ARTWORK (Drawing) Identity, self portrait

This artwork was apart of the 'Reflection' exhibition held at C3 Kingscliff. 

on display during the 'Reflection' exhibition at C3 Kingscliff, picture is Brian Griffin and Bryce Wright (in the pram)

original image used as inspiration for the artwork

At Murwillumbah Tafe

Which of the options for the project did you select ?

Option 3

Photocopy

Montage

Creating interesting B/W textures using found objects as a palette to tear and create 6 self portraits on A1 sheets (you could explore transferring B/W image onto paper with Eucalyptus oil with grey tone washes over image) Make sure to use different and varied compositions per drawing

How is it made?

• Digitally manipulated a photo of myself to be heavily pixelated and grided creating a mosaic effect
• enlarged the edited photo of myself on a photocopier – I did this by cutting up the photo into 16 parts and enlarging each of those parts to A3 size
• joined the A3 sheets together to create 4 A1 sheets
• Cut 2cm size Tiles from cutting up photographs of objects from around the home
• Sorted out into 5 tonal piles using tonal paint chips created last year in painting (see journal)
• finally layed down the tiles over the enlarged image

This composition was selected to focus of the face and frame out most of the 'junk' space in the background

What kinds of decisions in process did you make?

1. Digital

I chose the mosaic because

exploration into comercialisation in art in art history , jeff koons and takasihi murakami chose to use an aesthetic which reflects their cultural identity . I identify as christian so I researched ways of using traditional christian art , ie stained glass and mosaics.

2. scale/copying

two options I explored with enlargement was digital and photocopy

Digital enlargement – breaking up the image and printing it off

Photocopier – more tactile , cutting up of the image and having to fill in the blanks it creates

3. tonal range

I chose to break the tonal range into 5 tones , this gave me a sufficient tonal range to work with

What are your reactions to the work in completion?

The portrait appears painterly

I am very happy with the spacial requirements of the work

because of the pixelation the aesthetic changes

comes into focus from a distance

becomes abstract up close

sculptural elements because the viewer becomes spacially aware of their interaction with the work

What is the art communicating?

• The importance sculpture training has had on my life in the past two years as a part of my own spirital growth
• influence from the digital age with the pixelation , which also aludes to my own background in digital media

What ideas preceded this work and how has it influenced this body of work?

• Tearing up colage project
• Working in larger scale
• Breaking up of a portrait into sections

Describe the artworks formal qualities-such as color, composition , style , scale , mood , media and materials.

• Color – tonal range , this choice was made based on the option selection
• Style – realism , in that the intention is not abstraction even tho it has abstract qualities
• Scale – the larger scale is needed

entices the viewer to step back

wouldnt work on a smaller scale

• mood ???– sterile , clinical almost ??? hmmmm
• media and materials – collage , photocopy paper mounted on snowden paper , the snowden paper is a technical consideration to add strength because of the amount of glue that was added to the surface

How might you have changed your ideas, choices and process that contribte to what the work is about.

• Increased the scale of the work to atleast double its size
• use tiles that were 4 x 4 cm
• Use actual images from around the house to create the tonal range

Were you satisfied in choices or decisions made, to create work(such as selection of materials, installation decisions, color or image choices)?Why did you make those choices?

Yes I am happy with the choices

SCALE - smaller scale would not have been effective

TECHNIQUE – spacial effect

TONAL RANGE

IMAGE CHOICE

MATERIALS

INSTALLATION DECISION

What does this work remind you of?

It reminds me of chuck closes portrait work post 1988

before 1988 chuck close worked with hyper realism portraits

in december 1988 chuck close had spinal artery collapse which left him paralyzed

he now works with a brush strapped onto his wrist with tape, creates large portraits in low-resolution grid squares created by an assistant. Which when viewed from a distance create realism.

What visual, literary and/or historical references do you see in the work?

• Digital manipulation and pixelation
• Hyper realism portraiture in the choice of composition

What can this work of art tell about yourself, or the world around you?

That I:

• am patient , very patient in that I was able to sort and use so many small pieces

• digital knowledge

• technical understanding traditional media , tonal range , painting
• digital knowledge in a digital/commercial age

other but not blatantly recognizable ?

• christian influence , use of mozaic
• sculptural field

What new information do you have now to build into future works?

• Enlargement process
• working in larger formats
• transportation and studio space management of larger works

How does this new information contribute to or change your original ideas about the work ?

I am now far more confident to work on larger scale works and wish to do so , particularly with portraiture