Due to being sick the past few days, and I might still be sick for the rest of the week, I'm not sure, I will take time now to post more about my ideas, the artists and things that inspire me and information about the theme I'm doing.
(The outlined text links to web pages of where information has been sourced from)
To start like I've mentioned plenty, my whole project so far is centering around hoarding and how it relates to consumption and production. So let me inform you a little more in depth about it:
As mentioned before, hoarding means a person collecting a various mantitude of items and having extreme difficulty getting rid of and keeping organised of everything they own, it is a serious mental health disorder that often affects many disabled people or people with other mental health disorders, for example OCD and anxiety, it is also often a trauma response in other to cope with the potential PTSD a person might have.
Something you might not be aware of is that what someone hoards can be literally anything, from boxes to digital information, and for some, especially those with OCD, memory hoarding, reasons for doing so can range from being a calmin coping mechanism, to parnoia and anxiety, fear of still needing it in the future, to emotional attachment and so on, it can also happen if someone struggles to organise things in general or clean things up due to lack of mobility and energy which can be cause by various disabilities and disorders.
Severe hoarding can cause numerous issues, from health complications due to lack of hygiene or injuries from lack of space, to worsening already present mental health disorders and disabilities, it can also affect those around the person with the hoarding disorder.
As it hopefully is obvious, it heavily relates to consumption and production as hoarding literally is activaly participating in consumerism and production of the things that are being hoarded, and it also 'produces' various issues as mentioned.
(Source of image linked, using this as an example image)
Now continuing on, the things that have inspired me how to visually showcase hoarding, are things like decora fashion, which although partaking in such fashion in of itself is not an act of hoarding, the maximalist nature of it mirrors the nature of what hoarding can look like.
The fashion itself is a subgenre of Japanese alternative fashion, a way to rebel against conforming to society in a colourful and youthful, accessory filled manner, it has also been a way to reclaim one's childhood since the fashion often includes accessorising and dressing after childhood nostalgic items and childhood fictional characters, which in my opinon can also be a form of comfort for those with childhood trauma, those who were forced to grow up too quickly, as well as to rebel against the idea that adulthood can't have anything childish about it.
To me in a way some forms of hoarding can relate to this fashion style as it can also be a form of coping from childhood trauma and clinging to past nostalgia desperately to cope, to me they mirror each other as decora fashion can be a fairly healthy fashion style as it takes a lot of time and effort and even self care to be able to carry out the style, while hoarding is an incredibly unhealthy way of collecting things, they essentially have similar aspects but are done in opposite sides of healthy and unhealthy.
And that's what makes me want to combine the two in my art pieces, showing the beauty and vibrancy of decora fashion and showing the effects and tragedy of real hoarding, in a way it is also a statement on how often the pretty things we see and put out, especially on social media, are hiding the tragedies and horrors behind it.
In a way that's what capitalism does, and that also relates to consumption and production!
It all connects, art whether you want it or not to can always find many ways to make a political message, isn't that wonderful? How powerful we can be as artists, able to have impacts with our art.
(Example of Decora Fashion, Instagram of person above included)
What about artists that inspire me and works of art that I find relates in some ways to my ideas? Well unfortunately our class was recommended to do research about said artists through the library but due to being sick I'm unable to access all the books there, but that doesn't mean I don't know any artitst at all!
And well all the artitsts that inspire me most are contemporary, most of which can be found through their social medias, so let me tell you about some of my favourites who I think relate to the ways I want to make my art for this project!
Someone who I've consistently followed and felt inspired by is Yuu Miyashita's work, a japanese singer and artist, often making his own album art and at times animating his own music videos, his work, the fluidity in his animation, the use of light and colour, the thin line work, it all just is so etheral to me and the amount of emotions his work evokes in me, it's hard to say exactly how he directly influences my work, but I know I heavily take after him in some ways, at times it might just be the emotions I feel from his work is all that affects me but to me it's still important.
(Example of Yuu Miyashita's art work)
Now another artist who I really like and I think for this project I take heavy inspiration for the vibrant colour used in their artworks, as I envion my work pieces to become full of colour is known as @/nounoknown is another Japanese illustrator, known most for making art for vocaloid songs, specifically GUMI, seeing their works on youtube thumbnails for music videos is something that brings me a lot of nostalgia as someone who grew up listening to this type of music, and I think that's an important aspect that relates to the themes I'm exploring, specifically the childhood aspect.
(Example of nounoknown's art work)
There are many more artists that inspire me but I think I'll leave it here for now, I really hope you enjoy this more research based post, it is quite long! I hope to feel better soon so I can get back to college to create more physical works!
