[Research & Process] Project 3 – Ego

Artist References

In my free time, I enjoy looking at the works of professional illustrators, graphic designers, and filmmakers from different corners of the world. For this project especially, I kept finding new sources of inspiration for colour as well as style and technique.

colour References
I. Kevin Tong
Works by Kevin Tong

Kevin Tong is a Texas-based illustrator who has been practising the craft since 2005.

  • Use of vibrant colours to establish highlight
  • Lighting in monochromatic palettes
II. @mcwolf_man
Works by @mcwolf_man

MC Wolfman, or Dan Betro, is a New York-based illustrator.

  • Harmonious use of high chroma colours
  • Sense of fun and wackiness, humour established with bright colour palette
III. Nicolas Winding Refn
Works by Nicolas Winding Refn

Nicolas Winding Refn is a Danish filmmaker most notable for his works, The Neon Demon (2016), Drive (2011), and Only God Forgives (2013).

  • Use of neon-style colours as burst of highlight
  • Neon colours against palette of darker colours
  • Monochromatic colour palettes (especially purple) are used well; brings about sense of mystery
IV. Robin Eisenberg
Works by Robin Eisenberg
Style & Technique References
I. @dirtyrobot
Works by @dirtyrobot
Works by @sloppy_joseph_
Works by @lumps_uk
  • Use of abstract symbols and objects in place of emotions and human physique
  • Use of bright colours
  • Humorous facial expressions
  • Attention to detail through outline
  • Creation of texture through line work

Process & Drafts

My process involved brainstorming for a concept, planning for the art direction and style (and at the same time looking to reference artists for inspiration), gathering content through asking friends for personality traits, and experimenting with colour palettes.

Brainstorming for concepts
Planning panels
Associating objects to personality traits
Associating objects with personality traits
Associating objects with personality traits
Draft sketches

[Research & Process] Project 2: Forrest Gump

Research

Art Movements

Dadaism
Dada artists

The aim of Dada Art was an aid to stop the war as well as an outlet to ‘vent frustration with the nationalist and bourgeois conventions that had led to it’. ‘Their anti-authoritarian stance made for a protean movement as they opposed any form of group leadership or guiding ideology’. 

Dada artists are usually agitated by politics and sought to ‘incite a similar fury in Dada audiences’. Dada artworks involve presenting ‘intriguing overlaps and paradoxes’, where ‘they seek to demystify artwork in the populist sense but’ ‘remain cryptic enough to allow [viewers] to interpret works in a variety of ways’. For example, some artists portrayed people and scenes ‘representationally’ ‘in order to analyse form and movement’. Some perceive that in order to understand these works, one must be able to ‘reconcile the seemingly silly, slapdash styles with the profound antibourgeois message’.

Crucial components:

  • Irreverence: A lack of respect for bourgeois convention, government authorities, conventional production methods, or the artistic canon.
  • Readymades and assemblage: Often chosen and assembled by chance or accident to challenge bourgeois notions about art and artistic creativity, bizarre
  • Chance: Used to embrace the random and accidental as a way to release creativity from rational control
  • Wit and humour: Interest in humour, typically in the form of irony; an awareness that nothing has intrinsic value; also gave artists flexibility and expressed their embrace of the craziness of the world, thus preventing them from taking their work too seriously
I. Hannah Hoch
Portrait of Hannah Hoch

Hannah Hoch, the ‘It Girl’ of Berlin Dadaists, was considered the pioneer of the Dada ‘cut-and-paste’ style. Hiding in a tiny suburban cottage away from Nazi scrutiny, due to her bisexuality and anarchic art, Hoch was branded a ‘degenerate’ by Nazis and being constantly being edged out Dadaists. She, however remained a notable figure in the Dada movement, with her distinguishable use of photomontage, the original ‘art of protest’, and the ‘aesthetic of liberation, revolution, and protest’. 

