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garp19-sophialea-blog · 5 years

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Proposal - First draft

For my dissertation I wanted to look into one of my favourite artists Frida Kahlo. I find her paintings beautiful to look at with a lot of depth and emotion behind them. When you look through her collection of work, you can see her life story being told, and your able to walk through the events and moments she experienced. Not only is she an incredible artist who painted portraits and images inspired by her personal life, but she was also someone who suffered greatly yet continued to carry on an fight for what she believed in. From the age of 6 she was diagnosed with polio, resulting in one of her legs being noticeably smaller than the other. If this was not enough of an impact on her life, she later was involved in a tragic bus accident, which changed her life forever. After breaking many bones throughout her body, and having a metal pole impale her in the abdomen, she was left bed bound for nine months and would find herself to be in and out of hospitals for the rest of her life. When deciding on a subject with in the umbrella of Frida Kahlos life, I had the option to look into her life story and talk about the influences shes had on people, or to talk about the unusual relationship she had with her husband Diego Rivera, however I wanted to do something different as I feel this has been done many times before. Instead I wanted to look at the reasons why Frida Kahlo is so famous today, and recognised by people not even interested in art. When people see her face, they generally recognise her as Frida Kahlo, something other artists such as Pablo Picasso or Georgia O’Keeffe do not have the privilege of. However whilst undergoing research on these facts, I noticed that even though people recognised and could name the woman with the monobrow, they didn’t necessarily know who she was and why she was famous. You will find Kahlos image on anything from t shirts and bags, to bars of soap and shot glasses. She had the reputation of being a feminist icon that people should look up to, yet they know nothing of her or her life story. Since discovering this I would like to investigate why Frida Kahlo has become famous for reasons other than the artwork she produced, and whether she is known for the strong woman she was or just a face to make money out of. I think this would be an interest to others as it may unveil issues we have in society that aren’t being addressed, due to the ignorance of consumers. By reading my final essay you will learn more about Frida Kahlo as person rather than her simply being a monobrow on a t shirt sold in Primark.

I have began my research by reading Haydn Herrera’s 500 page biography on Frida Kahlos life. The book follows very detailed events that occur from her childhood, all the way through to her death at the age of 47. It contains many photographs and paintings done by the artist, as well as diery entries and letters she wrote through her lifetime. By reading this book, I hope to gain a greater knowledge of what her life was like, giving me more confidence to talk about her in my final essay knowing I have all the facts. Any key quotes or interesting events I find within the book, I log down on my Tumblr account, so that I have easy access back to them when writing out my final essay. As well as reading the book, I have watched the film ‘Frida’ staring Salma Hayek that is in fact based off Herrera’s book. By watching the film as well as reading the book, I hope to gain a new insight into what her life was like, having actual visuals of Mexico back in the 1900’s. By watching the character of Frida acted out by Salma Hayek, you can create a greater understanding for the pain and emotion she dealt with in her life, whether it was through the pain of the bus accident, or the pain of her husband constantly cheating on her with other woman.

When browsing through the internet, I came across a page called ‘Frida Kahlo is not your symbol’. I found this an intreging title, as it wasn’t simply a ‘fan page’ that I had so often come across when researching the artist. On the site I found a list of issues and arguments that have been raised due to people putting Fridas face on anytings and everything in a feat to make money. It talks about how this would not only go against everything Frida Kahlo stood for, but it often wasn’t even portraying her correct appearance. An example of this would be when social media platform snapchat, created a filter for the Mexican artist back in 2017. However when looking at the filter and the changes it made to a persons appearance, it was noticed that it would in fact create a paler complexion to that of the Mexican artist. People investigated further by placing the filter over the original Frida Kahlo self portraits, and the results confirmed that it did in fact lighten the skin tone of the original image. Discovering this sparked outrage to the public and those with different skin tones. But this was not the last time this would occur. A year later in march 2018, the popular doll company ‘Barbie’ released a Frida Kahlo doll as part of their inspiring women series. When reading an article written by ‘The Independent’ aside from the copywrite issues raised by the family, the doll itself has very few properties that made Frida Kahlo the woman she was. The doll once again has a very pale complexion, as well as being extremely skinny, something barbie has been pulled up on many times before. However the doll does not have a monobrow, one of Frida’s most noticeable features, nor does it show any evidence of the fact that she was disabled due to the bus accident, or the fact that she eventually lost one of her legs to gangrene later on in life. Leaving these features out and making it seem that she was a completely abled white woman, takes away all the things that made Frida Kahlo the woman she was. An ironic quote I found on the ‘Frida Kahlo is not your symbol’ website, was that she claimed she hated white people, the USA and capitalism, saying ‘ I don’t like the gringos at all. They’re very boring and they’ve all got faces like unbaked rolls’. Having been a woman that had these views, you would think she would be condemned, but rather she was embraced by white feminists, only reimagined as a ghostly version of herself, free of any radicality and hardship.

