Evaluation

The Theme of my project is Childhood & the Loss of Innocence, drawn from the main theme of Memories/Faded/Traces. I was inspired by a collection of old costume dolls in my possession, mixed with classical & more contemporary images of hell. I drew on these twin inspirations & others stemming from these, such as old children’s relics & the idea of repressed bad memories trying to metaphorically crawl out & have ended up with a mock final piece which is supposed to be reminiscent of a children’s pop-up book with the gruesome dolls I made crawling out. The dolls represent terrible memories which have been repressed in a hellish torture by being flayed (hence why they are red & do not have skin), a metaphor for the brain trying to strip memories of their pain, but really only making it worse with time. The book represents the entire collection of childhood memories, some of which are nice (represented by the pages of the prayer book & the occasional leaf left white) & most of which are unpleasant (the red, black, dolls, rips & other materials within) but all of which are bound in a scab-like wooden shell, hardened over time to represent the way people try to forget their pasts.  

I explored the work of older artists such as Gustav Doré, Hieronymus Bosch & Fra Angelico (all for their images of hell), with more contemporary works by Clive Barker (more graphic hell imagery), Harry Clarke (his illustrations for both children’s books & macabre literature provide a contrast which resonates well with my theme) & Benjamin Lacombe (whose similarly contrasting work for children & adults & his pop-up books provide inspiration).

 

For my final piece I have started working in a more three dimensional format, combining painting, collage & sculpture to hopefully create an interesting end product. I experimented with creating texture by gluing bark onto paper & then painting over it with PVA glue, red ink & black ink to create a scab-like effect. I mixed this with papier-mâché newspaper & prayer book pages which merge with the bodies of the papier-mâché dolls so it appears that their bodies are growing out of the surface they are on, in this case the cover of the book. 

 

I have always held an interest in portrayals of life after death, especially as I have never believed in an afterlife. The strange & disgusting ways superstitious people decide they will be tortured in their futures is fascinating to me, as I am a firm believer that we create our own hells. This is illustrated by the book that has for so long been scabbed shut; it is a representation of the internal hell created by memories & thoughts. Opening the book has released inner demons; the deformed, fleshy dolls trying to escape from the pages. I dabbled with some freeform poetry on some of the pages to create a confusing window into the subconscious. Whether this work is a window into my own subconscious is something I have pondered over. I think there are definitely parts of myself in the piece but how much of it is entirely personal & how much is based on my observations of other people I do not know.

I feel like I should have used more personal artefacts to create this work; more photographs, more letters, more old relics. I will try to incorporate more of my own history (not that there is much to speak of) into my next project. I also should have planned the piece more carefully & spent more time on preparation. I have always felt pressed for time throughout the course of this project so for the next project I will have to organise my time more efficiently.

Little Red Riding Hood

Harry Clarke
1922
Little Red Riding Hood
Illustration from the Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault

This piece is from a book published in 1922 called The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, an anthology of the classic tales originally written by Charles Perrault (1628-1703) which he based upon various local folktales. Charles Perrault, along with Hans Christian Andersen & the Brothers Grimm, was one of the most important men in the recording of children's tales, something which would have been very important to Harry Clarke as folklore was a large influence on his style of illustration. Clarke (1889-1931) battled with ill health & bouts of melancholia which gave him an insight into the darker side of life. This fascination with disturbing imagery lead him to illustrate Faust & Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery & Imagination, very dark stories which gave his disturbing & highly stylized illustrating style an excellent opportunity to display as much darkness as possible. This is why it could be deemed unusual that he also provided beautiful (& sometimes full-colour, such as this one) illustrations for children's fairy tales. In reality, most fairy tales as we know them hold their roots in violent & disturbing folktales of our distant ancestors. Clarke would have known this & added subtle hints to the darker side of childhood tales into his work. For example, Red Riding Hood looks quite menacing as she is enormous & is carrying a dangerously pointy umbrella, whereas the 'big bad' wolf looks comparatively tame, with blue eyes & fluffy fur. Red is traditionally the colour of danger & Hood looks like she would be more dangerous to the wolf than he to her, as is the case in some versions of the tale, where she & the woodcutter slice the wolf open while he is still conscious to retrieve her grandmother.
There also seem to be tiny dark figures in the background, which is a bit eerie. The trees look very serene & beautiful, as if they are unaware of the brutality going to be committed in their midst soon. They seem to glitter with freshly fallen snow, snow which suggests the depths of a cold European winter in which a wolf would not be able to obtain much food.