Works of Hannah Hoch
From left to right: Flucht (Flight) (1931)
Ohne Titel (1930)
Untitled

Satirising Weimar politics, Hoch’s works are said to be ‘so balletic’, as if her ‘snipped images and dismembered figures dance on the page like leaves in the air’; her work is perceived as ‘tough and punchy, yet always delicate’. Often possessing a ‘narrative undercut’, one can distinguish Hoch’s works through the enlargement of a single feature and deviations from being ‘doctrinaire or narrowly-focused’, where many of her works ‘make men into women and vice-versa’. In contrast to her male counterparts in the movement, Hoch ‘never seems to have lost her characteristic sense of wonder’, possessing a ‘desire to ‘show the world today as an ant sees it and tomorrow as the moon sees it”. 

Surrealism
Surrealist artists

Growing out of the Dada movement, Surrealism was also considered a ‘rebellion against middle-class complacency’, however with artistic influences coming from different sources.

Sharing the same ‘anti-rationalism’ as Dada, Surrealist artists used art as a ‘reprieve from violent political situations and to address the unease they felt about the world’s uncertainties’. This was done through using ‘fantasy and dream imagery’ to create works in a variety of media that ‘exposed their inner minds in eccentric, symbolic ways’, ‘uncovering anxieties and treating them analytically through visual means’.

Mediums include:

  • Surrealist paintings
  • Surrealist objects and sculptures
  • Surrealist photography
  • Surrealist film

Some distinguishable Surrealist factors, methods, and techniques include:

  • Hyper-realistic style (objects depicted in crisp detail and three-dimensionality, emphasising their dream-like quality)
  • Saturated colour schemes
  • Reliance on automatism or automatic writing as a way to tap into the unconscious mind
  • Unlikely and outlandish imagery including collage, doodling, frontage, decalcomania, grattage
  • The ‘prosaic photograph removed from its mundane context’
  • Vernacular snapshots, police photographs, movie stills, documentary photographs posted in Surrealist journals, disconnected from their original purposes
I. Salvador Dali
Portrait of Salvador Dali

‘Epitomising the idea that life is the greatest form of art’, Salvador Dali, one of the most prolific artists of the 20th century is the most famous Surrealist artist. In addition to the fame credited for his works and collaborations with other notable figures, Dali was also renowned for his ‘flamboyant personality and role of mischievous provocateur as much as for his undeniable technical virtuosity’.

His works embody ‘obsessive themes of eroticism, death, and decay’, reflecting his ‘familiarity with and synthesis of the psychoanalytical theories of his time’, his work is embedded with ‘ready-interpreted symbolism, ranging from fetishes and animal imagery to religious symbols’.

Works of Salvador Dali
From left to right:
Persistence of Memory (1931)
Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938)
The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1946)

His body of work also ‘evolved the concepts of Surrealism and psychoanalysis on a worldwide visual platform’, as well as ‘modelled permission for people to embrace their selves in all our human glory’.

  • Shows visual representation of dreams
  • Exquisite draftsmanship and master painting techniques
  • Paved the way for artists to inject the personal, mysterious, and emotional into works
  • Showed that there was no separation between man and work
  • Used avant-garde filmmaking, provocative public performance, and random, strategic interaction, bringing his work to life in ways differing from paintings
  • Spearheaded the idea that art, artist, and artistic ability could cross many mediums and become a viable commodity

Techniques

Storytelling Methods
Hyperbole Exaggerated statements or claims not to be taken literally.
Metaphor A comparison between two objects with the intent of giving clearer meaning to one of them.
Caricature A picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.
Parody An imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.
Anthropomorphism The attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object.
Juxtaposition The fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect.
Imagery Words or phrases that appeal to any sense or any combination of senses.
Personification A figure of speech which endows animals, ideas, or inanimate objects with human traits or abilities
Reference Artists
I. David Lynch
Portrait of David Lynch

David Lynch is a director and screenwriter most well-known for his ‘dark, offbeat’ films and TV series, the more recognisable ones including Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and Twin Peaks

