ariannegradedunit

[ariannegradedunit]

Completed Final Pieces

These were based off on the bright fun exterior of drinking and taking drugs in contrast to the disorienting scary and dangerous effects it has on your body and brain

The first was based off of all my trippy experiments testing how it feels to be intoxicated

The second was based on the aftermath and addiction that taking these substances can cause, taken from the articles I had researched and cooler darker colours in my experiments

The backgrounds came from my distorted ice in glass experiments edited in photoshop

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L.S Lowry Artist Research

Biography

Laurence Stephen Lowry was born on the 1st November 1887 and passed the 23rd February 1976 was an English artist. Lowry is famous for painting scenes of life in the industrial districts of North West England in the mid-20th century. After leaving school, Lowry began a career working for the Pall Mall Company, later collecting rents. He would spend some time in his lunch hour at Buile Hill Park and in the evenings took private art lessons in antique and freehand drawing. In 1905, he secured a place at the Manchester School of Art, where he studied under the French Impressionist, Pierre Adolphe Valette. A collection of his work is on display in The Lowry, a purpose-built art gallery on Salford Quays. On 26 June 2013, a major retrospective opened at the Tate Britain in London, his first at the gallery.

The Practice

He developed a distinctive style of painting and is best known for his urban landscapes peopled with human figures, often referred to as "matchstick men". He also painted mysterious unpopulated landscapes, brooding portraits and the unpublished "marionette" works, which were only found after his death.

Techniques

Lowry's oil paintings were originally impressionistic and dark in tone, but D. B. Taylor of the Manchester Guardian took an interest in his work and encouraged him to move away from the sombre palette he was using. Taking this advice on board, Lowry began to use a white background to lighten the pictures. This led to his classic style you see so often

Context

His use of stylised figures, which cast no shadows, and lack of weather effects in many of his landscapes led critics to label him a naïve "Sunday painter". Although his mother demonstrated no appreciation of her son's gifts as an artist, a number of books Lowry received as Christmas presents from his parents are inscribed to "Our dearest Laurie” as she had initially hoped for a daughter. His father died in 1932, leaving debts. His mother, subject to neurosis and depression, became bedridden and dependent on her son for care. Lowry painted after his mother had fallen asleep, between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Many paintings produced during this period were damning self-portraits, often referred to as his “Horrible Heads” series, which are my personal favourite of his

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Creating digital trials to generate ideas for my final piece

I really like the colours created and the impact of the complex compositions is really nice

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These were the colours and shapes I based my fabric compositions on

My third development is based off of the drinking games, specifically the shots roulette game I have at home

I've decided to follow only two of the three original ideas because I felt my ideas were more developed and experimental through those routes

I loved creating these simplistic compositions, ripping, cutting, painting and sewing the fabric is extremely therapeutic and the rustic outcomes help portray the rougher more dangerous part of drinking games

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Second Development

This development was based off of my first attempt on this painting type and editing

Only this time I painted the mirror image in the first place. The photoshop editing really brought the colours to life. Colour balance, heat toggle, invert colour, vibrancy and saturation were the tools I used to create this piece. It reminds me of the bright flashing lights in the club when you are drunk and feel like your transported to another dimension

This is also a very vulnerable feeling as you are extremely intoxicated and unaware of your surroundings so there is a dark undertone to this thought

This was the original painting before the end result

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Georgia O'Keeffe Artist Research

Biography

Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was born November 15th, 1887 and passed March 6th, 1986. O’Keefe was an American artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been recognized as the "Mother of American modernism". In 1905, O'Keeffe attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then the Art Students League of New York. In 1908, unable to fund further education, she worked for two years as a commercial illustrator, and then taught in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina between 1911 and 1918. Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer, held an exhibit of her works in 1917. Over the next couple of years, she taught and continued her studies at the Teachers College, Columbia University in 1914 and 1915. She moved to New York in 1918 at Stieglitz's request and began working seriously as an artist. They developed a professional relationship and a personal relationship that led to their marriage in 1924.

The Practice

O’Keeffe is a practiced painter working in mainly oil paint. O’Keefe creates simplified images of natural things, such as leaves, flowers, and rocks. Inspired by Precisionism, her paintings are focused on the simplicity and tranquillity of natural life. Many critics have interpreted her flower paintings as metaphors for female genitalia, but O’Keeffe rejected this and claimed they were “just paintings of flowers”.

Techniques

O’Keeffe's careful and realistic style proves her skill and showcases her creativity. The macro viewpoint creates the abstract compositions although there is still great detail.