This ignorance to who Frida Kahlo was taken even further when British Prime Minister, Teresa May, wore a chunky Frida Kahlo bracelet during one of her speeches. Whilst May is a representative of the conservative party, it seems ridiculous that she would wear a bracelet representing a woman who was a fervent communist and actually had an affaire with Leon Trotsky, a soviet politician. People may argue that May simply wore the bracelet for aesthetic reasons, but that just proves how ignorant people have people on the views Kahlo had and fought for.

During a recent trip to London, I was able to document just how popular Frida Kahlo merchandise is. When travelling round gift shops, clothes shops or just walking down the road, you could find her face everywhere. You could buy Frida Kahlo mirrors, bags, soap, shot glasses, glasses cases, fairy lights… A factor I did pick up on however was the fact that they were all the same image of her.

You never see a painting of her ‘broken column’ or the ‘what I see in the water’, which I feel are beautiful pieces. The only reason I can think of for these pieces never being shown in the public eye or on items being sold in shops, is due to the fact that it shows deeper layers to her, not just the fact that she was a beautiful woman. The broken column does have partial nudity which I could understand some designers not wanting to feature if they target younger audiences, however this is not a factor in all of her artwork so why do people insist on using the same image of her.

So a key concepts that I will be looking at for the final essay is whether or not Frida Kahlo has simply become a face used to sell products and occasionally represent feminism. Has she become a hallow shell that the public eye no longer recognises for her artwork and life story. Do people no longer know her belief or what she stood for, and now simply see her as a pretty face with a monobrow on a tote bag. I feel like this has unfortunately become the case, as we are living in a society were we only care about making money. As well as this I want to see if there is a reason that in many products created around the Frida Kahlo brand, that some of her key features have been left out, such as in the snapchat filter or Barbie doll. I will be interested if this is a common factor that happens to other women and men of colour, or if it has simply happened to her, and if so why? To continue researching down this question I would need to understand some more background information on Mexico in this time period. What the Mexican revolution was all about and why Frida had the views she did. When alive she would always wear very traditional Mexican dresses, rather than anything influenced by European clothing. I need to fill in the gaps of her reasoning behind this. Her farther was originally from Germany, so what exactly was it about Europe and the USA that she so much hated. By filling in these gaps I would have a better insight of the history and beliefs she stood for, and then get greater understanding on the outrage some people have toward what so many companies are doing with the Frida Kahlo brand.

I would also be interested in researching and finding out more about the Frida Kahlo exhibition that recently took place in London. I was unfortunately unable to get tickets on the event, however I think I could find some interesting points from the exhibition, and to get feedback from anyone who went to the event. To find this out I would need to do some more research online and find articles written in review of the show. As well as this, I could possibly email people that went or were involved in production of the show, and get there opinion, not only on the exhibition, but on some other issues previously raised in my research. To carry this out I would need to create a consent form in order to prevent any issues possibly raised in the future, should the person I interviewed decided they no longer wanted to be a part of the research.

Over the summer I shall continue to read Frida’s biography by Herrera, as well as carrying out online research. As well as this I will be researching Mexican history in the 1900’s to gain greater knowledge on Frida’s beliefs and understand on a greater scale why the Frida Kahlo of today would outrage Frida if she were alive to see it today. I think I need to have a greater understanding on communism and the politics in general around this time, as some of the gaps in my knowledge on the subjects may become an issue when I am later writing my essay. Finally I will try and investigate further into the barbie doll of Frida Kahlo and the issues that revolved around it. I would like to see what exactly happened with the copywrite laws that resulted in the doll being removed from shop shelves, and why the doll didn’t have any of Frida’s attributes in the first place.

