The seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake.
For this project, I want to make a social commentary about the increasing trend of pursuing unlimited wants. The 4 compositions will come together to form a circle about this neverending vicious cycle.
This composition is greatly inspired by The Great Wave of Kanagawa by Hokusai. For this composition, I wanted to do a relation to the original movie, The Little Mermaid, hence, the more cartoonish theme to the whole collage. In this, we have a recognizable figure, Ariel, I blanked her face so as to play on the viewers’ ability to recognise Ariel and I also wanted to link her to the perspective of the viewer. I made it a cycle on how the fishes wanted to have a face and be able to talk like Ariel while Ariel wanted legs. I made the waves seem like 1/4 of the circle here and to create this disorientated sense to reflect the emotional state of the elements like how they iaren’t satisfied with their current state in life.
This composition I focused mainly on the pursue of materialistic wants. Here, we see that the girl being attracted to some flowers which I interpret as beauty. We see a flower carpeted floor leading to the galaxy background behind with things like house and gems along the way, suggesting that the route to materialistic wants is never ending. I used some words “BIG GIRL IN A SKINNY WORLD” to suggest that many people these days aren’t satisfied with how that look and they conform to the social standards of being skinny, therefore, this is like a sarcastic comment about this social observation. I used the girl bending over for the next 1/4 of the circle.
Here, I focused mainly on the way many people are fixated in getting what they want so much that they fail to notice the potential dangers and hazard along the way. This composition I did some reference to a common folklore that everyone knows, The Frog Prince. Yet again, this is another sarcastic commentary that logistically speaking a frog will never turn into a prince. We see the frog so fixated to get the crown which I meant power here that it failed to notice that its falling of the cliff into the ocean and the upcoming crashing waves. I used poker cards here to signify that we are betting our odds. I also used bubbles here to show a sense of fragility in the whole situation and the another 1/4 of the circle.
This composition I made the whole scene to be similar to the ocean bed (dark and gloomy) to signify a “sunken” situation. Also I used a broken lifebuoy and fishes to represent the last 1/4 of the circle. We see the fishes surrounding this unknown “object” to show that whatever we are pursuing may result in our downfall and trapped situation if we lost the bet. This is when we thought of being free from all these sticky situations like a fish which I signify as freedom.
To see the circle more clearly, these are the finalised compositions.
