#artist research

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Movement Project - Artist Research, Q Hayashida

Q Hayashida is a Japanese manga creator known for her works such as Dorohedoro and Dai Dark.

In one of her rare interviews, Hayashida reveals that she is a mixed media artist who uses whatever media she ‘feels like in the moment.’

The chaotic, sketchy, raw and colourful look to her art works harmoniously as she depicts her gory and dark but funny stories.

I love her usage of gouache, watercolour, ink and pen, majority of the time mixing these media together in the same piece creating a layered texture reminiscent of grime, reflecting the apocalyptic settings often found in Hayashida’s manga. Matching her colours, line weight and compositions to fit each scene and its tone is highly impressive and a source of inspiration for myself since I first read her work Dorohedoro many months ago.

Her character design is also equally interesting. Dorohedoro’s cast including the protagonist, Kaiman, a man with a lizard head searching for the sorcerer who cursed him, mypersonal favourite being Jonson, a giant realistic cockroach and plenty others, diverse, well-written and designed human characters. I can’t forget the monsters, each with unique personalities highlighted by their designs, brilliantly adding to the horror aspect of her works.

Lastly, my favourite technique Q Hayashida uses to instil discomfort, is her use of repetition and massive spaces, infinite crowds of monsters showing the viewer how powerlessness feels and drawing giant empty settings, such as a department store where the protagonists are stuck in devoid of all life, which perfectly matched the unease the characters she wrote were feeling.

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Artist Research: Anna Atkins

Anna Atkins was a botanist and a photographer Giordana had suggested as my project was about flowers and I was quite intrested in cyanotype. She had used photography and cyanotype for scientific purposes and created the book ‘Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions’. She was considered to be the first woman to publish a book with photographic illustrations.

I like that the algae themselves are always the counterpoint even thought it was made with scientific intentions of documentation, I do find there is still quite a bit of artistry in the way Atkins presented the algae always in the center with the nameplate near by but never taking the attention alway from the actual subject itself. I also find the calligraphy that the nameplate to be really pleasing as it makes the algae seem nicer or more elegant than it actually might be.

Sources:

[Images taken from The New York Public Library exhibition page]

Link below:

https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/blue-prints-pioneering-photographs-anna-atkins

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Week 6 LSAD 24/10/2024. Brief 2 "Assemble"

Secondary research

1. Ann Goddard’s work amazes me with how it uses different materials to show the delicate and fragile side of nature.

2. Katie Spragg’s porcelain plant sculptures are so detailed and beautiful, making me feel connected to nature in a new way.

3. Phoebe Cummings creates clay art that captures nature’s patterns and history, blending modern and old styles in a really unique way.

4. Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of nature are inspiring, showing his passion for understanding the shapes and details of life around us.

5. Alice Fox’s art uses materials found in nature, and her stitching brings out a gentle beauty that feels grounded and real.

6. Michael Canning’s plant paintings are striking, with plants set against dark backgrounds that give his scenes a dreamlike feeling.

7. David Lilburn’s art really draws me in; he uses maps to bring out memories, identities, and a strong sense of place, making each piece feel like a story about the landscape.

[grishaversegirlblogger]

cecil beaton study

been looking through cecil beaton's photography today since im focusing on bright young things as part of one of my portfolio projects! soft faces and dramatic makeup are visually my favourites but technically my most challenging subjects LOLOLOL (more examples below)

also cleaned up the miles maitland profile from last night. figures i would have made a few questionable proportion choices seeing as i blasted through most my research last night 💔💔

ykw. at leasy im getting the hang of mouths. that is all i can really ask for.

[nathandiary]

Research on Solarpunk

Today I am reading sources about the Solarpunk movement in order to write an article about it. I found those 3 sources that are very insightful:

This last source is particularly relevant as it is an academic paper that, among other things, shows how literary imaginaries influence real life social changes and build communities.

I also thought it was funny to see the same Tumblr post referenced in multiple articles, which goes to show how the internet can be a significant way to build a community.

