Culminating Assignment: The Final Project

For my final task, I chose to take inspiration for an artist I had been introduced to earlier in the semester: Barbara Kruger. Her work is essentially taking all of the things that I love and aspire to in my own art, and making it even better. Her work is simple, mixed media, and most importantly, its political. And god knows I love to get political. (Typing those words put that Olivia Newton John song in my head. You know, the "let's get physical, physcial, I wanna get physical" one.) 

Anyway, back to the point; Kruger is essentially an infinitely talented, more famous version of myself, and so, of course, I wanted to take inspiration from her work and put my own spin on it. But before we go any further, I just wanna say that while I took inspiration from Kruger's work, these were no way intended to copy what she was doing. I deliberately made my work look different because I recognise the line between inspiration and copying.

For the project itself, I decided that I wanted to focus on more social justice type issues, instead of tackling the consumerism and capitalism Kruger normally does. I wanted to specifically focus on things like feminism, the #blacklivesmatter movement, as well as the persecution of people of colour and those within the LGBTQ+ community. So instead of focusing on household items or commercial products, I decided to focus on the people themselves and who they represented. This was the main reasoning behind me choosing to use portraits.

Like Kruger, I also used overlayed text, however, we both used it in very different ways. When looking at her work, her words are often philosophical and have a great deal of hidden meaning behind a short sentence. Meanwhile, I aimed for mine to feel more confrontational, more demanding, I wanted them to challenge the viewer, as though the people in these pictures were questioning them specifically, demanding them to know why they are treated differently than the rest of the world, why this happened to them, why no one cares. I wanted to make the viewer feel personally attacked, as though they were the wrongdoer because so often most of society stands by and does nothing. Also because I wanted the viewer to feel what these people feel each and every day; which is unsafe, insecure, targeted, misunderstood, at risk of violence.

Enought jibberjabber though, lets get to the pictures. The first three are my favourite of the bunch, though I do like how all of them turned out.

This one calls out rape culture, and the idea that the length of a girl's skirt
should dictate whether or not someone is allowed to take away her personhood.
Photo credit: Travis Matthews

This one is simialr to the first in that it challeneges a common phrase often said to or about rape survivors.
However, this one is a bit different because it is through the eyes of a child victim,
an innocent, that we see this phrase and the pain it causes.

This one is especially relevent as Aboriginal Day just past and more and more often
First Nations culture is being stolen by trendy white women that want to
 seem "exotic" when they go to Coachella.
Photo Credit: Nicholas Kantor/Teen Vougue

I also did several more, these ones discussing themes like police brutality against people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, and Islamophobia.

This picture specfically covers the transgender sector of the LGBTQ+ community,
and the complexity of gender. It asks the viewer how they define gender,
as well as whether gender needs to be defined at all.
Photo Credit: ANNIE VAN GEMERT

This was the picture that sparked this whole project, other than Kruger of course,
his name was Philando Castille and hes was shot while unarmed by a police officer
while he was in a car with his girlfriend and his daughter. Catsille's story is only one of countless many.
Photo Credit: Philando Castille

This picture discusses the fact that many in the West will attempt to claim they care about Muslim women and their supposed oppression, but will not lift a finger to help these same women when they are become refugees fleeing a dictatorship or war. Its meant to show the hypocrisy of these people.
Photo Credit: iStock

Overall, I'm very happy with how my project turned out. My only regrets and tings I would have done differently would be that, if I had had the time, experiemnt a bit more with the text, change it up a bit more and explore my different options. I would have also loved to try and use my own photography and created my own portraits insetad of having to use one's that I found on the internet. However, once again I liked the overall turnout and am very proud of them. 

Curiosity Journal #6: Making Progress on my Culminating

Hello! Since, the last time I wrote a blog post (approximately 3 hours ago, but shhh...) I have made some progress with my final project and worked out some of the kinks in my plan. So I have already stated that I'm going to be taking my inspiration from Barabra Kruger, taking her style and making it my own through my politics and my words, however, I have since settled and refined the words I'll use, as well as having chosen the pictures.

It was surprisingly difficult to find the types of images I wanted and that would set the kind of tone I'm going for, I had to search a lot to find some that worked. Originally I thought about doing all black and white like Kruger, but then I ruled it out. Partially due to the fact that I thought it would make our work to similar and partly because I just enjoyed the aesthetic more. Kruger's work focus on pictures of everyday items or famous people, the photos I chose are more like portraiture, in that they're more focused on the individual.

I haven't decided how many I'll do just yet, I'm going to try to do all nine that I've chosen and then see how they turn out. The one's I like the most will be the ones that I showcase on here.

The photos I've chosen are all of different people from different backgrounds, and each is going to represent a different injustice within society or something that is with the way society views the world and life.

