Yago Hortal

                                                 THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF ACRYLIC!!

I like how Yago Hortal captured the raw essence of colour. The colours seem to be applied directly onto the canvas/paper, left unmixed. Shall try that one day! (:

Mark Ryden

From the art movement known as POP SURREALISM.

His works emit the creepy aura, but somehow, that is what make it fascinating.

The brushwork is very very fine and detailed and the details in the painting are whimsical and carefully carved. Well, it is somewhat like surrealism, very realistic depiction of forms but a subject matter that is unreal, to shock the viewer with a juxtaposition of the "real and the surreal". Well, that is what makes surrealism cool. (:

Ok, now back to Pop Surrrealism. It also portrays scenes that are of a dreamlike quality, like a nice fantasy, but I find the colour application soft and pastel-like, different from the strong and bold colours used by Dali. Well, but I like both Surrealism and Pop- Surrealism. (:

This is cool and morbid. (:



                                                          

(Wow, he does prep sketches of his works too! Like Liu Kang and Christo! This tells us that prep work is important!)

At first, the paintings seem normal and even have a dreamlike quality to it, it is like Alice in Wonderland. The human form is portrayed in such a way that it looks like a character appearing out of a fantasy book. The colours used emphasised its dreamlike quality as soft hues are present, but the whole scene is so painted with so much skill and precision, such that the scene looks real. A sense of boldness is actually present, the solid feeling that the scene captures is just breath-taking.

 However, when you look closer, the girls' faces are actually scary, with distorted proportion and the eyes seem to gleam with hatred and coldness. It is like a contrast between the beautiful and the ugly. The supposed sweet and innocent look of the painting is "disrupted" by the facial expressions, making it quite ironic. But I guess the irony present in the paintings is the subtle quality that makes the paintings stand out. It is sadistic to portray beautiful dolls like that, but well, maybe he is trying to hint that there are devils hidden under angellic looks.  Furthermore, the pure white, porcelain-like quality of the dolls skin(particularly for the left one) further highlights the eerie quality of the whole painting as white skin is associated with being ghostly. By the way, the doll on the left is wearing a meat dress, and that reminds me of Lady Gaga's meat dress:

I wonder if she actually got the idea from this painting... That is like bringing surrealism to reality. It just made me realise that Lady Gaga's meat dress is like a performance art...quite bizzare but it all depends on whether we can appreciate the meat dress or not.

OTHER NICE PAINTINGS FROM MARK RYDEN (:

Well, his works all have the same style - there is a certain darkness in his seemingly light-hearted paintings. The distortion and mutation of forms are present in all of his paintings. His paintings also portray the corruption of childlike innocence. For example, the painting of the "teletubbies" shows mutation of the original teletubbies' forms. In his painting, teletubbies are portrayed as small eyed aliens, disrupting our notion of something that is associated to our childhood. It is like saying: "THE TELETUBBIES ARE EVIL!" There is also a use of religious symbols in the teletubbies work, which may seem controversial. Well, controversial art is so common nowadays... He twists our childhood memories in a way, distorting them and portraying them as something evil.

I guess that this is something like the metamorphosis of the human form. Or it can be metamorphosis of childhood fantasies into something that is dark and morbid. Cool. (: The morphing of innocence into corruption and evilness.

& FINALLY...

This is the distorted Snow White. Not quite the snow white "who is the fairest of them all".

The composition seems familiar...

Does it remind you of these?

Well, it looks like the influence of Manet is present in Ryden's works (in terms of composition).

Visit www.markryden.com to view the rest of his works! (: Morbid yet fascinating.

Character Design in Sec 1 (:

                                                Basketballie and Minton(2009)
                                               Medium: Poster Colour on A3 Drawing Block


Basketballie is the one whih looks like a basketball and Minton is the one that looks like a shuttlecock. I was a very very sporty person at that time so I based my character design on sports! (: This is for me to reminiscent the 2 very sporty years of my secondary school life.
Art is inspired by our very own lives, by what we believe in, by what we see, by what we feel and by what we love.