Works of David Lynch
From top to bottom: Twin Peaks (1990)
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Blue Velvet (1986)

Branded with his own style, the ‘Lynchian Style’. Lynch’s films are known to be ‘bizarre’, with ‘dark worldview[s], disturbing subject matter, and a surreal tone’.  In his approach to films, he uses repeated motifs, emphasises on setting, and expands on the idea of ‘superreality’ and the subconscious

II. Joe Webb
Portrait of Joe Webb

Joe Webb is an artist recognised for his ‘collages with a message’. Reimagining found imagery through simple editing, he addresses issues that range from ‘climate change’ to ‘war and inequality’, ‘challenges of living in today’s modern world’.

Works of Joe Webb
From left to right: The Cloud Eaters
Citizens of Earth
Antares and Love
Stirring Up A Storm

“Joe navigates a rich landscape with grace and humor, making nice with many recognizable visual pastimes. He plays them against each other in a way that puts different eras in dialogue, allowing characters to travel far from their 50’s Home Gardening Magazine roots to the far cosmos. He flirts with the themes of nostalgia and loss but ultimately composes lighthearted images that are in dialogue with today’s sampling culture, collapsing and hacking together sources from across the universe in fun and rudely jacked up color schemes.” – Wangechi Mutu

III. Eugenia Loli
Works of Loli

Collage artist Eugenia Loli is most known for her style of works where she uses ‘photography scanned from vintage magazines and Science publications’ to ‘create bizarre visual narratives’ that have hints of ‘pop art, dada, and traditional surrealism’.

IV. Nicolas Bruno
Works of Nicolas Bruno

Nicolas Bruno is an established photographer who suffers from sleep paralysis, a condition in which ‘keeps him in a halfway state between being asleep and being awake’. Through his haunting, yet incredible images, he recreates the experiences from his dreamscape. He starts with experimenting with dream recollections, ‘creat[ing] a concentration of work’ where he ‘[warps] his anxiety into a positive product and expresses his vision to the world’.

Learning Points
  • Distinguishable factors of Dadaist works
  • Distinguishable factors of Surrealist works 
  • Varying methods of using found imagery in forming new compositions 
  • Different, modern approaches in Surrealist art

 Process

The processes in this project is made up of two main stages: preparing the compositions and silkscreening. 

Preparing Compositions

In preparation for composing our prints, we were first required to have an understanding of the two major art movements we would be drawing inspiration from; Surrealism and Dadaism. This was followed by selecting our movie quotes. 

QUote Picking

When selecting appropriate movie quotes, I began with narrowing down some of my favourite films and directors, keeping films with excellent dialogue and writing in mind. I then filtered through these films by bringing in the direction I was going for; using David Lynch’s method of dissecting reality into three states – being awake, sleeping, dreaming (and limbo, added as a personal choice). The quotes were then categorised into the respective states. 

Quotes Category: Awake
Quotes Category: Asleep
Quotes Category: Dreaming
Quotes Category: Limbo

The quotes were then narrowed down further after considering their literal context and if taken out of context, their ability to reconstruct a completely different and surreal narrative. Some of the words that stood out in the quotes were also taken into consideration. After deliberating and brainstorming some ideas, I decided to go with the following quotes:

Dreaming: Baby Driver (2017)
Awake: Her (2013)
Asleep: Trainspotting (1996)
Limbo/Sleep Paralysis: Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Composition Arranging

After finalising the quotes and having a clear direction in mind, I was ready to layout the compositions. Since this was based on Surrealism, I decided to take the quotes completely out of their contexts and focus only on selected words and ideas.

I. Composition 1

‘He’s a looney. Just like his tunes.’

Keeping in-line with depicting the state of dreaming, I wanted to create a composition based on the nonsensical nature of dreams. The following images show different compositions and ideas. 