Clarke was influenced by Art Nouveau & traditional stained glass. Stained glass was his other main medium & he was world-renowned for his amazingly (for the time) delicate & detailed work with highly stylized figures with intense expressions.

Robert Rauschenberg Hybrid 1970 planographic lithograph, printed in five colours from one stone and four aluminium plates

In Hybrid, Rauschenberg has combined elements of the natural world (the bird & the trees) with elements of the man-made world (the rocket & what looks like a wooden wall).

In 1969 Rauschenberg was given the privilege of  witnessing the launch of Apollo 11. NASA provided him with detailed maps, charts & photographs which he incorporated into his Stoned Moon series which this piece is a part of. This piece & the others in the Stoned Moon series are upbeat, happy pieces celebrating humankind’s peaceful, responsive, responsible collaboration between man & technology which allows us to explore the wonders of space.

Robert Rauschenberg, born Milton Ernest Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was born in Texas & died in Florida. He lived mostly in New York City, where his early works anticipated the Pop Art movement in the city. He was awarded the National medal of arts in 1993 & the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts in 1995 in recognition of more than 40 years of acclaimed & innovative work in the fields of painting, sculpture, ‘Combines’ (combination of painting & sculpture), photography, printmaking, papermaking & performance. He was part of the Neo-Dada & Abstarct Expressionist movements & he was instructed by Josef Albers, a founder of the Bauhaus, who influenced him to do exactly the reverse of what was taught to him on the strict, no-experimentation-allowed course. Rauschenberg also studied in France at the Académie Julian, where he met his future wife Susan Weil, a painter. He married Weil in 1950 & they had one child, Christopher, in 1951, who became a photographer. Their marriage only lasted 3 years & after this time Rauschenberg had romantic relationships with fellow artists Cy Twombly & Jasper Johns. Jonathan D. Katz states in an article that Rauschenberg’s affair with Cy Twombly began during his marriage to Susan Weil.

He died in 2008 of heart failure after a personal decision to go off life support. He is survived by his partner of 25 years & former assistant, artist Darryl Pottorf. Rauschenberg’s sister, Janet Begneaud is also still alive.

The description of the piece Hybrid on http://artsearch.nga.gov.au/Detail-LRG.cfm?IRN=102704&GETCS=1 says the piece has five colours but I can only see three, white, yellow & red. The bright, lemon yellow contrast with the deep crimson red, especially since there is more red than yellow so the yellow ‘pops’ & draws the eyes to the places it highlights. The rocket in the piece in pointed diagonally away from the trees & the bird, indicating new technology enabling man to leave the earth behind to find new knowledge which he can then use to deepen his understanding of his own world & strengthen the bond between man & nature. The head of the bird is one of the highest (in terms of composition) points of the piece, showing the importance of respecting nature & non-human animals, as the ability to respect all living things will be an important skill if man, on his explorations of space, encounters any extra-terrestrial life. Rauschenberg shows in Hybrid that man must have a balanced understanding of nature & technology if he is ever going to be enlightened (enlightenment perhaps shown by the bright flashes of yellow).

My old broken doll collection

Foumd them at a carboot, got them for £2. One of the best finds of my life. Visitors always find them creepy but I am touched by them as they carry so many memories but what these memories are, we may never know. They would be good subjects to paint, I think, especially if I could make up a model into the likeness of one of my dolls & paint them together. Just a thought but I think it would be good.

Tonal Pieces

Harry Clarke

St. Bridget

1925

Stained Glass

H.Magoria

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

Acrylic

2005

DeviantArt

M.C. Escher

Drawing Hands

Lithograph

1948

M.C. Escher Official Website

Rene Magritte
The Lovers
Oil
1928
Moma.org

Yellow Rose VI
 Ephraim Rubenstein

 graphite powder on yellow

2002

Artist Daily

Ephesus

Thought these might be appropriate too. Taken in Ephesus in Turkey

Photos from the graveyard

I took these photos in the graveyard last night. I would have taken more but my camera ran out of battery. I will take more & go to some more graveyards at other times.