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jaygraphicarts · 6 years

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Final Evaluation

‘Cinematographer’ looked at the relationship between Art and Film. Throughout the process, this link between both media was always considered. From the workshops, to the final production of the frames, constantly linking back to how the original shot types were made, made it easier to composite my own frames in a similar way. During this project, my aims were:

Analyse 3 films from a list in detail

Pick one to work from and produce 6 frame reproductions, with the outcomes showing a range of processes and tools

To show exploration of audience perception, and how each element of visual language affects meaning

Upon analysing the brief and list of films, the three films I chose were: ‘Moonlight’, ‘Drive’ and ‘The Terminator’. I chose these because they were all relatively modern films, which allowed for me to explore how modern cinema has evolved and the influences from older traditional art to newer traditional art. I wanted to communicate this same modernism in my final frames, which meant that I wanted to focus on mainly digital processes. However, once I explored some analogue processes in some workshops, I learnt about how both could be crossed over, so this became more of a priority for me. In terms of abstraction, I wanted to explore how a subject could be altered whilst still being recognised as the same thing, and then transfer this exploration into some of my frames.

Out of the 3 films, I chose 'The Terminator' to base my final piece on. I did this due to the strong focus on the main antagonist and highlight of the story - The Terminator itself. From this, I then looked into how composition and visual language effected focus in a frame, to ensure that I portrayed each character with audience perception as a priority.

Research and Influence

The first artist I analysed was Edward Hopper, an American realist painter and printmaker from the 19th and 20th century. Although his work dates back before digital processes were as prominent, his etching work, and repeated lines to create tone, prompted me to do a similar thing but digitally. Because of this, the repeated lines are more concise, whereas Edward Hopper, using etching as his process, would have more sporadic line work, communicating a more destructed mood. In contrast, a more modern visual artist and designer I looked at was James White. His digital poster illustrations with a consistent restricted colour palette and retro theme provided a large influence for the way I carried out my digital work. Firstly, I gave myself a colour palette of only 5 colours to work with (including the black and white substitutes). Restricting this colour palette meant I could make my work more consistent, in a similar way James White’s works are. The colour scheme is influenced by 80s retro-like artwork. I chose to work from this reference because The Terminator was made in 1984, so I wanted to look into the popular culture at that time. I found that gaming was rapidly growing in these years, and video game graphics became something I wanted to tap into with my final piece. From my artist research, I learnt how even an old style of graphics could be revisited and remastered, so that I could do the same with the 80s retro video games style.

Visual Language

From the start of the project, I wanted to show a range of techniques and have the frames all contrast each other with the way they were made. Because of this, the main thing I focused on in my research was how each element of visual language affected the meaning of the overall piece. The first exploration I did in a digital workshop was how a lack of colour proved effective, which was mainly inspired again by Edward Hopper’s etching work. In this I produced one of the frames in a comic book style, but leaving behind the idea of any colour at all. Because of this, the frame was given a completely different meaning. It went from being dark and gloomy, due to the tones of blue it was covered in, to bold and threating, because of the monotone, bold, clean lines the frame was made up of. I then later produced two frames with this comic book style. The next style I did was the retro illustration style. In contrast to the comic style, this was much more brightly coloured, with more abstraction going into the frame. Then lastly, a rough brush style similar to that practiced in the 'Protagonist' workshop, was used in the most threatening frames (the two showing the antagonist pointing lasers towards the audience.) I didn't want to do a clean 2d illustration for this, because to an audience, this could be perceived as childish/comical, which is the opposite of what I wanted to portray.

Actions

Next term, I want to focus more on the process rather than the outcome of my project. I often prioritize how my final piece will look, over the how I make the process evident. As well as this, I want to explore more analogue processes. I realize I am more confident with digital work, but in this assignment I tried to mix the two, and in my opinion it gave the best outcomes out of my frames. This is why in future projects, I want to try going out of my comfort zone a bit more.

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