I too, like Oldenburg wanted to experiment with objects from the consumer merchandise and contemporary culture.
In order to put this into my practise and explore further, I started to play with iconic packaging and thinking of ways of deconstructing and then rebuilding them on a bigger scale.
I have been thinking about the form of 3D shapes such as cubes, cylinders, squares, circles, rectangles etc. I began by finding a shape, which I could easily work with. Because I wanted to use an object that everyone would recognise upon seeing, I decided on an OXO cube, which is made by Campbell’s.
Campbell’s soup was a subject of Andy Warhol’s in the 1960’s Pop art. I started by getting an original sized OXO cube and carefully dismantling the box. Once this box was laid out flat I could scan the image onto my computer and then enlarge it to the scale I wanted it at.
The world we live in now is full of consumer products that are readily available to us even at the click of a button. Back when ‘Pop Art’ started it was new to the British. The mass-production of consumer goods, gave most people a lot more choice when it came to home living and lifestyle.
This was celebrated through the use of ‘Pop Art’ and ‘Pop Culture.
Now it’s everywhere, I read an article which stated that, ‘we see around 2000 advertising images a day subconsciously’, although we probably only acknowledge about 250 of those images. This could be whilst walking down the street past shops or at home on television.
One artist, who was not mentioned in my dissertation, is Claus Oldenburg (1922-). This artist has given me a lot inspiration to explore a world of ideas and possibilities.
I came to the conclusion that a lot of Pop Artist’s through the years have often worked with objects and scale. Claus Oldenburg is famous for his giant sculptures of an ice cream dropped onto the top of a tall building, or his spoon and cherry sculpture. Upon having a discussion with my mentor, I discussed an idea with him about making a large piece of packaging. When thinking about the consumer and throw- away society we live in today, took me back to ‘Pop Art’ in the 50’s and 60’s.
The next peice of work I did, was a 1970’s design from a frosties cereal packet. I painted the image onto the canvas using acrylic paint.
I originally had this idea I wanted to try, using with this image. I thought about the mass consumption of celebrity and how I would use this in the work.
When talking about the consumption of celebrity, I was making a statement about the amount of ‘celebrity’ which is used in the media and in magazines, news and television. The consumption of this is through the eyes of the individual and how on a daily basis we are inundated with the celebrity world.
This to me also related to mass production, as in, someone who has a big celebrity status in the media, could then be not famous or of interest another day.
Going back to the frosties design, I had this image in my head of Tony the tiger with a bowl full of celebrities. So I then began to cut out pictures from magazines and newspapers. Similar to the work I had previously done, I played with the composition of the images untill I was satisfied they worked within the painting.
The outcome was both humorous and pleasing to me. Tony the tiger looked like he was literally cunsuming the celebrities out of his cereal bowl.
This piece of work was then put into the auction to raise money for our degree show.
I have experimented with different styles and processes, that are relevent to ‘Pop Art’.
One peice of work which I made was inspired by Richard Hamiltons collage titled, ‘Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?’ (1956) Collage 26x25cm, Kunsthalle Tubingen, Tubingen.
His work shows heavy influences of mass-media and consumerism. By using photgraphic imagery, Hamilton is using mass produced magazine cuttings and newspaper prints.
At the start of the third year I began collecting magazines and newspapers, so i had lots of material I could work with.
I started by painting an abstract background, using blocks of colour and form. This I decided to then look for images that I wanted to cut out and use within the work.
Once I had these images cut out, I was able to move and place them on top of the painting untill I felt the images worked. After several changes I then began to stick down each image.
I was very pleased with the finished result. My work showed a lot of similarities and style from Hamilton. It looked iconic, the images worked well in their environment. This also related to mass production and consumerism, because of the different objects I used from advertisements themselves.
