The aim of this project was to create a final piece in the format of a book which would then be included as part of the mobile library hosted by the university. This was inspired by the artist Raul Lemesoff who converted his own car into a “ Weapon of mass of instruction” tank-like looking vehicle. Driving around his local town he gave out books to people of all ages as long as they promised to read them. The assigned starting point of the project to get us going was the word “Eavesdropping”. It’s quite a broad word which could spark so many different project concepts. I had to decide whether I wanted to take this word and depict it quite literally or find an alternate meaning and try to think outside the box. I struggled with finding the right theme for my work for a while but finally, I came up with the concept idea of dreams instantly after waking up from one. I thought that my dream let me into my own psych, almost like I was eavesdropping on myself. I started to record a few of my dreams so that I could derive story lines and imagery from these. I even went online and asked people from all over their world about their dreams. Since culture and varies countries might influence different types of dreams and significance of them too.

My initial idea was to create a ‘Book of Dreams’ in the format of an interactive dream journal. The idea was to have a split book effect where one side is visually pleasant to look at, depicting the nice dreams. Whereas if you flipped the book over the other upside down side would depict nightmares. The two sides would meet in the middle and somehow interact with each other on the middle double spread. I had a visual for what this book would look like, the colours would be very strong and bold, with flat colours instead of textures and details. After some thought I decided to disregard this idea as I felt it wasn’t as impressive and original, I wanted to be a little more outside of the box and come up with a whole original story line. Also, realistically thinking, I didn’t feel like I had enough time to execute this idea to its full potential. A few more dreams down the line and I finally dreamt of something which I knew I could depict in an interesting way. The dream started off like any other, I was driving down the road in my dream car (a vintage Beetle) and suddenly I approached a speed bump. Instead of slowing down the car, the speed bump acted as a ‘ramp’ and the car started to lift off into the air. It flew across the town higher than its buildings. In the dream there was no laws of physics so the car floated into space all the way to the moon. On the moon the Martians were just regular cats, who were currently at battle with the huge evil rat. After I helped them battle the villain of their home, they helped me back down to earth by assembling a rope of cats which I climbed down back to earth on.

This story was a perfect narrative for a surreal, fantasy filled children’s book. I decided I would depict this book in digital format as I was going for a Pixar kind of appearance to the final piece. I decided to stick to a somewhat restricted colour palette consisting of blues, purples and pinks mostly to echo that peculiar atmosphere of mystery. The narrative of the book ends quite abruptly and even though the ‘problem’ of the story line is resolved, the ending feels slightly unsatisfying. I thought this conveyed the feeling of how a dream plays back in our minds, you usually wake up before the issue in the dream resolves. 

After brain storming several ideas for the direction of this project, I decided to focus on the concept of dreams and how they allow us to ‘listen in’ to our unconscious psych through our personal fantasies. I have always been interested in dreams and what they mean however many people cannot find the merit in dreams which are not their own. We have all had a co - worker or a friend who in a conversation, stumbles upon the dreaded words “I’ve had the weirdest dream last night”. This is because as people, our attention span does not stretch out to care for a chaotic story line created by another person’s brain. We are only fascinated by our own dreams because they mean something to us, we can identify with the emotion that we feel while dreaming. However when we try to convey the story it may come off as dull because it’s much harder to explain the feeling that is felt while dreaming than reciting an unconnected stream of events. This made me realise how many people’s dreams go unheard and unnoticed thus leading me to reach out to people from all over the world via Twitter asking them to tell me about their most peculiar and odd dreams they have ever had and can vividly remember. This sparked quite a lot of interest and I took note of some of my favourites which straight away fueled my mind with imaginative imagery that I could pursue for my upcoming illustrations.

I also asked a few family members to share their dreams with me and this is what I gathered:

The aim of this project was to reproduce a portrait from the Birmingham museum & gallery in a modern and creative way. Doing this would make the work more relatable to younger generations while subtly linking to the history and meaning of the original piece in the gallery. After my visit to the gallery I was mostly drawn to the piece by Amadeo Modigliani – Madame Z as I was already familiar with his work and I’m very interested by the way he stylized his portraits, which was something quite unique in that era of the art world.

Due to this, I decided to base my body of work around this piece and research his motives behind the piece to learn its contextual reference as well as his technique. The description of the image stated that the woman in the image was the wife of one of Modigliani’s dealers. This was already quite a strange idea, what was Modigliani’s motive behind painting her and what kind of relationship did they share?

The painting itself is an oil on canvas with a limited colour palette, likewise most of Modigliani’s famous works. The woman is characterized by a long oval shaped face and an un-proportionate extended neck. The face follows this same theme with a slender and long nose, tiny lips and small dark eyes. The hues of the piece are muted colours without much vibrancy, however the woman is wearing a red cloak like article of clothing; the artist often used blocked red colours in his imagery to add a subtle connotation of eroticism and passion to his work.

The feature of Modigliani’s work that sparked my interest the most was the subject’s eyes, he once said “I’ll paint your eyes when I know your soul” I found this quote really interesting and thought provoking. After really analysing some other pieces of his, I noticed that when he said this he really meant it. Most of his paintings are a living proof of this as a lot of people he painted which were strangers to him are depicted with black hollow eyes, while the paintings of people close to him (such as his wife) are painted with their eyes filled in. This lead me to develop this idea of how everyone we pass in our lives, people who we might not even acknowledge, all have a story. Some may embody themselves as a kind hearted person while deep down their heart is cold and incapable of kindness and love; this is something we will never find out unless they allow us to see. In my project I wanted to portray this idea but instead give the viewer the insight into the true nature of the subjects in my work.

I started to experiment with different motifs of a covert/hidden identity by researching into the inspirations of Modigliani’s work. He was fascinated by African art which shows through his signature long oval faces in his portraits. I decided to also follow this route and research into the African culture. This lead me to incorporate neck rings into my work, neck rings are something women wear for an extended period of time to elongate their necks, this is something deemed as beautiful in their culture. Due to Modigliani’s long necked women, perhaps this is also where he drew inspiration for this from. Once I started to create these ring like marks, curving around the neck of the subject, I noticed that it echoes the rhythm of the background of the piece Madame Z. The way in which the strokes are placed down almost appears like the background is following the figure’s silhouette, tightly embracing the woman.

After experimenting with colours and mark making in my colour sketch book, I decided to use only Indian ink with a hint of colour. While studying different combinations of colour, I ended up really focusing on the textures and marks I could produce with my chosen medium. For the postcards I feel that the black and white illustration style really puts across my idea well, the body is just a figure, merely a silhouette or an outer case for what’s inside; our mind and heart. This is nicely underlined with a quirky pop of colour which really attracts the viewer to the focal point of the image.

The zine is a collection of the digitally enhanced versions of the postcards with a fully coloured version of my favourite postcard as the front cover. The reason why I have chosen this particular one is because I feel that it’s the illustration that is most close to the style of Modigliani and portrays the idea of my project well.