Composition 1: Drafts

Drafts 1 and 2 reflect the same concept; portraying the madness associated with conspiracy theories through the use of symbols such as aliens, red thread and thumbtacks, and spaceships made up of musicians, vinyls, and bell jars. Draft 3, on the other hand, depicts a man who has ‘lost his senses’, and as a result, has his sense of hearing and taste jumbled up, resulting in him wanting to eat music. However, given the nature of the images in threshold and halftone value, they were not able to fully form on the silkscreen. 

Composition 1: Breaking down ‘looney’ and ‘tunes’
Composition 1: Breaking down ‘looney’ and ‘tunes’
II. Composition 2

‘Sometimes I think I have felt everything I’m ever gonna feel.’

Exploring the state of being awake, Composition 2 was originally meant to represent the sense of feeling and touch.

Composition 2: Drafts

With regards to feeling, I wanted the composition to show various levels of emotions; the use of knives to represent anger, pill bottles to represent sadness, and flowers to represent happiness. The repeated motif of hands and the third eye were meant to embody the sense of touch. However, after consulting, the message being conveyed was not as clear, and I decided to try another concept of divinity and depicting an entity who has reached the pinnacle of feeling all there is to feel. 

Composition 2: Breaking down ‘felt everything’
III. Composition 3

‘I chose not to choose life. I chose something else.’

Expanding on the state of sleeping, I wanted the composition to convey a narrative of what happens to one’s body when one chooses to sleep instead of facing life.

Composition 3: Drafts

Satisfied with the elements used, I chose to try out different layouts as the layout was pretty messy; the main focal point is difficult to pinpoint. This was adjusted by changing the directions of the geometric patterns, as well as altering the Life Magazine direction and adding more elements representative of the situation. 

Composition 3: Breaking down ‘not to choose life’
IV. Composition 4

‘I’m nothing. I’m not even here.’

Based on the state of limbo or sleep paralysis, I looked to photographer Nicolas Bruno for inspiration. Known for his works where he captures moments and figures he witnesses during his encounters with sleep paralysis, his works echo Surrealist elements and reinforces the terrifying nature of sleep paralysis. 

Composition 4: Drafts

Generally satisfied with the layout of the composition, I just experimented further with changing some of the elements to make it more visually appealing. In this case, I swapped out the paper bag for a potato sack to make the figure seem more terrifying and draw a better sense of unity amongst the elements.

Composition 4: Breaking down ‘nothing’ and ‘not even here’

 Silkscreening

This project also had a silkscreen component which allowed us to learn more about preparing for and exposing our own silkscreens, followed by printing our own tote bags. 

Experience
Silkscreen process

The silkscreen process, although tedious, was eye-opening. We were taught the process of preparing silkscreens, the technical aspects of each procedure, and the functions of various materials. 

Personally, I faced quite a number of challenges in exposing my own screens. After preparing my first composition, I was quite satisfied with the layout and the elements I used; the positive feedback received made me all the more confident with how the print turned out. However, given the nature of the original images, they did not turn out very well when imposed with halftones and threshold and as a result, the silkscreen print did not turn out as expected. 

Silkscreen: Trial 1
Silkscreen: Trial 2

Given the time constraints left in preparing other compositions and the limited time left in exposing our screens, I was not able to experiment with varying levels of threshold and halftone, and had to change the top half of my composition completely. 

Challenges
  • Using threshold and halftone values 
  • Adjusting compositions to fit the layout of found images, therefore working in reverse
  • Silkscreen issues and pinpointing exactly where the problem rose from

Link to final:

[Final] Project 2: Forrest Gump

References

https://quizlet.com/4073015/list-of-poetic-devices-flash-cards/

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/mvbne3/an-oral-history-of-the-movie-trainspotting

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/6/27/15874888/baby-driver-review

A Romance for HER (and him)

https://www.indyweek.com/arts/archives/2014/10/31/movie-review-birdman-soars-despite-some-turbulence

