surreal vibe, just enough to make it slightly weird yet digestible. With this, I enjoyed the use of the found images and being able to place theme together and kickstart my imagination of what would happen if I met someone from an underwater world.