I do have to actual, known people in my selection, each pertaining to an injustice they faced, however, the rest of my images are simply models or ordinary people in photogarphs that I found online. 

Here are some pictures of my progress and additional planning:

Curiosity Journal #5: Planning My Culminating

For this curiosity journal, I decided to focus on what I would be doing with my culminating project, and start playing around with ideas for what I wanted to do. Like my previous culminating projects, I knew I wanted it to be political. I find that when I focus on things that I'm passionate about, ie: politics and feminism, I tend to be more creative and more interested in creating. 

With this project, in particular, I had wanted to draw from the work of an artist I had recently been introduced to by Mrs Rose, by the name of Barbara Kruger. I had first become aware of Kruger's work when Mrs Rose was helping another student with screening something (don't know if that's the right term) onto the back of a paint smock. It reminded her of Kruger's work, which she then encouraged me to take a look at. 

Which I did. And I loved it.

Kruger has a political, but simple mixed media style that really calls to what I enjoy doing, so I decided to take inspiration from her work and transform it into my own. I decided to create a series using already existing portraits, and add to them using a similar political message.

While Kruger mainly focused on capitalism, consumerism, and gender politics, I want to focus more on social movements and cultural attitudes, mainly towards lgbtq+ people, people of colour, and women. 

I want to highlight the injustices minority groups face, including sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia. I plan to showcase these things within my project with quotes, sayings and statements that speak to the situation that these groups go through. While Kruger played a role in choosing what medium I decided to use, I knew I wanted to do something intensely political, especially around minority groups, since I saw that disturbing video a few days ago of Philando Castille and his murder by police. 

I drew up some preliminary ideas and thoughts while I was still brainstorming, here's

what I wrote down in my curiosity journal:

Art History: Time Magazine's Latest Cover

The thing that I love about art so much (despite the fact that I myself am not that artistically inclined) is that art almost always has a message. Well, good art does, at least. And so often, that message is philosophical in nature, which gives life to my soul as my favourite thing in the world is to overanalyze everything. However, even more often they are political, which is even better. If there's one thing I live to do, it's argue about politics.

Recently the latest President of the United States, Donald Trump, has attracted a lot of attention due to his supposed ties to Russia and accusations that he has collaborated with and given classified information to them. During the media storm that followed this revelation, during all of the endless talking about whats happening, whats going to happen, and what has happened in the past, Time magazine decided to go simple and release their first cover in decades that doesn't have a single word on it. It looks like this, in case you were wondering:

Effective, right?

I could go on and on, making endless jokes about vodka and weird fur hats, but I'm just gonna get to the part of this assignment that I get actual marks for.

Initial Reaction:

I think it's stating the obvious when I say that when you first look at this cover, you're stricken with a million thoughts at once, but that no matter what you're thinking, you can't deny the cover's effectiveness in getting a reaction. It conveys what you need to know without nearly any context, all you need is a basic knowledge of what traditional Russian buildings look like, and that the President lives in the White House. It sends a message with absolutely no words at all, which while not rare for artworks, is rare for magazine covers.

Analysis & Interpretation:

There's a lot going on in this piece, but I think that the main elements and principles used, and certainly the most effective, are both colour and movement. The artist uses a deep red to represent the creeping influence of Russia and invites the reader to make connections between the colour and the nation's former affiliations with Communism. It's a stark difference between the white of the White House, and the red of Russia's influence, which makes me think of the differences between the countries and their styles of governing. It invokes ideas about how different the nations are, and what exactly we'd be getting into if Russia's power over the Trump administration grows. 

The movement of the red is also used very well, with it creeping across the White House slowly, symbolizing the slow, quiet takeover of Russia and its acquisition of power. I also like how the red moves not in lines, but in square shapes, making me think of pixels and how Russia has used the internet and new media organizations to its advantage during the election and in the later months. I also thought that the movement of the red from right to left was significant, with books, videos, and almost all media starting on the left and moving forward towards the right. I think that this movement of the red from right to left symbolises a going back of sorts, as though with this new Russian influence, we are going to be sent back and undo progress that we have made.

Consideration of Cultural Context:

You would think that it would be easier to consider the cultural context of an artwork that's so recent, seeing as I've been around to see everything that's happening and won't be able to leave anything out. But in a way its the exact opposite. Because I'm in the time when this artwork was created, I know everything that's going on at the moment and am unable to separate what will be relevant in the long run, and what's going to be forgotten in the next few months. What I can say is this: It's 2017, Trump is president, the American people (and the world) are disillusioned with the current political system, one of the most influential nations in the world just elected baffoon, and said baffoon has now been accused of giving an enemy government secret, classified information that could have endangered American lives. Oh, and the Russians also helped him get elected. So there's that.