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Project : Portrait

Week : 19th March - 22nd March

Artist Research : Michael Borremans

Michael Borremans is a Belgian painter and film-maker, who is influenced by the techniques of impressionist painters such as Degas, Manet, and Goya. But also mirrors the psychological, enigmatic subject matter of surrealism. His melancholic, staged portraits are what captured my attention, particularly the faceless paintings.

Due to the lack of identity that these figures have, they are almost objectified. They feel very lonely and claustrophobic, as they stare aimlessly at the wall, in which they are stood right up against. Almost as if they've been punished and are facing guilt.

I'm influenced by Borremans' range of back paintings, as they allow the viewer to only perceive the body. We can't make out the expression or feelings of the girls. We can only judge based off of their stance, the neutral colour palette and the composition. I'm looking at a similar idea for my concept for 'portrait', by focusing on how what I put on my body can shape a perception of me, allowing for pre-judgement.

Another appealing aspect to Borremans' work is his ability to transform his painting into film.

Based on a series of paintings and sketches from 2002-2005, he produced a film - 'Weight', in 2006. His absurdity in his subject matter translates from paper to camera with ease.

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Iris Van Herpen - Artist Research

Iris Van Herpen is a Dutch Designer who pushes the boundaries in Fashion.Creating these hypnotic garments she uses 3D printing and transparent fabric and her high level of craftsmanship.

I take inspiration with many of her collections and ‘sensory seas’ being one of the three. With taking ideas from animals of the deep she was able to create these garments with beautiful colour palettes and silhouette.

‘Roots of Rebirth ‘ focuses on nature itself and I absolutely adore with the warm colour palette in this collection and her use of organza silk has got me very interested to where I would love to work with that type of fabric

‘Syntopia’, intertwining relationships between the organic and inorganic. Again with herpen using organza i was definitely sold into using that fabric into my own experiments.Birds were her main source of inspiration by collaborating with Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta they provided a glass bird for the inorganic aspect of the collection.

I am very excited to use Herpen as one of my artist research as this designer was able to push boundaries and created her collection that has never been done before and having her clothes of the catwalk and seeing how it moves is so mesmerising and with my project that an aspect that I want to take and use that to my advantage.

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Tucking research

As tucking is a textiles technique I have never used before I wanted to first practice some sample patterns and stitches on a smaller scale.

A book from the library was suggested to me, for example of different types of tucks and how to make them. The book is called The art of manipulating fabric, by Colette Wolff. Along with this book I watched a series of step by step videos on YouTube by Gretchen Halle.

On the page above I have tryed pin, double centred, blind, random and shell tucks.

On this page I have curved tucks, which I really like the effect off but seem to be quite difficult to get completely correct, bow-tie tucks and crossover tucks.

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21/11/2024 - Artist research

During my progress review, I was advised to research the following artist: Hew Locke.

Hew Locke

Hew Locke is a British sculptor and contemporary visual artist based in Brixton in London. He works mainly in the medium of sculpture, creating extremely visually striking pieces.

This piece, Black Queen is a relief sculpture. It shows the face of a monarch in fear, overrun by its own self-generating eco-system. The artist uses the symbol of monarchy by using the Queen’s head as the a landscape, infested with plastic lizards, plants and insects manifesting themselves as the skin and bones. The work reflects on the individual’s state of mind, in a society the artist sees as burdened by social stresses and strains. This piece was created in response to the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 after it was announced that London would host the Olympics, highlighting the city's multicultural reputation, but this was contradicted in a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks that took place across London’s public transport. The work embodies the anxiety and chaos of a state attempting to celebrate its global influence even as events overtook the moment. The piece is built up on a base of black plastic machine guns after the Iraq war. Locke said, “the United Kingdom is a nation at war and The Queen is the head of the army”.

Locke said about misreadings of his work in his early career: "I would make a sculpture and people would think it was made for some festival....It was seen as being from a folk tradition, not as being of its own tradition, true to itself – as art basically...I stopped making work in colour for three years, I just dropped it."

