#cofa1002weekeight

Artist’s Statement:

Originally starting by looking at colours and how their wavelengths affect our brains and make us feel certain things, this project has certainly taken an unexpected turn. My original PLAN was to have colours to be a certain element in my major work, and reflect how desire is represented through these colours. But after numerous different experiments I realized those colours, or more importantly, the existence of our favourite colours fade as we grow older.

Things are often inspired and affected by our new found knowledge of design, reality and colour theory, no longer are we so naïve or pure in our ways of exclusivity for our favourite colours. Now whilst it might not be a bad thing, it certainly reminds us of the passing of time, and is nostalgic if not sombre. This knowledge then led to a revisit into our old childish desires, tens of participants was included in this nostalgia trip down memory lane as we scrambled to make the most pathetic looking, yet the most childish thing that made us felt like Gods when younger. Simple pens were turned into helicopters, and cups were combined to make bridges to citadels!

Our imagination, unleashed and unrestrained from the everyday knowledge that is our reality, but left to frolic in the meadows fearless creativity.

It is with that in mind that ultimately led to the project that is my final body of work. I wanted to make something that reminded us of our old desires as children. The same passionate enthusiasm with every tiny detail, every insignificant object turned into a piece in an ever growing (and crazy) imaginative world.

Informed by this and possibly the imagination of millions of youngsters around the world, it isn’t a surprise that most of them would’ve played around with some of the most basic things found in our house and turned them into great swords and devastating magical objects. 

This piece shows the childish imagination being the creator of a greater desire, and at the same time granting us our wish to become something much greater than ourselves. Turning even the most ordinary into the extraordinary, and granting us the power to always overcome evil before dinner time, or when that pesky bully comes ruining your fun.

The simpler times implied here shows our transformation from being someone insignificant to being someone much greater. How something so simple as a toothbrush can transform you into the most powerful and brave wizard of all. Yet as we grew, rarer and rarer do we pick up Mr. Cuddles to go hunting evil villains, take up our brooms to fight giant dragons, and more often do we ponder and worry about the looming shadow that is our uncertainty of real life.

I believe that these paintings shows desire in its simplest form; the simple desire to BE. Our choices of colours and our standards might change as we grow up, and might even not realize as all those childish things that once existed fades... but we will always remember our young, untainted and brave desires to be something great. Too often are we now concerned about what classifies as art, or what classifies as being productive, when our younger selves would have been all the wiser and told us not to worry and enjoy the things around us.

I want these paintings to stand as a challenge to today’s constant reminder of what you need, and what you should want. To inspire those who still desire something more, yet is unrelentingly condemned by the ones more privileged than them; let these inspire and remind us that once, we were small, and even then we still dared to desire so much more.

Another experiment that I conducted, then compiled and made into silhouette style drawings of what they wanted it to be. I asked a couple of my friends to try to be childish again, and make something that their inner 12 year old would've made. 

On the left is a bridge, followed by guns (of course) and a helicopter. this made me think that most of the desires that a child has is simply so forward and can be easily fulfilled by their own imagination. By making something so simple, to them it is everything, ranging from monumental buildings to crazy arsenal. 

This links together with the previous experiment with colours, and I picked outrageous colours in which I think a younger me would’ve done, instead of going for a more realistic approach to this (and believe me I REALLY wanted to). But instead I tried to be as childish as possible and picked my old favourite colours, things that would look hideous; and it does, but I think the younger me would’ve liked it. 

This experiment harkens back to the very first group project in COFA1002, and in which we made a chatter box to represent the elusiveness of desire and how our desires change drastically as we age. 

The survey I conducted for the first colour experiment proved to be only semi-successful; to extract information regarding on how it elicits emotion. However, after feedback from tutor Jess, it became clear that I only gathered “numerical” data and in no way could I use it in a more abstract way. In other words I couldn’t make anything expressive with it.  So I tried a different approach, I made a chatter box and represented it with four different colours on the outside, and then I proceeded to ask people to choose a colour.  (Below)

The response gathered had meaning, or so believed the participants, many picked their favourite colours. Which is not to anyone’s surprise, but the real experiment began when shown what was underneath. (Below)

You see instead of anything to do with their favourite colours, the inside of it was something completely different (in terms of colour). The reasoning behind this was that I wanted to see what kind of emotion I would elicit from this? They wanted to see more of their favourite colours right? Happiness, sadness, adventure, calm etc etc, all the symbolic colours and what they SHOULD elicit right?

Drumroll....... Well, WRONG. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t really anything like that described by the psycho-analysis article. When presented with casual conversation and asked to pick a colour, many picked their favourite without thinking, but when presented with something else, it wasn't disappointment that came, no, not AT ALL. It was complete and utter apathy. They had picked their favourite colours, at least, they believe they had.  It seems that most of these people aren't 12 anymore. The colours in which they believe wholeheartedly that was their favourite no longer applies as exclusively as it did when they were younger. This chatter box was also shown to my younger cousins, and the response was incredibly different; there was frustration. anger and sometimes even sadness that they couldn't get the answer they were hoping for. 

I asked the younger participants why they felt so sad that they didn’t get what they wanted and they just simply replied with: “they just really really liked the colour”. Whilst the older audience went a little deeper with their responses. They argued that it wasn't practical anymore and that in reality, they no longer have an actual favourite colour, as more and more things are biased towards actual aesthetically influence.