This is the final painting of the Lana Del Rey portrait which is titled ‘Falling Into The Abyss’ which captured someone who is becoming lost to the world that she lives in. The still really captures the emotion that I wanted to achieve. Eventhough it was taken from a music video I feel that it seems like a genuine emotion.
When people watch films, that seems to trigger emotions from people eventhough it’s all acted and not real. Film music is a big part of a film and I think that helps set the envionment of certain scenes, so I will experiment painting all different emotions and try create a sound piece, using piano and other instruments to make my paintings come more alive. Hung up I wanted the painting to have an impact on the viewer. The lighting was an important part of the hanging as I was particular of what works best with the painting. In the dark the painting does have a creppy, haunting look to it, other people have mentioned this aswell. Next step is to experiment with more colours and still figure out how I could use sound with my work.
Reflecting on the painting ‘Invidia’ Instead of staging particular emotions, I decided to think about how to capture real genuine emotions. With this sketch I took a photograph of the subject to capture the exact emotion that triggered me towards her. I felt photography was the only way to capture that particular feeling, rather than drawing from life. My subjects emotion may change whilst drawing. Next time I would try to be more experimental with my colours and the way I draw as I don’t think think sketch pencils is the right tool to capture this particular emotion.
In October 2013 just starting the first semester of the final year, I knew I wanted to paint emotions from my subjects faces and wanted to experiment using colour to indicate what the emotion is. The piece titled ‘Invidia’ is a portrait of my course friend Laurel and the painting is to evoke envy. There’s the phrase ‘green with envy’ so I went along with that aspect. I photoshopped the original image that I took on a Canon 550D camera, and added a green tint to the fleshy tones. When painting the piece techinically it was difficult, i found it challenging to paint fleshy tones with a tint from another colour, I was worried about the colour of the paint going muddy. I decided to use a mixture of green paints, and I think the end result was successful. What I would of done differently is to make the emotion less obvious so i would paint just hints of green in the face rather using it as a tint. After painting this I really like how monotone the painting is, so I would like to experiment further with this. The scale of the piece is A0 I felt it was a great size because the face is the main focus point, and the face appeared larger when I started to paint . i think the painting would create an impact in a space.
After finishing painting it, I realised when I cover the half the face with a piece of paper, each eye and shape of the mouth indicate two completely different emotion but overal has one emotion. To our left the eye show upset and betrayal and to the right the eye show more anger. So the overall emotion of jealously seems to be the right emotion.
Yan Pei Ming’s paintings are very expressive and to me are aestheically pleasing to look at. I haven’t seen his work visually in person, but I like all the mark making and texture he used, and interested to see his process of painting.
With the different emotions that I’m trying to capture using the medium of paint, at the moment I’m now focusing on monochrome colours and start thinking about sound. I encountered the music video titled ‘Blue Jeans’ by Lana Del Rey and it’s about how a couple were planning a big part of the lives together, but unexpected circumstances took that away from her, it then made her felt lost to the world. I took some screenshots of the video and wanted to capture the biggest emotion that relates to the story the most. The image of Lana’s face multiplied into a blurred effect work really well to get the emotion of feeling of lost coming through. Gerhard Richter was a big influence at that point and I would like to paint that way but with my own style. I like the monochrome of black used, it gives it a dark element to the video, which I then think relates to Christian Boltanski’s work. His work is about losing a sense of someone’s identity. The blurred effect of the image seems like the emotion she was feeling at the time is trying to escape from her memory but it cannot be completely erased. Some things can be restored and then that pain will go, but as Boltanski quotes about childhood:
‘I began to work as an artist when I began to be an adult, when I understood that my childhood was finished, and was dead. I think we all have somebody who is dead inside of us. A dead child. I remember the Little Christian that is dead inside me.’ (Boltanksi, n.d.)
During the start of my third year I was approached at the Atriums Arts Fair by artist Paul Fisk. He asked me if I would like to be part of the Festival of the Beats in January 2014 and I said yes.
‘The “Beat Generation” was popularized by a group of writers in 1950′s America, quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon, the “beats” were influenced by cultural aspects such as “Eastern Religions” sexual exploration and freedom of self-expression.’
‘http://www.amjbarnesy.co.uk/festivalofbeats/?page_id=99
I was asked to create drawings of the 8 beats who inspired that generation. The picure of myself with the ‘8 beats’ is the finished result. The pictures were exhibited in Ipsiwch town hall.
