#more art should reference the unicorn tapestries

[notkirstinetheartist]

I am having an absolutely fantastic and art inspired evening, so I want to post this piece a bit early!

It feels so fulfilling to really bring this chunk of my Dragon Age DLC project to a close, simply because I learned so much from it. Mellan’s bedroom was my guinea pig for testing out and learning so many other new things, and it feels great to show it, and know it exists, and actually walk around in it (well, an npc can, but semantics.)

I got to learn so many things about 3D rendering, modeling/sculpting, new painting techniques, kitbashing, etc. It has been such a process, but I’m so excited to move forward with the project’s next stages and show you all more behind-the-scenes of how this bad boy came to be! (Check below the cut for some extra nerding out about the different highlighted objects in her room)

Mellan’s makeshift laundry hamper, likely donated from a Chantry sister, features a small Easter Egg for the player character to find should they go digging around in her space. I’ve always been a fan of those “hidden in plain sight” clues, and though not every Inquisitor looks in every nook and cranny. Those that do might just be a bit more suspicious of Mellan after finding that little statue hidden amongst her things. Her laundry itself is modeled after her own clothes, as well as pieces seen worn by other Dalish npcs throughout the series.

Mellan’s desk contains more hints to her character’s personality. Her candle is placed on the opposite side of her scrolls, just in case it topples out of her clumsiness. Her feather quill is a raven’s feather, homemade from a molted feather from one of Leliana’s ravens. The smallest scroll, laid neatly on her open book, is another Easter Egg: a reference to her unused Romance Tarot Card with Solas, in which she is holding the exact scroll. I thought it would be a fun little tie-in to include (even if the two are not an item in this DLC), and also just a further hint to where her loyalties lie.

Here you can find the base texture samples for Mellan’s blankets, pillows, rugs, and canopy. All of them are historically (of both the medieval and renaissance periods) accurate brocade pieces and tapestries from areas of Europe that inspired Thedas. I scoured several different museums to find just the right patterns for her, making sure they fit her color scheme, as well as included imagery that aligned with her story (including, but not limited to: fresh blossoms, the night sky, unicorns (a common victim of two-faced maidens), and wolves.)

Hundreds of years ago, soaps were often carved in the shape of seashells! I thought this would be a flavorful, historic detail to add to Mellan’s space.

Mellan’s mismatched “vanity” is something that I wanted to look like she threw together and didn’t feel the need to have “look pretty.” She isn’t one for vanity, no pun intended, so the space only contains the bare necessities, with most tools for combing and such stashed away in a small box. However, some bottles of Orlesian soaps and healing tonics (both featuring “logos” based on in-game graphics for Healing Potions and the Orlesian crest) can be seen there, probably welcoming gifts from Josephine. Her mirror is a small, traditional hand-mirror that is leaned against the wall and stacked up on a tinderbox for height. Her other jugs are broken mosaics; once damaged, but now put back together. A metaphor that Mellan both greatly enjoys, and can personally relate to.

Featuring jars of ground herbs, such as Felandaris, Royal Elfroot, and Deep Mushroom (all jar designs inspired by the actual plants in game), Mellan’s incense area suggests several unknowns about her. Is she a healer? Some sort of hedge witch? A Dreamer, perhaps? All of that is unknown; for now, at least. 

With all of the crates stacked around, and the lack of a fireplace, I wanted to give the impression that Mellan’s room was once a storage room, or at least somewhere unused/unoccupied in Skyhold. That being the case, there are no fireplaces in the room for heat. To combat this, and add to the turquoise/aqua aesthetic that I want to surround Mellan with, I decided to implement two Veilfire pits (one in the washroom, and one in the main room.) By both, she has an emergency bucket for water, in case a non-mage should need to extinguish it, and in the main room’s there is also an open text. The book is meant to be a book banned in-universe by the Chantry, titled: ‘Veilfire: A Beginner's Primer with Numerous Teachings, Exercises, and Applications’ by Magister Pendictus. On the open pages, one can find the codex entry The Lost Art of Veilfire from Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Mellan’s staff rests by the side of her bed closest to the door in case an attacker may try to enter during the night. It features a birch bark base, as well as glass bobbles and sea-glass; an aesthetic dichotomy that is meant to be yet another example of how she appears to be both city elf and Dalish. The stretching and twisted of the bottom glass is meant to mimic the look of sea-glass and sand when it is struck by lightning, as Mellan is a lightning mage with an affinity for the colors of the ocean. The top of her staff is, in theory, quite similar to other mage staffs, containing a religious figure or god carved at it’s peak. However, Mellan’s features an unconventional deity: a howling wolf, with it’s tail bit off. This is, of course, a reference to the Dread Wolf, who in one particular Dalish legend, bit off his own tail to flee from a Dalish Courser dog (this is a story told by Merrill, the First of the Sabrae clan, most known for her role in Dragon Age 2.)

At first glance, Mellan’s room is meant to evoke the idea of “organized chaos” (books scattered across the floor in piles, a chamber pot stool held level by a block of wood, pillows strewn about for easy sitting, etc.) An Inquisitor who does not often seek her out, or does not explore her space, will likely only see her as a helpful, if not eccentric, scholar; another quirky mage to replace the one they so recently lost. However, a more inquisitive Inquisitor who really takes a look around and explores the deeper meanings behind her quarters will come to see that perhaps there is more to this elf than meets the eye.

