Statement of Intent
This semester within my art practice I focused mainly on the elements that myself and my mentors thought were the most successful from my prior animal painting series. Focusing on decorative aesthetic, colour, animal subject matter, pattern, and by creating things that followed trending guidelines, I attempted to manufacture a series with a bold aesthetic statement, with underlying tones of animal conservation.
Exploring how to make my work fit into the context of graphic design and commercialism was something I focused on achieving during second semester. I worked towards making pieces of art that people would want in their homes to decorate a room, and look at every day.
A theme I also explored this semester extensively was the consumerist mentality, and how to develop things that people wanted to purchase. Another primary element to my artwork this semester was exploring how the animal subject matter could intermingle with a patterned decorative background in a way that was bold, eye catching and attractive to the consumer. I looked to pop culture, kitsch and current trends, as inspiration on how to depict the animal subject matter within my paintings.
One of many focuses I have had during second semester has been to draw the viewer’s attention to wildlife and nature through the use of bold colour, thick outlines and a true decorative sense. If I could do that successfully, I then in turn made the animal depicted within the artwork important in some way, or even perhaps highlighted an environmental issue.
Through the use of beauty I have tried to convince the viewer that the artwork is important in two ways; one, that it is aesthetically pleasing enough to purchase, and two that the animals depicted are interesting enough to think about in some way. Whether that be in a conservational sense of the animal, or that I evoked a sense of wonder and fulfillment, either or are fine with me.
My goal was to complete a large scale, multiple piece, exciting, rich, happy, colourful, bright, graphic, body of work and I believe I have achieved that entirely.
Exploring how to make my work fit into the context of graphic design and commercialism was something I focused on achieving during second semester. I worked towards making pieces of art that people would want in their homes to decorate a room, and look at every day.
A theme I also explored this semester extensively was the consumerist mentality, and how to develop things that people wanted to purchase. Another primary element to my artwork this semester was exploring how the animal subject matter could intermingle with a patterned decorative background in a way that was bold, eye catching and attractive to the consumer. I looked to pop culture, kitsch and current trends, as inspiration on how to depict the animal subject matter within my paintings.
One of many focuses I have had during second semester has been to draw the viewer’s attention to wildlife and nature through the use of bold colour, thick outlines and a true decorative sense. If I could do that successfully, I then in turn made the animal depicted within the artwork important in some way, or even perhaps highlighted an environmental issue.
Through the use of beauty I have tried to convince the viewer that the artwork is important in two ways; one, that it is aesthetically pleasing enough to purchase, and two that the animals depicted are interesting enough to think about in some way. Whether that be in a conservational sense of the animal, or that I evoked a sense of wonder and fulfillment, either or are fine with me.
My goal was to complete a large scale, multiple piece, exciting, rich, happy, colourful, bright, graphic, body of work and I believe I have achieved that entirely.
Research Thesis
Focusing mainly on creating images and compositions that were relevant to the data that I collected through online social media surveys having to do with subject matter, pattern, and colour that are current within popular culture I was able to create my body of work. The ways in which popular culture and kitsch influence the art world in becoming a consumerist market was a huge aspect in my work. It developed the thought and creative processes behind my work in second semester, and allowed me to comprehend the elements that I would have to include in my work for it to be considered a consumerist object. By understanding how trends fluctuate and develop; and by noticing how certain phenomena stay current and popular, my goal was to create a body of work that people would want to purchase and own. Using popular culture as a means of manipulating the public into purchasing artwork was also a main factor in the decisions that I made prior to creating my paintings.
Within my body of work this semester, Andy Warhol and his ability to manipulate and understand the consumerist market and how art and the art world fit into it inspired me. Andy Warhol’s work with multiple images, mass production, and consumerist items was a definite starting point for the direction I wanted to go with this work. My methods although inspired by the same sorts of themes, included the public’s opinions, instead of Warhol’s work, which mostly contained his own opinions of the public. Warhol used consumerist mentality as a way to comment and reflect back on society, and it’s own flaws, whereas I hoped to gain the necessary knowledge in order to use societal tastes in order to create sell able artwork.
As I analyzed Warhol’s work I was able to comprehend the all-consuming entity that is popular culture and media, and the authority it has upon North American society. It was in this realization that my original thoughts and ideas corresponded with wanting to manufacture art work that would not only be considered pieces of art, but also pieces made for purchase, and pieces that could be thought of as objects that could stand alone in a consumerist market.
By producing artwork as a means of providing the people of the world a “mirror” as a means of guidance, warning and understanding of what they were, what they are, and what they will become; Andy Warhol attempted to do just that as he developed imagery including popular celebrities, mundane consumerist objects, and bold illustrative patterns, colours and designs. Warhol created extremely influential work, and was one of the most influential artists dealing with the progression and the greater commentary on the society of North America.
Pop art and the culture surrounding it also had a hand in how I dealt with the methods and motivations behind my paintings. Andy Warhol’s soup cans, Claes Oldenburg’s hamburgers, Roy Lichtenstein’s comic-book panels and James Rosenquist’s billboards, were all pop art images that leapt directly from the expanses of North America’s consumer culture to the precincts of high aesthetic seriousness. By trying to make my paintings, fun, exciting, colourful and by no means serious or perhaps conceptual in anyway I attempted to follow these pop art master’s ideals. My main goal for this artwork was to create pieces that people would love at first glance, and want to take home right away.
