Elizabeth Peyton, influence #3

Elizabeth Peyton was born in 1965 and is an American painter. She is a contemporary artist best known for stylized and idealized portraits of her close friends and boyfriends, and pop celebrities. 

The focus of Peyton’s work has been the small-scale portrait. She works most often in oil paint, but also in watercolour, pencil, and etching. Her paintings are characterized by elongated, slender figures with androgynous features. Sexually ambiguous, feminine qualities are regularly emphasised. Her work at times resembles fashion illustration. The artist, interviewed in the catalogue for the exhibition The Painter of Modern Life at the Hayward Gallery in London in 2007, has indeed acknowledged the importance of photography as an inspiration source for her art. She thus usually works from photographs. Her work is most often executed in oil paint, applied with washy glazes that are sometimes allowed or encouraged to drip. In addition, Peyton has created since the 1990s a broad range of prints, including monotypes, lithographs, woodcuts, and etchings. Experimenting with different techniques, she also uses a variety of diverse and handmade papers as well as various colored and monochromatic inks. Her portrayed subjects populate both her prints and paintings.

The idealization and stylization of known celebrities has led some critics to characterize her work as being in the tradition of Andy Warhol. 

-Information from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Peyton  

I like Peyton's work as she has the ability to give life to her characters through her brush strokes, something I attempted in my rebellion series. Although her characters tend to be more intense at times and their emotions are very obvious to the viewer as she goes into more details in their facial expressions- something I avoided mainly because I was unsure of my ability to portray the right emotion and as a perfectionist that was unacceptable, but also because I wanted the body to have a language of its own- like a dance. And I wanted the body to communicate its silent message without using a smile or a frown to accompany it. 

I didn't want to use drips in my paintings because they were present in Carpenters and also in some of Peytons' work, so what I did instead was push the paint from one surface to another so that it made up the visual effect all on its own. Dried layers of acrylic paint lay underneath and gave the printed colors more dynamic effects. All my paintings are acrylic on canvas, or acrylic on cardboard. 

Wassily Kandinsky - influence #2

"There is no must in art because art is free."

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was an influential painter who created the first purely abstract paintings. He concerned himself with what is called the grammar of Forms. Point, line and plane. These are the basic drawing elements which Kandinsky formally studied. In both art forms- painting and music- the Line represents the predominant means of expression and asserts itself by its volume and length. In both art forms points and lines are used to represent time and space.

   

"An empty canvas is a living wonder... far lovelier than certain pictures."

I love the use of color, shape,  and seemingly random composition of Kandinsky's paintings. 

                                           "The artist must train not only his eye but also his soul."

The Final painting in the Kaleidoscope series (the one with all the squares and triangles in bright water colors) it clear that Kandinsky is a main influence. I like using shapes- some block colours and others just plain line and empty shapes. I had fun painting this one and it is definitely one of my favorites.

References:

• Duchting, Hajo. Wassily Kandinsky 1866-1944 A revolution in painting. Koln Benedikt Taschen Ltd, 1993.  

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• Messer, M, Thomas. Vasily Kandinsky / Thomas M. Messer. = Kandinsky. London : Thames and Hudson. 1997.

Wikipedia- Wassily Kandinsky- date of access: 5.11.2011   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky  

Wassily Kandinsky Biography- date of access 5.11.2011    http://www.wassilykandinsky.net/  

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Rebellion Series- Finished.

I've decided to post these two as they have changed the most. I liked introducing color into these works, they are much brighter now, and giving them more of a setting, I feel, means they convey a clearer indication of their personalities.

Kaleidoscope series influenced by Carpenter and Kandinsky

 >> work in progress

 >> Final

 >>close up 1

  >>close up 2

  >>close up 3 

  >>close up 4

Carpenters process is an unconscious development and there are things he doesn't even realize until the end, and some others that end up unexpectedly dominating the image. This is very similar to the process I used in this series, the colours I used called to me in a way and told me where they wanted to go. It was not hard to finish the Final, and I also knew exactly when to stop with the abstract shapes without really knowing how or why. It just seemed right to me. Finished.

  >>close up 5

  >>close up 6

  >>close up 7

  >> close up 8

  >>Final again

The emotions I intended the viewer to see were confidence, relief, anger, curiosity, suspicion, vulnerability, fear, mistrust, pride and lust. Unfortunately some images were lost (in a computer crash I had at home recently) and 3 other paintings that go with this series are not up on this blog, they are hung in my studio space. They involve the use of the eye from my female characters and lots of bold and bright colours in different abstract forms. They are all the same size as Curious Anger below.

 >>Curious Anger

  >> Don't Panic! 

I like how Carpenter explains the complex nature of creating art, making a great painting, knowing what areas to fill and what to leave blank on a canvas. "To go beyond mistakes. A realm where nothing functions and suddenly it starts to function." He also agrees that it is often hard to put into words what the meaning and nature of the work is. 

This series is mainly about the Kaleidoscope of emotions that one can go through in a single moment. As you can see I have taken inspiration from Carpenter by using fashion-like poses in the Final, and in Don't Panic! which is one of my favorites you can see I have tried to infuse a monochromatic background with small aspects of the females in the Final and the Rebellion series. Kandinsky obviously plays a role in the abstract shapes that take place in the Final, I didn't want to use circular shapes as I felt the abrupt sharpness of the squares and triangles gave the emotions more power and a sense of fleeting time. The block shapes also reminded me of slides on a film-depicting a moment in time- the angled lines also represented to me how a scene or an emotion can change, can turn a corner if you will, and go down another path all too soon.

Pacman!

For my animation I've decided to do an 1800's Unitec version of pacman using parts of the architecture of unitec and the old nurses at the asylum as the ghosts. here is an example of the original pacman :)

Here is the final version I created, took two very stressful weeks after all my planning and character creation/setting :)   had lots of camera malfunctions but all good, hope this turns out well- its an mp.4 ! :/

Comfort Zone- Installation Art for Interior Design

Comfort Zone

This installation is intended to refer to manmade materials in the home that are not bio-degradable. All these items are replaced over time for a newer/more advanced version of itself and discarded out into the world and forgotten about.

The material (tin foil- a domestic, throw-away material) illuminates the object it’s covering and reflects the optimum amount of light, so the viewer is now forced to be made aware of their surroundings, the intent being that they will not forget about the setting and its’ meaning.

The fire symbolises the growing power of consumerism and the broken shards represent the failure of human reflection and learning from our mistakes in regards to protecting our own environment. In other words, humans are happy living in our own comfort zone, blissfully ignorant to the outcome of our actions.

Influences:

The tin foil prank in Dunedin, Dominic Wilcox, Yayoi Kusama, and Zhan Wang has all influenced my work in this module. 

Warp Series (influenced by M.Carpenter)

 >>Bricklane

  >>Zorb

 >>Papercut

 >>Indifferent

 >>Spirited

 >>Muse

 >>Blind Spot

These paintings of mine are about what I thought the character was feeling at the time the photo was taken, (no copyright infringement is intended in the use of these images, no profit is made from these paintings.) some are meant to look calculating, others warped/conflicted, others swept away, or nonchalant. But ultimately it is up to the viewer to decide upon what they want to feel when they view the work. Carpenter paints his females but I decided to use magazine cut outs as they have more detail and it is also a way of using fashion photography in the work. Bricklane is my favorite out of the lot, I like the earth tones in it and the straight lines that I used. I also like the females sense of style.