Expression of Aesthetic Judgement:

Unlike the work of Warhol and Pollock, I can truly say that everything in this piece works for me. It stimulates me intellectually, while still also being very aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I enjoy the colours and the sharp image, as well as the message that it conveys. Do I think that this artwork did what it set out to do? Do I think it was sucessfull? Yes, yes I do. I think it strikes a perfect balance between philosphical, political, and plain beautiful.

Art History: Andy Warhol, Marilyn Diptych

For my latest assignment, I decided to change it up and choose a different artist and a different period in art history; specifically, I chose to study and analyse the art piece Marilyn Diptych by Andy Warhol. I chose this particular piece because of my absolute obsession with Marilyn Monroe (I could literally write a book about her) and also because of the ideas and thoughts I had from looking at the painting for the first time, with absolutely no context of what the artist was trying to do. 

I liked that the artwork sparked thoughts immediately, unlike some of the previous work I've studied; I liked that I was immediately drawing conclusions and thinking about its meaning. It felt a lot of more stimulating than when I looked at the Dada movement or Pollock's work.

Initial Reaction:

My initial reaction to this work was one of interest. I was immediately drawn in and intellectually stimulated, wanting to postulate and theorize as to why Warhol had chosen to create this piece, what it was about, what it meant, etc. I was very interested in the recreation of the image multiple times and was fascinated by the way the image seems to degrade and change as the eye moves from left to right. It immediately sparked thought and analysis in my mind (though whether or not that analysis is right or not is a different story). However, in almost an exact flip from how I felt with Pollock's painting, on a simple aesthetic level, I don't really like it. I can understand why it was done, and why Warhol chose to do what he did; however, when I look at the piece from only an aesthetic level, I don't enjoy it.

Analysis:

I found Warhol's painting to be incredibly interesting, and ripe with the potential for analysis. Warhol uses a number of elements and principles within this piece, but without a doubt, the two that are used the most are colour and pattern, as well as quite a bit of emphasis. Warhol uses bright, neon, colours in half of the work, putting emphasis on the message of fakeness and saturation of consumer culture. The bright colours highlight the flatness of Monroe's face, showing the lack of life and flatness of an icon that Hollywood and America has worshipped for decades. He also uses pattern, specifically the repetition of Marlyn Monroe's face as a way to show the carbon copies that consumerism and capitalism often feeds the general public.

Interpretation:

Like I touched briefly on in the analysis, I think that with this painting, Warhol was attempting to comment on consumerism, capitalism, and the worship of pop culture and its figures. The artworks name is a direct reference to Diptych with the Virgin and Child Enthroned and the Crucifixion, a Christian painting created in the 13th century. Warhol goes through great pains to connect the religious devotion to a deity, with current consumerism and our worship of pop culture. However, everything else about the painting, the colours, the flatness, the repetition, all draw away from the fullness and completion that religion is supposed to bring you, and instead force the viewer to focus on the flatness of the image, the lack of depth within Marilyn Monroe's face, and consider the fact that this image was mass produced for consumption; that unlike with religion, the viewer does not have an emotional connection with the image.

Consideration of Cultural Context:

Context is incredibly important in art, there is never going to be an artist that tells you differently. With Warhol's work though, a bit of digging is needed to understand exactly when and why this work was created. It was made in 1962, in the height of capitalism and the golden age of film, which, when viewing the works subject matter, is difficult to argue has not had an influence on the painting. Actors and actresses were very highly controlled by studios back then and information about them was limited to what the studio gave the public. It seems that Warhol wanted to comment on the fact that despite the adoration and love showed Marilyn, no one really knew her, she was a product that was marketed to the masses.

Expression of Aesthetic Judgement:

I literally say it every. single. blog. post. but I don't believe that one person can define what art is. It's just not possible. So the way I reconcile this part of the assignment with that belief is that I tell myself that it's just if it worked for me, specifically, and not anyone else. So, for me personally, this piece of work was both successful and unsuccessful, depending on how you look at it. If you are only going on my aesthetic appreciation of the artwork and how it looked, then the answer is not really. The work itself appears garish and I don't really enjoy the bright colours contrasted with the darkness. However, when you take into account the context of the artwork and the meaning behind it, then yes, I do think it's successful. I think that everything I don't like aesthetically about the piece is what makes it and its message so impactful. Interestingly, I had the exact opposite reaction to this work as I did with Pollock's. While I aesthetically enjoyed Autumn Rythymn, I couldn't find meaning in it; with this artwork, I had the opposite experience.