He also collects many little pieces that relate to him, his culture and his history, which is why he relates to my work. A lot of my primary sources are representative of me and my personality and the story behind me. They also relate to things I have an interest in, such as music, fashion, Halloween, movies, the list goes on. In a similar way, he has an assembly of himself in his collection, and his works focus on the assembly of people or things, in a new way.

His personal Instagram account is listed here.

https://www.instagram.com/hewdjlocke/

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22/02/2024

Movement

Artist research: Moebius

Jean "Moebius" Giraud was a French illustrator, cartoonist and writer. He has drawn many famous comics and his art style is very iconic. One of his well known comics is 'the World of Edena'. Moebius originally started these science fiction series after being commissioned by Citroën car company to make a short story in 1983. He later decided to expand on the universe, thus he created this graphic novel.

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“I want to play God” is a series of sculptures by Chinese artist Cao Hui in which he combines everyday objects with human flesh. His sculptures are unnerving and grotesque as they closely resemble the human body. In his approach to this series Hui said “ It seems artists are no longer happy just being artists, but are driven by their inborn love of performance to try out new roles, such as philosopher, scientist, doctor or perhaps even engineer. I think artists really want to play god more than anything else, and will stop at nothing to construct a truth that validates the self.”.

I personally believe his really does convey that some artists wish to achieve the impossible, to create miracles, something only able to be crafted by god himself. Huis work perfectly portrays that as ,really, only god would be able to create such alive objects of the mundane. The sculptures look as they can breath, move, live.

There’s also this great video that, although briefly, does talk about the artist as well as comparing the series to other works with similar themes. I highly recommend it as well as the video creators other works as they are incredibly interesting and well made.

It won’t allow me to link the video but it’s called “Gross games about flesh and stuff” by Jacob Geller.

[grishaversegirlblogger]

michael sheen again!

another followup for my cecil beaton studies! not miles maitland this time (surprise surprise) but i feel like the drama of it all fits the beaton theme kind of. anyways i really liked how this one turned out!!

idk why its so blurry when rotated upright 😭😭 makes me want to cry a bit but its ok im a big girl

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I researched a textile artist called Cecilia Danell as I feel that her work in textiles is really interesting and would benefit me if I’m working in the textile workshop this week.Cecilia is an Irish artist who uses textiles and bright colours in her work.

I went to see her artwork in Cork last year and really want to have a 3D aspect to my work later on in the project,

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Artist Research

Damien Hirst

Figure 1 - 'Hymn'

Figure 2 - 'The Anatomy of an Angel'

Figure 3 - 'myth explored, explained, exploded'

Figure 4 - 'God Knows Why'

Figure 5 - 'The Pursuit of Oblivion'

There are many more works of Hirst's that explore anatomy, both human and animal.

Hirst has preserved many animals whole and cut up in formaldehyde, casting them in an eerie blue tone that gives them an almost frozen look. His lack of fear of using real animal corpses gives the art a shocking value.

Death, and how we deal with it, is central to Hirst’s practice. ‘It’s every artist’s main theme,’ he has said. ‘There isn’t really anything else. It just depends how far you stand back from it. Hirst confronts viewers with an audacious spectacle, exploring the human difficulty of facing our most primal fears. (Source)

Exploring Damien Hirst's work has inspired me to expand my view of the human body further. His religious motifs and views on death have motivated me to explore the realms of human emotions. In the end we are our organs, our cells, our emotions, though we all assembled from similar parts we all experience life differently.

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Project : Portrait

Week : 15th April - 19th April

Artist Research : Chris Prynoski

Chris Prynoski is an animator and director, particularly known for designing the characters for MTV show ‘Downtown’.

The way the figures look really influenced my approach to attempt to work in a less realistic style. I like their urban appearance, and the 90s style of fashion.

The TV show is my favourite animated show, which I think will suit the theme of ‘portrait’ well. As I’m displaying my interests within the style of my painting.

Above is a painting of myself inspired by the character design of ‘Downtown’.

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@gohan.bubbles on instagram is an artist I looked into after the workshop. I was attracted to there work because of the way they layer the different elements in there work and include various textures. It was helpful in steering my idea in working with the different textures of the city