10 Famous Surrealist Artists You Must Know

Dada

http://www.thecallalilydialogues.com/the-dialogues/2016/10/24/hannah-hoch-a-pioneer-of-photomontage-a-pivotal-figure-in-dada

http://time.com/4318151/salvador-dali/

193 Portrait of David Lynch

MAGRITTE: COME VIVERE LA VITA CON IRONIA

https://hanguppictures.com/artists/joe-webb

https://www.biography.com/people/david-lynch-9389739

http://www.artnet.com/artists/david-lynch/biography

http://www.joewebbart.com/about/

Surreal Collages by Eugenia Loli

https://fstoppers.com/originals/interview-nicolas-bruno-sleepless-photographer-7958

http://www.theartstory.org/movement-surrealism.htm

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-dali-salvador.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/10545071/Hannah-Hoch-The-woman-that-art-history-forgot.html

http://www.theartstory.org/artist-hoch-hannah.htm

Project 1: Experimentation and Process

Brainstorming

Research and Reference
Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup

After conducting research on recognised artists in the mark-making field, I found the works of Andy Warhol and the impact it made especially enlightening, particularly his 1960 works that portray everyday objects. Upon learning more about the impact he made on the art world through utilising an array of out-of-the-ordinary mediums and techniques (most prevalent in his Oxidation series), as well as giving life and character to regular, everyday objects (through the abstract enhancement of their qualities), I hope to integrate some of the qualities he displayed through his works in my experimental techniques, as well as conceptualising. 

Furthermore, in Warhol’s Shadows series, I found the methods in which he used to create different hues and spots of light innovative. In my experimentation process, I hope to emulate this by adopting different techniques and tools to create hues, textures, and lighting.

Please refer to the following link for a more in-depth analysis of Andy Warhol’s works: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/vwong005/mark-making-building-blocks-in-art/

Concept

Initially wanting to have a concept that surrounds emotions I face at my workplace (a place in which I spent most of my time before enrolling into ADM), I found using object association as a conceptual basis a more effective approach as it is a more general concept providing much more room to experimenting and using different tools and techniques. Therefore, in my final concept, I aim to represent emotions on an abstract and non-representative level with a theme of composing them in such a way that it uses a variety of visual elements to symbolise an object or sensation that is commonly associated with the emotion in question.

Experimental Process

Mark-Making Techniques

To aid in creating our lines, we were introduced to a couple of mark-making methods – constructing our own mark-making tool and mono printing.

Process: Making monoprints
Process: Artist research

Creating our own tools involved coming up with innovative methods to apply ink onto a canvas; for example, we could come up with a new tool that when used to apply marks onto a canvas, forms certain patterns or strokes that traditional tools (e.g. paintbrushes or pencils) are not able to achieve, or methods of application that involve splattering paint or pouring paint over a canvas. Mono printing, on the other hand, can be carried out by using a machine to flatten materials over a canvas, forming a shape or pattern using ink. In addition to these two methods, I also explored using a range of mediums to form different textures and layers of depth in the hopes of conveying the emotions more effectively.

Breaking Down Emotions
I. Love
Moodboard: Love
Emotion Subset Objects Associated Visual Elements Associated
Tenderness

Fondness

Affection

Sentimentality

‘Butterflies in stomach’ feeling

Flowers

Hearts (literal and metaphorical)

Journeys, long periods of time

Blushing, palpitations

 

Wavy strokes

Soft textures

Hazy backgrounds

Faded, watery strokes

Paint splatters, spots

Top: Water filter dipped in black paint
Bottom: Water filter, hot glue gun, cotton bud dipped in white paint
Right: Leaves
II. Joy
Moodboard: Joy
Moodboard: Joy
Emotion Subset Objects Associated Visual Elements Associated
Ecstasy