Context

O’Keeffe was introduced to the principles and philosophies of Arthur Wesley Dow, who created works of art based upon personal style, design, and interpretation of subjects, rather than trying to copy or represent them. This caused a major change in the way she felt about and approached art, as seen in the beginning stages of her watercolours from her studies at the University of Virginia and more dramatically in the charcoal drawings that she produced in 1915 that led to total abstraction.

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Peter Howson Artist Research

Biography

Peter Howson OBE was born on the 27th of March 1958 in London, England. Howson is a Scottish painter. Peter Howson was born in London of Scottish parents and moved with his family to Prestwick, Ayrshire, when he was four. His work has appeared in other media, with his widest exposure arguably for a British postage stamp he did in 1999 to celebrate engineering achievements for the millennium. He enrolled in the Glasgow School of Art in 1975. In 1985 he was made the Artist in Residence at the University of St. Andrews and also a part time tutor at Glasgow School of Art. In November 2010, BBC Scotland aired a documentary named "The Madness of Peter Howson" which followed the final stages of the completion of a grand commission for show in the renovated St Andrew's Cathedral. focal member of the group of young artists to emerge from the Glasgow School of Art during the 1980s dubbed the New Glasgow Boys.

The Practice

Howson is a painter. He uses oils in all of his pieces. His paintings are all usually very large scale. He also likes to use pastels. He is one of his generations leading figurative painters. He is renowned for his penetrating insight into the human condition

Techniques

Howson always begins with a brown base to his canvas. He lays in all of the highlights before he goes in with shapes and shadows. This helps create the extreme highlighted and overexaggerated features.

Context

The fact he was enrolled as the Bosnian war artist really changed his work forever as he began to focus on biblical themes afterwards. Bosnia really effected Howson’s mental health and was one of the main causes of his depression. Howson's struggle with mental illness and Asperger's syndrome has maybe also affected his work.

I love Howsons exaggerated style and I tried to mimic it with my oil pastel development

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First Development

Mixing my oil pastel with my paint pouring gave a very trippy and disorienting effect

I also took from the kaleidoscope idea and repeated the image to disorient the viewer

The piece an be looked at from any angle, reminding me of my optical illusion idea

I could also maybe create the upside down facial feature illusion

I really like this idea because at first it seems fine but when you look closer its disturbing

It could represent the way at first alcohol and drugs seem fun and entertaining but if your not careful it is a very dangerous line to tread

I took my inspiration after reading this article about hallucinogens and how they are caused

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Fabric Manipulation

Looking at both Rauschenberg and Vettriano I carried out some fabric compositions. Utilising fabric was inspired by Rauschenberg and the shapes, colour schemes and composition ideas came from Vettrianos paintings.

*EDIT*

This reminded me of the shoot I did of my neighborhood that I also did fabric manipulation on

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Inspired by Rauschenberg I incorporated real life objects into my drawings. In the first it was an eye mask and in the second underwear and purple fabric

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Shurooq Amin Artist Research

Biography

Shurooq Amin was born in Kuwait in 1967 Her father died when she was 11. She earned her BA in English literature from Kuwait University in 1988 and her MA in modern literature from Kent University in 1989. She earned her PhD in creative writing from Warnborough College in 2007, specialising in Ekphrastic art and poetry. Amin is a lecturer at Kuwait University, where she heads the College of Business Administration's English Language Unit. She is represented by Ayyam Gallery. In 2013, she was awarded Artist of the Year by Arab Woman Awards.

The Practice

Shurooq Amin is as painter. Her realistic approach and surrealist themes are some of the reasons she is so successful. Since her first solo exhibition in 1992, Amin's works have evolved to explore religion and sexuality, challenging cultural and societal boundaries. Amin also writes short stories and poetry. In 1994 she published the poetry collection Kuwaiti Butterfly Unveiled. Her writings have appeared in the literary journals Words-Myth, Etchings, Diode, and Beauty/Truth. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in December 2007 for her poem "Framboise Fig and Bronze Nude".

Technique

Shurooq Amin's realistic technique is careful and precise. She uses a postmodern approach to portraiture that combines photography and painting

Context

The subject of her 2012 exhibition at Al M Gallery, It's a Man's World, was men in GCC countries. Kuwait City officials shut down the show three hours after its opening, to Amin the authorities focused on a work depicting three card-playing men "drinking 'grape juice' from a bottle which suggested contraband alcohol"

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Artist Research, Robert Rauschenberg

Biography

Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg was born on October 22, 1925 and died May 12, 2008. He was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the pop art movement. Rauschenberg was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1993 and the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts in 1995 in recognition of his more than 40 years of artmaking. At 16, Rauschenberg was admitted to the University of Texas where he began studying pharmacy. He was drafted into the United States Navy in 1943. Based in California, he served as a mental hospital technician until his discharge in 1945. Rauschenberg subsequently studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Académie Julian in Paris, France, where he met the painter Susan Weil. In 1948 Rauschenberg and Weil decided to attend Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York City and on Captiva Island, Florida, until his death from heart failure on May 12, 2008.

