The Puppet

 

I created this piece partly from inspiration from a previous piece in my book where the focus was a puppet, but mostly because at the time I was planning a photo-shoot. I used this image to portray what I was trying to achieve within the photo-shoot as I was finding it difficult to describe it to others as it was completely from the imagination. the idea of the piece is that the restraints are causing the girl to crack and shatter; it is like a metaphor for how the strains of society cause us to break and crack. I think that this is an important theme to have within my work as societies develop sociological norms towards behaviours/acts such as body modification, although the imagery does not contain any links to body modification, there is a deep underlying message of the prejudice many people face from being modified as a result of the society they live in being non-acceptant of appearances.  I think one of my strongest skills within art is pencil drawing and so I decided to use pencils for the creation of this piece because there is a strong need for fine detail in some areas which would be unachievable with other equipment. I think that pencil drawing is my biggest strength and I would like to eventually create a drawn final piece.

The freakshow posters

 

 

 These pieces were inspired by Sailor Jerry's style, in the sense that they are very cartoonized. I wanted to use the idea of a 16th century traditional freak show in my work because of the way that they ostracize people with visual deformities, in the same way that society still discriminates against people who do not classify as 'normal' today, which is exactly what I wanted to bring out in my work. I was inspired to use this idea by a website I was shown by a tutor, it had colourful posters similar to the ones above, however what really interested me was the old photos taken of the 'freaks', they were taken using very very old film and all of the images looked very macabre and sinister. most of them definitely showed a lot of isolation as well as they were taken in empty large circus tents with just one single chair in the centre and nothing or nobody else behind. Most of the 'freaks' also shwed an overwhelming sense of sadness, this is why it attracted me and I think that if I had have had more time and the resources to do I so i would like to have made a larger print of these images as poster sized pictures and done a photoshoot similar to the ones I had been looking at in the ame macabre fashion.  

 

Red painting

I created this piece from one of my edited images and although it is just a copy i believe that the meaning remains the same. i wanted to use it as a final piece because I think that the meaning of the images is very strongly related to my subject.

Pastel perfecting.

I decided to work with Pastel some more after researching Chuck Hodi and attempt to create another piece inspired by his work as i think my forst attempt failed. The two large businessmen characters i created in the style of Hodi's characters and are a representation of society trying to control the puppet. The puppet of course being a literal representation of youths with body modifications. I created this piece totally from imagination without using any of my primary images because i think that working from imagination is a better way to work for me because my pieces always turn out better when working completely from imagination. I like this piece because i think it has a lot of meaning behind it and because it is more creative than any of my other pieces. I think it could possibly be improved by using acrylic or coloured pencils but it would be hard to say if it would be a definate improvement.

Jenny Saville and Chuck Hodi.

After i researched both artists i thought that both styles of work might mix well in one piece of work. For this piece i used a pallete knife and acrylic paint to build up a lot of layers to one piece. I used Chuck Hodi's work to inspire the shape of the face, the style of Jenny Saville for the way of applying the paint and partly my own style to finish the picture. I Dont like this piece because of the hairline. As i didnt use a picture to get the shape of the face correct and did it all from my own knowledge of the human face the forehead was origionally far too small so i was forced to add a long fringe which falls infront of the face. I do like the effect that was creates by using the pallet knife however this piece dosent really fit in with the rest of my work as it was an experimental piece and has no message in relation to body modification behind it.

Jenny Saville

I also decided to research Jenny Saville because i think that her work mirrors the 'blurred' style i was aiming for in my work. I like her work because of the thick brush strokes that make up the images rather than a proper blended painting. I think that it looks better with the dark images she was working with and the way you cant quite tell if the people in the images are bruised and injured or if it is just the work which leaves it largely open to interpretation. I created the image to the right to try and recreate the style of Jenny Saville's. I like this piece very much because i think i have got the technique right to copy the style of Saville's. The only problem i have with this piece is that my brush strokes are a kot smaller and closer together than saville's but i think i prefer the effect created by mine.

Chuck Hodi

I decided to research a less well known artist called Chuck Hodi for my work because all of his work is done with pastel and ink which i find easy to work with and also because i find his style could be used in my work effectively. I think that as his style makes the characters in his work look distorted and ugly it would be good to use in my work as a personification of societies views. I tried to recreate some of his work from the image below however i Dont think that this was very effective as i think that i would need to practice using that style of drawing a lot more to make it look right. I think that the pastel lines i used were too thick to be compared to Hodi's and that maybe pencil crayons would be more effective to recreate his work on a smaller scale. I also think that the copy i produced looks too messy and everything was done in the wrong order. I used the ink first and layered the pastel on top which i should have done the other way around and for the ink i used the blunt end of a paintbrush when it probably would have been better with a fineliner pen.