Euphoria

Drugs

Heavy patterns

Sense of flying; freedom

Waves

Blurred visions

Radial movements

Circular strokes

Thrill

Exhilaration

Explosions of energy

Masses of energy

Fast movements

Fast, spontaneous gestures

Sharp strokes

Splatters in upward directions

Top (Left): Rim of cup
Top (Right): Tube of spray bottle
Bottom (Left): Toothbrush
Bottom (Right): Oil and paint
III. Surprise
Moodboard: Surprise
Emotion Subset Objects Associated Visual Elements Associated
 Surprise Widened eyes and mouth

Hidden elements

Explosive mannerisms

Unexpectedness

Build up of suspense

Circular motions

Gradients

Isolated strokes

Left: Cotton wool
Right (Top): Banana peel
Right (Bottom): Wire brush
IV. Anger
Moodboard: Anger
Emotion Subset Objects Associated Visual Elements Associated
 Irritation

Aggravation

 Pet peeves

Scratching,

Lack of uniformity

 Irregular strokes

Mixture of organic and geometric shapes

Spontaneous gestures

Focus on harsh and textured strokes

Rage

Fury

Ferocity

Rapid movement

Shouting

Veins popping out

Violence – stabbing, tearing

Cracks

Irregular strokes

Spontaneous gestures

Sharp, geometric shapes and strokes

Harsh textures

‘Windshield-wiper’ movements

No sense of direction

Top (Left): Sleeve of coffee cup
Top (Right): Crushed paper with white thread
Middle (Right): Finger prints, meant to replicate motions of pet peeves (e.g. tapping sounds, sharp scratching noises)
Bottom (Left and Right): End of paintbrush

Anger: Chinese herbs to make patterns
V. Sadness
Moodboard: Sadness
Emotion Subset Objects Associated Visual Elements Associated
 Depression

Grief

 

Melancholy

Pills, medication

Unmade beds, untidiness

Tears

Feeling of stillness, calm

Bodies of water

Single rays of light

Spilled milk

Hidden feelings; bottling up

Sighing

Soft textures

Paint splatters

Irregular movement

Waves, organic shapes

Gradients

Haziness

Left: Green tea leaves
Right (Top): Tissue paper dipped in black paint
Right (Bottom): Torn up leaf
Left: White paint on black paper (meant to represent idea of bottling feelings up)
Right: Party popper streamers
Left: Spilled milk, enhanced with white paint
Right: White paint on black paper (meant to convey idea of a still lake, refer to reference picture in mood board)
VI. Fear
Moodboard: Fear
Emotion Subset Objects Associated Visual Elements Associated
 Horror  Mystery, hidden elements

Veils

Tree branches

Demons, supernatural entities

Gradients

Sharp, heavy strokes

Geometric shapes

Darker strokes

Haziness

Nervousness

Tenseness

Tension; tightened grips

Breakage

Palpitations

Nerve signals

Scratches, fidgeting

Gradients

Sharp, irregular strokes

Messiness; mixture of strokes and shapes

Top (Left): Cotton buds
Top (Right): Powedr on black paint
Bottom (Left): Handprints
Bottom (Right): Black droplets created by shaking paper
Top (Left): Crushed paper with black yarn
Top (Middle): Black and white paint
Top (Right): Static floor wipes
Bottom (Left): Spray bottle
Bottom (Middle): Black paint on newspaper article about Hurricane Harvey
Bottom (Right): Shoe prints
Paintbrush and walnut print (meant to represent nerve endings)
Walnut used

Takeaways

Throughout this process, I was able to adopt different methods of mark-making to create visual elements that I can use in my final product. Experimenting allowed me to venture out of my comfort zone and through the use of various mediums, create prints that focus on conveying emotions as opposed to literally depicting them. 

 

For the final product, please refer to: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/vwong005/project-1-my-line-is-emo

For research on mark-making artists, please refer to: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/vwong005/mark-making-building-blocks-in-art/

Mark Making: Building Blocks in Art

In our first project, we return to the very basics of creating art in the form of mark making.

What is Mark Making?

