Hi everyone! feeling a little better today, here's the finished and last photos from my last workshop before reading week as well as some more contemporary artist research!
So the reason for my choices of colour here and incorporating actual plastic from home, was just to mimic the colourful aspects of my other works as well as just a few other reasons that I'll get to in a second.
Starting off with the stomach, as I've mentioned in other posts, I wanted it to resemble trash bags being over filled and looking heavy, to show the struggle of getting rid of possessions, even when it has no use and how hard it is just to even move around to try get rid of it all due to the environment.
The way hoarding is, everything you cling to, in a way, clings to you back, even if you did want to get rid of everything, it becomes impossible to even navigate and organise to get to that point of freedom, it quite literally drags you down, like this being is too in my sculpture.
Continuing on with the limbs, again I wanted to show the struggle with movement, the weakness that comes from being like this, I wanted to use reds and purples, to show how winded and in pain someone gets, to the point of even loosing circulation from such heaviness being carried around, and since I used coloured inks, it looks vibrant, which makes it match with my previous paintings.
Finally the head, it's completely obscured by the hair covering it, to show how weak the being is, struggling to even keep their head up, all they can do is barely crawl in pain, almost giving up, it is a difficult emotion this work brings out, and it's exactly how I wanted it to turn out.
Now, for artist research, honestly I struggled this time, not because I don't know lots of artists, but because from peer reviews I felt this pressure that it had to be someone western and well known, even though in my personal opinion, who I've posted so far has been people who are very well known, just some of their fame isn't worldwide, that to the average person that doesn't keep up with non western media, wouldn't recognise, and that frustrated me.
I honestly felt very sad and overwhelmed which is why I really couldn't find it in me to make more posts, especially because I also felt confused... it made me confused that on the first peer review my tumblr was complimented with only one advice which I followed immediately after, but than the second one suddenly there's more than one thing wrong and it made me too scared to do anything...
So after a lot of anxiety I looked at moodle and the final form of the peer review, and I started to feel even worse, but one thing I noticed, there was three artists recommended for my project, and that I appreciated, because I looked at their works, and they definitely sparked my interest and I felt the connection with my work from them, so that's who I'll be writing about here.
First off, considering this work being 3D I want to start with talking about Alberto Giacometti, who's a Swiss sculptor and painter, a lot of his sculptures are very surrealist and have that gruesome handy work quality to them, of being just very thought provoking and emotional, you can feel the life that was put into his works by just looking at a few of his sculptures, they're not smooth or perfect, it shows the humanity in it, and the grittiness is something I want to and have been embracing my work for it's imperfections.
(Source linked with image, accessible on desktop)
This one here among many others of his sculptures caught my eye, like I mentioned, it isn't smooth or perfect, it's human, it's full of emotions and it feels vulnerable, just like how I want and have been trying to make my work feel like, it motivates me to try create works that are even grittier than I have before, it makes me very curious to try use metals in my work in the future as well.
Here now instead is a showcase of multiple of his works with Alberto himself included in the image, which I honestly think has multiple qualities that resemble my own sculpture, especially with the long surreal limbs of each figure, I can really see my work taking qualities from his, even without realising.
Next up, and honestly my absolute favourite recommendation, is HR Giger, who's works have inspired books and been included in the movie Alien, he truly is an incredibly creative individual, making fantasy realism and morbid art, going far and beyond creating extremely imaginitive pieces that have very eery yet beautiful qualities to them.
HR Giger has honestly done loads, books, paintings, sculptures even furniture and film designs, he's another Swiss artist, and his work is genuinely mind blowing to me.
The Zodiac Sign Fish, from 1995, made in cast silver, is honestly such an amzing sculpture, it is just so mesmerising to look at and I just love the fins at the end, how it kind of looks like a hand as well with very thin webbed fingers, it is almost grotesque but in such a beautiful way, it genuinely makes me want to do works like this especially with all it's curves it serves as inspiration for the spiraling aspects of my works so far.
Katarakt, 2004, I genuinely love this one, it has this horror element to it yet, this peace and darkness, the curves and twists, the grotesqueness and morbidness of it, it connects perfectly with my work and visual ideas, especially with the amount of the same patterns here, it really fits with my ideas for my hoarding theme, I just genuinely love this one so much, I can't even begin to think of what else to say about it.
Lastly this one is a specific piece from 2005, called Waste Not by Chinese artist Song Dong, this now directly influences my themes with hoarding as the whole piece is about not getting rid of anything and instead recycling it constantly, the piece itself shows with the amount of materials how it all can and has been reporpoused, exploring the themes of survival during tragedy, showing the lived struggle, how you cannot afford to waste anything, that nothing can be constantly replaced during struggle, it also evokes plenty of other simbolisms and commentary over a massive amounts of issues the world all together faces.
I've linked there the article about it that better describes and delves in about the work and Song Dong's life, I think it's a really good read about her.
Here's one image of her work exhibited in 2006, Museum of Modern Art in New York, image can be found either from the link about her or through the image as well.
I honestly think it looks beautiful and very literally connects to the themes I've explored with hoarding and the fear or inability to rid of anything for numerous reasons, including the tragedy Song Dong's family has faced, mentioned in the linked article.
And now that's everything I have to write here, my apologies for this taking so long even if I've already posted explanations about that, I still feel bad about it, but finally getting this done now will let me get back to working better I think.