The Practice

Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculptor, and the combines are a combination of the two, but he also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking and performance. He is classed in the pop art movement of the 50’s

Techniques

Rauschenberg is well known for his "combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in various combinations. He would layer paint on top to create his iconic abstract pieces.

Context

His parents were Fundamentalist Christians. Rauschenberg was also dyslexic. Josef Albers, a founder of the Bauhaus, became Rauschenberg's painting instructor at Black Mountain, something Rauschenberg had looked forward to. This has probably influenced Rauschenberg in some way.

I want to try and incorporate real life objects into my drawings and paintings like Rauschenberg’s pieces.

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Moving to the theme of sex I started focusing on the basic modest eroginous zones of the body, i.e. the mouth, collar bone and hips or waist. I tried to make my painting style more fuzzy and rustic than Vetrianno's to help convey mood.

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Jack Vetrianno Artist Research

Biography

Jack Vettriano, OBE was born Jack Hoggan on the, 17th November 1951. Vettriano a Scottish painter. His 1992 painting The Singing Butler became a best-selling image in Britain. Jack Vettriano was born in St. Andrews in Fife[1] and grew up in the industrial seaside town of Methil, about 30 minutes south of his birthplace. Vettriano took up painting as a hobby in the 1970s, when a girlfriend bought him a set of watercolours for his 21st birthday. His earliest paintings, under his birth name "Jack Hoggan", were copies or pastiches of impressionist paintings.

The practice

Vettriano is a self-taught artist in drawing and perspective who manipulates paint in veiled glazes and meaningful shadows. Vettriano's painting style has been compared to those of Hopper and Sickert. In many of his paintings, there is a hidden narrative, in enigmatic compositions, a starting point for dozens of short stories. I will focus on the more erotic themes paintings of Verttriano for inspiration in my folio.

Technique

Vettriano paints in a realistic way. His soft and blended brush strokes give a silky texture to his paintings. His use of extreme tone helps the image to stand out. His use of harmonizing warm colours are now iconic to his personal style.

Context

He claims he has drawn inspiration for his paintings from "25 years of sexual misbehaviour”. In 2010, he told The Independent: "I live in a world of heartbreak... I just seem to be more creative when I'm in some kind of emotional distress", adding "It's been four years of soul-searching – nicotine, alcohol, anti-depressants, temazepam”. According to The Daily Telegraph he has been described as the Jeffrey Archer of the art world, a purveyor of "badly conceived soft porn" and a painter of "dim erotica". According to Vanity Fair, critics say Jack Vettriano paints brainless erotica. Sandy Moffat, head of drawing and painting at Glasgow School of Art said "He can’t paint, he just colours in."

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Joan Semmel Artist Research

Biography

Joan Semmel (born October 19, 1932) is an American feminist painter, professor, and writer. Semmel was born in New York. She began her artistic training at Cooper Union, where she studied under Nicholas Marsicano. Semmel returned to New York City in 1970 and earned an MFA from the Pratt Institute in 1972. Upon returning, Semmel was shocked by the number of sexualized images of women she saw on American newsstands. She began to paint in a figurative style and incorporated the erotic themes for which she is known today. Semmel has taught at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Maryland Institute College of Art. As of 2013, she is Professor Emeritus of Painting at Rutgers University. In 2000 Semmel taught at International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria. About major themes in her work, Semmel states, "While my work developed through series, the connecting thread across decades is a single perspective: being inside the experience of femaleness and taking possession of it culturally."

The Practice

Semmel is best known for her large scale realistic nude self-portraits as seen from her perspective looking down. Her favourite medium is oil on canvas. Though Semmel has created many different series throughout her career, the majority of her oeuvre features themes of sexuality, the body, intimacy and self-exploration both physically and psychologically.

Techniques

Semmel’s highly saturated brilliant colour separated her paintings from the leading Spanish artists whose work was darker, greyer and Goyaesque. I also really like her heavy use of line in her surreal paintings.