Often referred to as a fundamental element in creating art, mark making is defined as ‘the different lines, dots, marks, patterns, and textures we create in art work’. With this, we are able to express emotion, movement and other concepts we wish to display in an artwork.

How is Mark Making Done?

Mark making is carried out whenever a brush, pencil, or any other tool, hits a canvas, creating a line and thus, making a mark. This can be carried out across different surfaces of various materials – examples include ‘paint on canvas, ink or pencil on paper, scratched marks on plaster, digital paint tools on screens, or tattooed marks on skin’.  Creating such marks can be done loosely and gestural, or controlled and neat as well.

Artists therefore, rely on gestures to express feelings and emotions in response to something seen or something felt. These gestural qualities can also be used to form abstract compositions.

Case Studies

I. Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was a successful magazine and ad illustrator who went on to become a leading artist in the 1960s Pop Art movement, and eventually, an iconic figure in the history of art. He had a hand in a wide variety of different art forms, some of which included performance art, filmmaking, video installations, and writing. All of which challenged the conventional definitions and subjects of art, blurring the lines between fine art and mainstream aesthetics.

Debuting the concept of ‘Pop Art’ – ‘paintings that focused on mass-produced commercial goods’ – Warhol’s acclaimed paintings depicted Coca Cola bottles, vacuum cleaners, and hamburgers, as well as celebrities that range from Marilyn Monroe to Mao Zedong. Gaining fame and notoriety, he received hundreds of commissions for portraits from socialites and celebrities, allowing him to create ‘Eight Elvises’ which resold for $100 million in 2008, making it one of the most valuable paintings in world history.

Shadows (1978-1979)

Warhol’s Shadows (1978-1979) at Yuz Museum, Shanghai

Amidst iconic Pop Art paintings featuring celebrities and everyday objects, Warhol also produced Shadows, a series consisting of ‘102 silkscreened and hand-painted canvases featuring distorted photographs of shadows generated in the artist’s studio’. The paintings, always installed edge-to-edge, extend uninterrupted for almost 450 linear feet around the museum’s curved galleries, ‘[emphasising] the cinematic quality of the work’.

A display of his signature palette of bright hues, the backgrounds featured in Shadows were created using a sponge mop, with ‘the streaks and trails’ left behind ‘adding gesture to the picture plane’. Seven or eight different screens were used, as evident in the slight shifts in scales of dark areas as well as the arbitrary presence of spots of lights. They also alternate between positive and negative imprints as the series progresses. Warhol is said to have portrayed the idea of perception in Shadows as he chose to focus on the shadow to devise light (or sparks of colour).

Oxidation (1978)

Warhol’s Oxidation (1978)

Another of Warhol’s more notable works includes Oxidation, or colloquially known as his ‘Piss Paintings’ made in the late 1970s. In an ironic twist and towards the end of his career, this series was a deviation from his glory as the ‘king of Pop Art’, where he turned to something he has been avoiding – abstract art.

Oxidation was a product of Warhol and his acquaintances urinating on canvases he had prepared with metallic and acrylic paints. This resulted in urine reacting with the copper in the painted grounds, forming deposits of mineral salts that evolved at different rates, sometimes turning green or blue, and black at other times. His treacherous process included experimenting with different metallic paints and the amounts of used fluids. Food ingested by participants influenced the effect urine created on the canvases (one of Warhol’s favourites, Ronny Cutrone, created ‘pretty colours’ due to his increased intake of vitamin B).

Despite its controversy, Warhol still managed to blur the lines between genres and art forms, with their mode of execution breaching established art practices. ‘Aesthetic form achieved through the use of bodily fluids, and not any fluid but the one considered a waste, complicates their interpretation, and positions oxidation painting between the discourses dealing with social divisions, experimentation with body, abstract art, and eroticism’.