Curiosity Journal #4: Book "Defacing"

Seeing as deviated from the routine with the last curiosity journal and focused on something a little different, I thought we would continue that theme today and talk about book defacing. Not in the traditional sense of someone disagreeing with a book and deciding that its okay to burn or rip it, but something else. Book defacing is the kind of sarcastic name for what is really book decorating.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love books with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. I average about ten books read a month and as of the 4th of May, I have read exactly eighty two books since the beginning of 2017. Normally I read about one hundred books a year; this year, according to statistics, I'm set to double that. (So long as university doesn't get in the way, which we all know it will.) I love recommending new books to people. I love talking about my favourite books. Reading is my crack.

So when I found a whole online reading community, made up mostly of kids my age, all talking about the same kind of books I loved while still introducing me to new ones, I knew I had found my people. 

Across every social media platform they were there: making book reviews on Youtube, recommending books on Twitter, and posting pics of books on Instagram. And while there is no doubt in my mind that this community is one of the most open, welcoming, kind, and free of drama spaces that exists on the internet, there was a certain... worshipping of aesthetic. I know, its ironic that my last post was literally all about aesthetics and now I'm about to drag them, but I do think there is a difference. 

Within the community, hardcovers were more prized than paperbacks, bookish swag and merch was sold, and there was this kind of unspoken idea that your books had to look perfect. No one wrote in their books, no one dog-eared pages. It bugged me. And that's were book defacing comes in.

Some people within the bookish community, got tired of keeping their books perfect and decided to show that a book doesn't have to be in store bought condition to be beautiful. They decided to show that "defacing" could be just as beautiful as a brand new book; and that owning a defacing book meant that it was one of a kind, uniquely yours. And boy, did they ever.

I like the idea of making a book uniquely yours, of having the ultimate collectors edition of something, and of incorporating your art into something you already love. I also like that book "defacing" has opened more people up within the community to marking up their books and seeing the beauty in imperfection and difference. 

I've seen people draw their favourite characters within the book, annotated the pages with calligraphy and notes, create beautiful designs on the end pages, and even include lyrics to songs that they thought fit the story. Its really just another form of fan art and I love it. I really want to try this out for myself, but I'm still debating over which book I should choose. Normally people read them while they're decorating, that way they aren't just decorating the outside, but the inside as well. I have a few books in mind, but I still have to narrow it down a bit. I'll make a new post on the topic once I've decided and started making my own.

Curiosity Journal #3: Tumblr Edits

This week I'm taking a break from the zine stuff, cause I want to talk about something new I've been curious about: Tumblr edits.

Tumblr edits are when you take a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated pictures to create a kind of collage of images that, when put together, give the viewer a small glimpse into the story they are trying to tell. Tumblr edits are usually based around a story or character, whether from a tv show, a book, or anything else, and essentially tries to show the viewer the feel or tone of that story or character. It's trying to summarize and represent a story with only pictures.

I'm not entirely sure if this "counts" as art, and whether or not I'd be allowed to do it for class, but this is technically a curiosity journal and this is something I'm curious about, so buckle up folks, cause I'm going to talk about this anyway.

The whole idea around Tumblr edits has to do with *aesthetic*. Finding the perfect pictures, that go together perfectly, arranged in the perfect order, to create the perfect image. I like the idea around Tumblr edits for a lot of reasons, but partly because images are usually only seen as powerful when they're on their own; but with edits its the exact opposite. With edits, the overall final product, of multiple images together, is what carries the impact. I'm also a fan of the idea of being able to potentially summarize and capture an entire mood or story or character with only images. The idea of someone being able to infer what a story is about, albeit vaguely, really appeals to me.

Plus, I just like the way they tend to look, alright? I'm kinda shallow, sue me.

This originally came about because a girl I follow on Twitter created a series of edits for her friends, each showing what she thought their aesthetic looked like. I really liked the idea, so I did a little bit of research and started doing them for my friends; basing their edits on the colours I thought represented them, their personalities, as well as their hobbies, interests, and passions.

Here's the one I made for my friend Ebba. I included her passions:
her family and indigenous rights. As well as some things I know she loves:
like graphic novels, pink, the beach, and being kind.

I'm not the best at them yet, I've definitely still have a way to go, but I'm still really happy with how it came out. I've learned quite a bit while exploring, and now I've expanded into doing character and story mood boards on Pinterest. I'm currently working on one for a novel idea I have, which I will eventually make into multiple edits (as well as, you know, an actual novel).

This whole aesthetic thing, whether in an edit or a Pinterest board, really does help you envision a narrative or a story; hell, I'm basically plotting my book through the pics I find on Pinterest. Here is my novel board if you're interested:

Anyway, this is something that I was curious about and wanted to explore, which seems to be the whole point of these curiousity journals, so... yeah. I was interested. I wanted to learn more. I did. Now I've got a new hobby and an idea for a future New York Times bestseller. I'll probably do an update to this in the future, showing what kind of aesthetics I've made, how I've progressed, and the things I've learned. But until then, see ya.