Oops, basketballie got smudged the day before the assignment is due... :/

Blogger decided to flip the image when I uploaded it... >< Urgh. Anyway this is a page that shows the emotions of these imaginary characters. Cartoons have feelings too!!

To tell the truth, I like basketballie more! (: Well, I was a basketballer so I would prefer this character. And the roundness of Basketballie makes her look so cute! Haha (:

 

The Metamorphosis and Distortion of the Human Form

                                                         Antony Gormley                          
                                                                    

They are clearly human forms, but they are presented in a different yet interesting manner. The power of distortion is really unimaginable! Well, with distortion, the overall shape and impact that the sculpture gives varies. Different forms of the human form are explored but they still reflect the same thing - a human figure.

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF HUMANS!

It will be scary if we all become like that though! (All our intestines can be seen O.O ) That is the nice thing about art. There is so much space for exploration, discovery and creation in art. (:

On a side note, I shall settle my theme for coursework as METAMORPHOSIS! (: (: 

Controversial art

There is this thing about controversial art that I find puzzling. Well, controversial art is supposed to be art that sparks off a debate among the general public. Well, take a look at this piece of art:

A Thousand Years - Damien Hirst(1990)

Medium: Steel, glass, flies, maggots, MDF, insect-o-cutor, cow's head, sugar, water

So this artist has displayed a real cow head(a decaying one), with maggots around it, in an art museum. IS THIS ART? Well, it is a controversial topic. Personally, I find this work disturbing and hard to accept, but some people may think that this is creative. To me, displaying dead animals is not what I will call art.

Number 1, I feel that it is a breach of animal rights. I wonder where he got the cow's head from...

Number 2, the display of a dead cow's head is gruesome and bloody.

Number 3, the thought of using maggots(which transform into houseflies) is kind of freaky.

I think the reason that we find some pieces of art controversial is because of our mindsets and our attitudes. For example, now we can accept the Impressionists' paintings. However, during the Impressionists times, people had this mindset that art should be like the Old Masters' art, so they deemed Impressionistic paintings as controversial art. This made me ponder over the term 'controversial art'. What exactly is controversial art? The idea of controversial art seemed to change as time progresses. I wonder if an AEP student studies Damien Hirst in the year 3000, will she still find this work controversial? Or will new artists who challenge the notions of existing art be the next generation of controversial artists?

METAMORPHOSIS SERIES :D

Credits to Deviantart artist buchnerartmotion. (:
These are pretty, detailed and colourful. Very collage like = I like(:

The artist's works are exploring the metamorphosis of forms and the merging of some unrelated things together. The forms are distorted in a fluid way and they are nicely juxtaposed to form one whole composition. It is like neat and messy at the same time as so many different forms are combined together.

The explosion of vibrant colours bring about a strong visual impact to the works. (: It is done in watercolour and crayons(how did he do it O.O). To me, the medium looks more like colour pencil! But oh well, the overall effect and texture is nice.

The swirly, fluid motion of the forms remind me of Dali's paintings, where forms are "melted" to give a flowing effect.

Speaking of Metamorphosis,

Dali also painted one work that has Metamorphosis in the title! (:

The Metamorphosis of Narcissus

In this artwork, Dali explores the morphing of a hand into rocks? Well, the shape and contours of the 2 main subject look similar, but the details are different. It is like comparing something original to something that is morphed. So I think Dali is exploring the idea of comparing side by side to emphasise the idea of metamorphosis. (Hope I am making sense >.< )

Under the Starry Sky....

There is a tree! (:

Ok, so here is my third oil painting! (: Well, I like how it turned out, but the grass was not very successful. ): I like to paint skies with loads of colours and a dreamy effect! (:

                                                   UNDER THE STARRY SKY
                                                                      2012
                                                          OIL ON CANVAS

Well, there is actually texture in the painting too! Especially the stars that are big and the texture of the tree is actually rough!