II. Emma Kunz

Emma Kunz in Waldstatt (1958)

Emma Kunz was a Swiss telepathic healer and researcher in the 1940s. With this, she became a notable arts figure, where she channelled drawings for patients using coloured pencils, crayons, graph paper, and a pendulum. Serving as a telepathic healer, Kunz’s drawings operated as both documentation of research into and as conduits for patterns of vibrational energy that can be used to realign psychic imbalances underlying her patients’ medical conditions and thus, cure them. Kunz is now recognised as an exceptional artist whose incomparable artworks have been exhibited in over 50 museums around the world, and leaving behind a comprehensive legacy of works consisting of approximately 400 drawings.

Work by Kunz

Describing her artistic energy as ‘design and shape as dimension, rhythm, symbol, and transformation[s] of numbers and concepts’, Kunz recorded her knowledge in large-format drawings on graph paper. They were visual testimonies of her research, represented by geometric drawings with pencil, coloured pencils, and oil pastels, ‘providing answers to questions about life and its spiritual implications’. To her, every colour and every shape had a precise meaning in her understanding of the world.

Her pictures were regarded as ‘holograms’, ‘spaces you could walk into, as well as ‘images to be unfolded or collapsed back down again, usually multilayered in their construction’. They served as ‘cryptic answers to numerous questions’ that fascinated her (both in spiritual or philosophical in nature), where they might contain causes and treatments of illnesses, and explanations for political situations and resulting consequences. On another level, Kunz’s pictures were used to aid her patients’ physical or mental problems.

III. Rorschach Test

Rorschach Inkblot

Created by Hermann Rorschach, the Rorschach Test is defined as ‘a method of psychological evaluation’ that psychologists use ‘in an attempt to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients’. Often employed in diagnosing ‘underlying thought disorders’ as well as ‘differentiating psychotic from non-psychotic thinking’ in scenarios where a patient is reluctant to openly admit to psychotic thinking, particularly in symptoms related to depression, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders. It is administered using 10 cards, each with a complicated inkblot pattern, where subjects are instructed to look at the shape, shading, and colour.

When viewing the inkblots, subjects are often said to be able to see many images – this is due to ‘the number of images elicited by these inkblots [being] determined by the irregular shapes at the edges of each’. Researchers focused on fractals (or repeating patterns that can be seen at all scales), and have deduced that when fractals are more complex, people see fewer images than when patterns are simpler. These fractals are said to ‘fool the visual system’, where the brain is adapted to process patterns.

Conclusion

After getting to know more about mark making, I came to realise the importance of utilising and expanding on concepts, as well as experimentation and adopting new approaches (especially outside the arts field) in creating art.  In the case of Andy Warhol and Emma Kunz, both artists  – renowned for their imaginative approaches to art) – have inspired me to look pass traditional art mediums such as paper and graphite to convey emotions and ideas, and instead expand into using objects that are usually not associated with creating art. With regards to the Rorschach Test and its development process, I hope to also, look into using abstract shapes to represent objects and convey emotions as opposed to  constantly relying on creating works that portray objects in their literal form.

 

For the process, please refer to: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/vwong005/project-1-experi…tion-and-process/

For the final product, please refer to: https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/vwong005/project-1-my-line-is-emo/

References

https://www.thoughtco.com/how-does-mark-making-affect-your-paintings-2577630

http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/exam-help/themes/mark-making

How Experimental Were the Andy Warhol Piss Paintings Actually?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2015/01/13/frame/4OpbN6KtkEMxFAoFgwd1zM/story.html

https://www.biography.com/people/andy-warhol-9523875

https://www.moca.org/exhibition/andy-warhol-shadows

https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/illustration/master-of-the-month-emma-kunz/

https://www.emma-kunz.com/en/emma-kunz/

https://psychcentral.com/lib/rorschach-inkblot-test/

Images

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test

https://www.emma-kunz.com/en/

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/andy-warhol-fun-facts

https://www.emma-kunz.com/en/emma-kunz/

http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/WebExclusives/AndyWarholShadows