Rabia
DECONSTRUCTED SELF PORTRAIT
acrylic, paper, glue on cardboard
Art
does not solely impact an audience, but it forever shapes the creator. My life
has always been affected by creating and observing art. From a young age I
developed a desire to explore my creativity, and art always made sense to me.
Drawing and painting provided me a solution for the disconnect between thought,
emotion and exterior.
The
earliest memory I have of creating art was when I was four and loved to draw my
family. I did not draw my family as human but rather as a spider family. There
was mommy spider, daddy spider and daughter spider; I was very abstract minded.
As a child I possessed an infatuation with coloring, which only grew as I
learned how to form figures instead of blobs. Something about applying marker
to paper could make me the happiest kid in the world. As an adult I still like
to translate those concepts to my work.
As an artist I like to explore color in ways that can create a deeper sense of meaning. If I am working from real life I try to depict colors realistically and improvise on color combinations that work harmoniously together. In my self-portrait piece I took the idea of a painting by using found colors in magazines. I cut tons of colors out of numerous magazines that represented the palette I wanted to use for my painting. After I had the right color palette I evaluated where my features where and how the light played up those features. I used darker tones to make shadows the same way I would with a painting. I used acrylic to paint some pieces of paper that I wanted to keep a solid color that I couldn’t find in a magazine. For my self-portrait I wanted to show how art is a combination of technique and materials. If you can observe an object and have an interesting color palette, you can create a piece of art. Traditional materials do not limit art; you can make something lovely out of any found objects you may possess.
As an artist I like to explore color in ways that can create a deeper sense of meaning. If I am working from real life I try to depict colors realistically and improvise on color combinations that work harmoniously together. In my self-portrait piece I took the idea of a painting by using found colors in magazines. I cut tons of colors out of numerous magazines that represented the palette I wanted to use for my painting. After I had the right color palette I evaluated where my features where and how the light played up those features. I used darker tones to make shadows the same way I would with a painting. I used acrylic to paint some pieces of paper that I wanted to keep a solid color that I couldn’t find in a magazine. For my self-portrait I wanted to show how art is a combination of technique and materials. If you can observe an object and have an interesting color palette, you can create a piece of art. Traditional materials do not limit art; you can make something lovely out of any found objects you may possess.
I'm highly curious about your choice in keeping specific text in the hair. I can't really make out what the text says but it seems to draw ones eye and make a large statement. I really admire all the time put into this piece as I was able to watch you sit there for hours on end finding certain values in magazines and cutting them out. The concept of putting colors together to create a large interesting subject is a great concept. We didn't get to hear your explanation on your piece because I believe you were out of town but, I'm very curious on your choice in having it on cardboard. I wonder how the image would change upon just paper instead or another material.
ReplyDeleteThis piece is well constructed and impressive. I feel that the words in the top left definitely help the form of the figure. Color variation satisfies me for now but if were to look at this for a long period of time i would not think the same. I feel the construction is impressive but there could be a little more contrast in this piece.
ReplyDeleteI really like the concept of "painting" a self portrait using pieces of magazines and bits of painted paper. The collaged effect gives this portrait more character than usual for me. The dark tones around the nose work to nlmodel a very real feel. The piece looks like you and I like these pieces of you or paper combine to make the figure presented. I love it, good job!
ReplyDeleteI was immediatly captivated by your portrait because it was made of paper! I know that had to take some time. This is large as well, which is even more impressive. Seeing this makes me want to try the technique. I wish you had been able to talk about this in class. Since there is one piece of paper with such large bold words, I wonder why you included that? I agree that there should be more contrast, but overall it looks great!
ReplyDeletereally awesome collage and creating flesh tones with paper cutouts would have liked to hear your thoughts on this one but good execution and thinking out of the box
ReplyDeletethis portrait seems that it was done very meticulously in its process and i really appreciate that. all of the flesh tones via collage are very believable. I actually wish acrylic was not required for this project because i would like to see an entire portrait in collage from you!
ReplyDeleteI love how you made this piece! I struggle to find the right shades in paints, I can't imagine looking at other objects to get my highlights and low lights. I agree with Nick i would like to see another collage done by you. Especially one that's mural size! I hope you make one like that some day.
ReplyDeleteI think the collage approach is a lot of fun for this piece. It does make me wonder why the magazines/collage aspect is important to you though, and the artist's statement did not really answer that for me.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a very good job creating this form with collage, my one critique would be to vary the sizes of the pieces more so that the texture breaks up a little bit.
Overall this is a lot of fun to look at and I think you did a very good job.
I was really interested in seeing where you were going to take this because your idea seemed very fun and I think it turned out really well. Collage is something that is still very new to me so I always enjoy seeing someone else do it. You have nice colors but it doesn't feel like a range of values that seem realistic sometimes. Maybe working on creating more of a "blended" value change would help this. Some deeper shadows would also have been nice. I really enjoy looking at this and it's too bad we couldn't talk about it in class.
ReplyDeleteI wish you were in class the day we critiqued so we could have heard about your thoughts and interpretation of this piece. I think this piece really developed a lot from the first day you started working on it, and really like the final result. There is another part of me that feels like you are hiding behind pop-culture by using magazines, but at the same time it's defining who you are. The texture of this piece is amazing!
ReplyDeleteI think the use of different materials makes art so interesting! I enjoy your concept here and I think it looks really neat. However, I would have liked to see a bit more of your hand/talent put into this portrait. The proportions are good for the face, though it is unrecognizable as you to me so that throws me off a little when trying to decipher how I feel about this as a self portrait. It's awesome that you are exploring your creativity and I think it is wonderful that you have been in touch with that side of yourself since a young age. I do like the use of material, as I said, but would like to see more personality/emotion/self in this piece.
ReplyDelete