The female nude and pointillism, isn’t something that has been connected, but through research, i found an artist that used a different style of dots to power their work. Roy Liechtenstein was most famous through Pop Art and used advertisement and comic strips as his source material, including tongue in cheek humorous mannerisms.
His work used Ben-Day dots and flat primary colours to create what he described as industrial painting. Allowing his images to take on different meanings depending on what it confronts.(Boxer.S (1993) IN SHORT: NONFICTION; Pointillism for the Masses. New York times, New York)
Lichtenstein once stated that he first started creating dots by doodling at school, and soon realized that he could create images by connecting these dots and creating portraits. This technique finally evolved when he went to Art College in Birmingham. (Normansell, P. (2009) A London Lichtenstein. Evening Standard Limited. London.)
I managed to find one image of Roy Lichtenstein that displayed the female nude called seductive girl. ( See image above text) The title is intriguing, and reminds me of Lucian Freuds portraits of Naked Girl 1966. Despite the use of the female nude both artist have chosen not to acknowledge the female as a women but a girl with no name.
Although i said i wasn’t going to continue on the path of pointillism at this time, i found myself more drawn to creating work through pointillism. So i decided to work from my drawing “Higher” to create a pointillism version in acrylic. I decided to keep it simple following the black and white theme of my work. Not over complicating the image. From a distance it just looks like a simple drawing but up close you can identify all the little dots that make up the final image, inviting the audience to get up close and personal with the work.
I was drawn to this image because of the strong direct gaze. The source of this image was taken from the same image that i created the portrait drawing from, focusing on the woman’s face with the muscular shoulders and chest suggesting a more muscular form. My style of painting is very identifiable. I use black whites and grays to build up the form of my images reworking the paint until i am satisfied with the final out come. Similar to Jenny Saville, who reworks her images as she paints, using a basic outline then altering that image, allowing it to grow and change so you end up with a completely different image to the one you set out with in the beginning. (Sylvester, D.2005. P.15)
Keeping with the black and white theme, i chose this image online and altered it by using Photoshop, creating this graffiti effect. I do admire graffiti although it doesn’t usually go hand in hand with the female nude. The style however is very modern and is used by many artists like Banksy to send out messages. Although his work is not linked to the female nude Banksys work is powered by peoples reactions, similar to that surrounding the female nude. Banksy once observed. “The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.” (Anthony, A. 2014. The Observer)