Context

In New York, Semmel became involved in the feminist movement and feminist art groups devoted to gender equality in the art world. She has been a member of the Ad Hoc Committee of Women Artists, the Fight Censorship (FC) group, Women in the Arts (WIA), and the Art Workers Coalition (AWC). She spent seven and a half years in Spain (1963-1970), where her work, "gradually developed from broad gestural and spatially referenced painting to compositions of a somewhat surreal figure composition”

[ariannegradedunit]

Continuing the alcohol theme I took a glass of whiskey with ice in it and zoomed really close into it. It looks really trippy and disorienting. It looks like an abstract painting even though it isnt

*EDIT*

For my next experiment I wanted to edit photos in photoshop so I took my last experiment to do so

Using the exposure, tint, contrast, saturation and cut and paste tools I created these two edited images that I think are very effective and fit the theme

These also remind me of the optical illusions I have been looking at because of the bright contrasting colours and repeating shapes

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Bronwyn Bancroft Artist Research

Biography

Dr. Bronwyn Bancroft is a proud Bundjalung Woman and Artist. She is amongst the first Australian fashion designers invited to show her work in Paris. Bancroft was born in Tenterfield, New South Wales, and trained in Canberra and Sydney. Bronwyn has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for over 3 decades. Bancroft has been a Director of her own company, Designer Aboriginals Pty Ltd since 1985. Bancroft holds positions with Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (Director) and Commonwealth Bank Indigenous Advisory Council. Bancroft has been a volunteer senior strategist at Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative since 2009. Bancroft has a Diploma of Visual Arts from Canberra School of Art, 2 Masters degrees, one in Studio Practice and the other in Visual Art, University of Sydney. Bancroft was awarded her Doctor of Philosophy in 2018.

The Practice

Bancroft is experienced in many forms of art. She is classed as a fashion designer, artist and has illustrated and/or written 40 children’s books. The works I will be focusing on is her Acrylic on canvas paintings.

Technique

Bancroft uses acrylic paint in her paintings. Her pointillism technique creates coarseness and mimics an almost crochet fabric texture, most likely inspired by her fashion background.

Context

In 1985, Bancroft established a shop called Designer Aboriginals, selling fabrics made by Aboriginal artists including herself. Bancroft has a long history of involvement in community activism and arts administration, and has served as a board member for the National Gallery of Australia. Her painting Prevention of AIDS (1992) was used in a campaign to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS in Australia.

I really love Bancroft’s style, although her paintings are based off her cultural background I would like to incorporate her psychedelic themes into my experimental painting.

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Using rubbing alcohol mainly, I painted acrylic washes and tested what it would react like in the paint. It ended up working really well and could look good as a background.

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Using a kaleidoscope lense I mimicked James w Johnston's kaleidoscope painting as it reminds me of the distorting goggles used to make you feel like your drunk which is perfect for my alcohol theme

Thinking of the word 'play' made me think of drinking games and how they could lead to over drinking and dangerous abuse of alcohol as they make drinking seem innocent and fun

I also found this article about how drinking games can be dangerous

*EDIT*

I also really love the idea of optical illustions

This kaleidoscope idea really helped me lean into the idea of optical illusion and how disorienting they can be mimicking the feeling of being inebriated

I also tried my hand at some simple optical illusions

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James W Johnston Artist Research

Biography

James W Johnson was born and raised in Upstate NY and moved to Lubbock, Texas in 1978. He received an MFA from Texas Tech University in 1981 and has continued to live in Lubbock as a studio artist, spending over 80,000 hours making art. While being primarily a painter, James has produced a complex body of work in a wide variety of mediums such painting, video, drawing, sculpture, etching, digital, mixed media and furniture. James W Johnson has participated in over 175 exhibitions worldwide. Living outside of the mainstream art world has allowed James to perfect his craft and independently pursue an impressive flow of ideas and images that defy categorization and present his observations about art and life from a unique perspective.

The Practice

James W Johnston is a painter. He can be classed as a surrealist painter due to his surrealist themes and style. He also has a collection of fragmented paintings which look like normal paintings having been shattered. Johnston also dabbles in realism.

Techniques

Johnston’s paintings are delicately worked and his realistic technique give his paintings a great visual impact. He uses a large range of colours and tones which create depth and the realistic effect that he creates so well. Johnston also favours a gradient background which also creates depth in his composition.

Context

Johnston takes heavy inspiration from Salvador Dali. His surrealist paintings mirror the same techniques and layouts that Dali’s do. Johnston also painted a piece about Dali named “dolly in Dali land" a surrealist painting featuring Dali’s face in the foreground.

I really like Johnston's surrealist technique and kaleidoscope idea, I want to carry this through my work

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I used acrylic paint to freestyle and express the way I imagined it would feel like to be on drugs.

I kept Andre Masson's style in mind also

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I also tried paint pouring to create some more trippy abstract paintings. I used watered down pouring acrylic and poured it out of a small cup. I think they turned out quite well and may also look good as backgrounds