Decoration and Pattern

After seeing how well the elephant string went I decided that I wanted to put a black, solid background with a couple of colourful swirls imprinted in it to make the background pop and bold, I then chose to divide the nails themselves into sections some will be normal well others will be painted yellow for the wings and bottom half to resemble a road to add colour to the nail but to also make the piece glow under UV making it something new and giving it a funky edge that only the background, wings and road light up and white for the main appendants of the helicopter to really bring and divide the outline from the normal nails to  also show expects of the image itself, I chose for this piece, helicopter (Appachchi). I also did something different to that of my elephant, string piece, I didn’t add string to this work because I thought it would be too much and it works better without the string because you must really look at this piece to truly see the copter which is what I wanted to achieve a sense of losing oneself and in a way it states something that I didn’t know at the time when I was making it because it is a war aircraft maybe it gives off a of   political story to that of war, soldiers and being not safe and the nails just adds to the effect of this on-going lost and hurt and swirls could be leading and pathing the way to escape.

Using plywood for these pieces was logic and easier for the small nails to be hammered in but also when it comes to putting the image together it showed through and even made little indents on the back of the wood which was cool, creating its own image and added another element to the pieces of work. I chose to paint some nails because it changed the form of the nail into something new and also kept with the theme of decoration and pattern by adding that small colour and enhancing the artworks as a whole.

The coloured background really made the piece vibrant and decorative similar to that of Chris Ofili, the colours weren’t overpowering and blended well together but it made it difficult to see the image in which the holes had made and the holes weren’t quite visible as I thought they would be so I decided to add the LED lights to the piece, at first I was worried that it may be too much with the fluorescent paint in the background but it worked really well couponing both the dark and light contrast giving my work more meaning and expressing not only a story but showing true emotion as well. Whilst making this piece I found that it was more effective and more beautiful to have the LED lights come through the holes then them being stuck to the back of the canvas, this produce some problems because having them on the back of the canvas you could see the pencil drawing and I didn’t want to see that coming through when the piece was lit so I would rub out the pencil and re-punch the holes which took effort and time.

After much thought I chose to put them through the holes which made it light up more and the image stand out against the plain paper and I didn’t have to rub out the pencil which was a time saver. I hope to produce a much larger piece using the fluorescent, colourful background to really bring the piece forward instead of having the plain, white paper and add another element by putting in simple white Christmas lights to give effect of texture and fun to the work as well as not over crowd and confuse the viewer by making it flow as a whole piece.

Afrodizzia (2nd version) is a painting made of acrylic, oil, resin, paper collage, glitter, map pins and elephant dung on canvas. It is almost the same to Homage, part from the fact it has a collage element to it showing African faces within the piece.

I really like Ofili’s style and the way he approach each artwork, with a decorative narrative giving it a vibrant and colourful pattern which doesn’t overpower the work but also adding other elements and materials to each of his pieces in the form of not just using paint but collage as well with the musicians faces which is shown and displayed in Afrodizzia, it brings the piece forward and makes you really look at the story behind Ofili’s work. I also love that elephant dung is featured in most of his artwork showing a sense of the ugly world but the decorative pattern of the swirls showing beauty and light making the works balance and flow within one another and the world we all know today.

Ofili’s work relates to my own work in a similar style of using decorative, pattern and bold and bright, powerful colours to use for my backgrounds and the swirls are kind of like my dots displaying the same rhythmic movement and action in both myself and Ofili. Also when it comes to his elephant dung it can be compared to my nail work of showing the ugly side and adding darkness when using the fluorescent paint and the dots showing the beauty as well as using the element of light within my work therefore showing a link between Ofili’s type of style and mine but in the way different because is work is always full from the top to the bottom of the canvas but I like that fragile almost harmonious approach to my work making the viewers really look closer at every dot and punch hole to really see and understand the contrast of the piece and image within the paper.

The sketches done at Ipswich Museum lend to be linked in with one piece of my work in the form of the mandala lion piece called Lionel, not only is the image taken from a tattoo but the idea of the brush strokes came from the Ipswich Museum visit with the lion sitting on top of a rock and its furry like mane brushed around its face, in this I found the idea to link not only dots within the image but brush strokes as well and this may lead to create similar patterns and shapes not only with the backgrounds but the images themselves. I found the stuffed animals and skulls more interesting than the rest of the artefacts within the museum because they always feel so alive and the detail of those animals are perfectly preserved and that is the feel I want the viewer to feel when they are looking at my work. So I started to bring the dots closer together but still maintain that sense of really looking at the image in order for it to be visible and abstract as well as if transforming the viewer to another time and place, within a different world. I chose again to change my media to ink and it gave a strong and powerful contrast to the sketches and gave character to not only the dots themselves but the object making it have texture and giving off a statement as well as telling a story within the sketch making it new and bold. Also I chose to play around with using the ink to create strange and wonderful backgrounds in the forms of dripping the ink, bold circles and even flicking it on the page with a brush, this has inspired me when it comes to the backgrounds of my much larger pieces. I found that the colours I chose were simple mostly black, blue and red because I didn’t want to overpower the page and the dots were really solid when using the ink that I found that just sticking to three of these colours made it look clean and eye catching.

Visiting Christchurch Mansion and Ipswich Museum I was inspired to look at just simple but exciting objects that could inspire me to create ideas for my much larger pieces, using these images as a starting point and maybe looking at new materials and media that will develop and extend further throughout and within my work.

The sketches from Christchurch Mansion really made me look at the shape and lining of the object and it became quite difficult to transfer that into dot form so I found out I had to use different colours for each and separate section of the object but I found it was rewarding because it made the pieces vibrant, bold and visible to the eye. The media I chose was not paint which has been the main material throughout my work but instead I chose to use felt-tip pens it gives these drawings a softness effect and a kind of childlike texture, such as when your children discover the art of colouring something in, it makes it fragile and rare. Also I chose to do old objects such as the toy car and the ancient tea pot because I wanted to create something from something old by transforming it from line and shape to a mere simple dotted piece.