That perhaps, much like her friend Solas, the warning signs were there all along.

Commission Info

[gallery19chicago]

Sumptuous and Seductive: Zachari Logan and the Art of Drawing

Zachari Logan, details of two panels from Eunuch Tapestry 5, 2015. © Zachari Logan Photo: Courtesy of the artist

There was a time, not too long ago, when Zachari Logan would have been considered an emerging Canadian artist. Born in 1980 in Saskatoon, where he received both his BFA and MFA from the University of Saskatchewan, he currently makes his home in Regina. Logan remains devoted to his roots in central Canada, despite the fact that his practice now takes him regularly to other places, including Montreal, Edmonton and New York, as well as London, Vienna and Milan. Often travelling to install his works, give talks and undertake research in these cities, he continues to draw inspiration from his hometown and, even if obscurely, to incorporate its flora and fauna into his work.

A consummate drawer, Logan gained considerable national and international attention for his impeccably rendered works on paper. From intimate and finely detailed works in blue or red pencil on Mylar polyester film to self-portraits in graphite and large-scale pieces in pastel, Logan’s hyper-realist style combines his fascination with the beauty of the Baroque and the business of botany, with environmentalism, ecology and the ephemeral nature of personal experience. He is perhaps most well-known for his multi-panelled Eunuch Tapestry series of drawings on black paper – sumptuous and seductive works that he creates by building up dense layers of pastel, rendering flora and fauna meticulously, almost ritualistically. These works depict dark, mysterious gardens; eerily silent woodlands; and overgrown ditches – and each evokes an uncanny sense of time, space, and absorption that is not unlike the interior of the mind itself.

The clear point of historical reference for Eunuch Tapestry 5 are the Unicorn Tapestries currently housed at New York's Cloisters Museum and Gardens. Woven of silk and wool, the large wall-hangings were crafted by Flemish artisans between 1495–1505 to commemorate a nobleman’s wedding. The narrative of a huntsman pursuing a rare unicorn through a forest spans seven tapestries, with the plant life referencing love, fertility and marriage. In Eunuch Tapestry 5 Logan has created a similar pictorial flattening of space that formally recalls these iconic works, mimicking the traditional style of Dutch and Flemish still lifes. He notes, however: "There is a rich visual language tied to objects and their placement within a Dutch composition. All of the elements evoke specific associations; much like a garden has individual plants that hold meaning for the gardener who has a knowledge of where plants should be placed, for the benefit of the plant. I am unconcerned with where plants should be placed in regard to these concerns. My concerns are related to the creation of a different space … flat, recessive, bold, patterned, imagined, observed … through collection … and recollection … I’m always reassessing placement in newer tapestry works. Each new tapestry drawing builds upon this activity, a re-cycling of images occurs too."

The work's title, Eunuch, draws a further host of associations. Obscuring his own body in the drawing, a stand-in for the illustrious unicorn, the artist makes a sort of wordplay. While the two terms sound similar, the choice to use “eunuch,” for Logan, refers to a certain “othering” or confinement that results from particular social circumstances. While the unicorn is captured and literally penned in, Logan articulates a metaphoric sense of melancholy, of being cloistered or isolated, whether it is physically, emotionally or psychologically. As the drawing recedes into a vacuum of darkened space behind the crush of compressed flora in the foreground, the sense that we might be able, and yet are decidedly unable, to move beyond the tangle of this undergrowth is both heighted and hindered.

In his latest drawings, Logan continues this exploration of psychological space, but with greater emphasis on finding ways to convey his physiological experiences through a more abstracted depiction of plant life. His Pool Series, inspired by the work of 18th-century collagist Mary Delany, presents more spacious compositions of flora and fauna floating on a darkened background, arranged at random or in kaleidoscopic formations. In this series, the artist gives each individual leaf, petal and root more room, the openness of these pieces forms a direct contrast to the confines of his Tapestry pieces. Still fabric-like, they are more akin to a toile motif and are decidedly delicate, intricate and intimate.

The artist’s practice has also evolved away from multi-panelled works to pieces whose scale respond more to the spaces in which they are intended for installation. Memory plays a more significant role in these works. His references to photographic images have been set aside in favour of depictions of sensorial experiences, like the synesthetic experience of a blinding migraine expressed in Esta Selva Selvaggia. This 7m-long scroll drawing, one of the collateral projects at the 58th Venice Biennale, unfurls from a tangle of muted jade foliage to saturated scarlet, much the way the artist experiences an agonizing chromatic shift of vision when these extreme headaches occur. While the vegetation in Esat Selva Selvaggia also appears to float in the murky depths of endless space, a sense of confinement nevertheless pervades this expansive drawing: a claustrophobic ocular shift that occurs in the artist’s mind as a migraine takes hold. Acute and unannounced, these interior experiences can be as isolating as those that occur in the exterior world. As a parallel form of paralysis, akin to being tangled in the bushes, Logan’s recent drawings build inward from his Eunuch Tapestry series, rendering a dreamlike sense of disorientation, with his signature sense of drama and detail.

Article Source: https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/your-collection/sumptuous-and-seductive-zachari-logan-and-the-art-of-drawing