My research included drawing colour inspiration from fashion companies such as “Benjamin Moore & Co” and “Vogue”. Using their guides as the structures into which type of colour schemes I used within my work. A lot of pastels with pops of saturated vibrancy are very apparent in the artwork I completed by using these companies as models.
The general public through social media surveys played the most crucial role in picking the animal subject matter, and colour of my final paintings. The motivation of developing paintings entirely of African animal subject matter came from taking an African Performance art history class this semester. By becoming more familiar with the animals used in African culture gave me the idea to construct surveys that were entirely made up of the wildlife of Africa.
Originally I started the survey by listing twenty-five animals that are native to the African continent, and by the time 1,423 people completed my survey (which asked the question: “which of these animals would you like to see recreated within a painting?”) I was able to come up with the top nine animals that I most wanted to paint. A lion, rhinoceros, giraffe, cheetah, elephant, hyena, leopard, crocodile and zebra were the animals that made the final cut into my paintings. By combining what I thought to be the most interesting pattern combinations that I came up with in first semester, with the most popular fashion colour palettes, and my online surveys, I concluded with a collaboration of techniques which hopefully blended to create a body of work that is extremely desirable to consumerist appetites.
Big, bold, bright and belonging to the consumerist market was what I was going for in the creation of these paintings. Hopefully by some means I captured these aspects and can continue to look forward to, and make work that will encapsulate the aspects of pop culture and media that are helpful in connecting to the general public in order for them to want to purchase my pieces.
Within my body of work this semester, Andy Warhol and his ability to manipulate and understand the consumerist market and how art and the art world fit into it inspired me. Andy Warhol’s work with multiple images, mass production, and consumerist items was a definite starting point for the direction I wanted to go with this work. My methods although inspired by the same sorts of themes, included the public’s opinions, instead of Warhol’s work, which mostly contained his own opinions of the public. Warhol used consumerist mentality as a way to comment and reflect back on society, and it’s own flaws, whereas I hoped to gain the necessary knowledge in order to use societal tastes in order to create sell able artwork.
As I analyzed Warhol’s work I was able to comprehend the all-consuming entity that is popular culture and media, and the authority it has upon North American society. It was in this realization that my original thoughts and ideas corresponded with wanting to manufacture art work that would not only be considered pieces of art, but also pieces made for purchase, and pieces that could be thought of as objects that could stand alone in a consumerist market.
By producing artwork as a means of providing the people of the world a “mirror” as a means of guidance, warning and understanding of what they were, what they are, and what they will become; Andy Warhol attempted to do just that as he developed imagery including popular celebrities, mundane consumerist objects, and bold illustrative patterns, colours and designs. Warhol created extremely influential work, and was one of the most influential artists dealing with the progression and the greater commentary on the society of North America.
Pop art and the culture surrounding it also had a hand in how I dealt with the methods and motivations behind my paintings. Andy Warhol’s soup cans, Claes Oldenburg’s hamburgers, Roy Lichtenstein’s comic-book panels and James Rosenquist’s billboards, were all pop art images that leapt directly from the expanses of North America’s consumer culture to the precincts of high aesthetic seriousness. By trying to make my paintings, fun, exciting, colourful and by no means serious or perhaps conceptual in anyway I attempted to follow these pop art master’s ideals. My main goal for this artwork was to create pieces that people would love at first glance, and want to take home right away.
My research included drawing colour inspiration from fashion companies such as “Benjamin Moore & Co” and “Vogue”. Using their guides as the structures into which type of colour schemes I used within my work. A lot of pastels with pops of saturated vibrancy are very apparent in the artwork I completed by using these companies as models.
The general public through social media surveys played the most crucial role in picking the animal subject matter, and colour of my final paintings. The motivation of developing paintings entirely of African animal subject matter came from taking an African Performance art history class this semester. By becoming more familiar with the animals used in African culture gave me the idea to construct surveys that were entirely made up of the wildlife of Africa.
Originally I started the survey by listing twenty-five animals that are native to the African continent, and by the time 1,423 people completed my survey (which asked the question: “which of these animals would you like to see recreated within a painting?”) I was able to come up with the top nine animals that I most wanted to paint. A lion, rhinoceros, giraffe, cheetah, elephant, hyena, leopard, crocodile and zebra were the animals that made the final cut into my paintings. By combining what I thought to be the most interesting pattern combinations that I came up with in first semester, with the most popular fashion colour palettes, and my online surveys, I concluded with a collaboration of techniques which hopefully blended to create a body of work that is extremely desirable to consumerist appetites.
Big, bold, bright and belonging to the consumerist market was what I was going for in the creation of these paintings. Hopefully by some means I captured these aspects and can continue to look forward to, and make work that will encapsulate the aspects of pop culture and media that are helpful in connecting to the general public in order for them to want to purchase my pieces.
Colour Palettes of 2014
Exhibition Artist Statement
The artwork for me within this body of work was really all about a selection of the general public’s favorite African animals and how they could be successfully integrated into a patterned outline that helped highlight and compliment the animal subject matter. My work was all based on surveys and poling strategies that I performed all year, and the paintings are direct reflections of the data results that were collected from these online surveys. One of the goals for the artwork was to create a series that the public would enjoy as soon as they saw them, and to offer happiness to the viewer through bright colours, decorative patterns and animals that were deemed to be popular by over fourteen hundred people online. As I am an animal lover, and enjoy creating work that involves animals, I wanted to reach the viewer with a connection to the wildlife right away by combining decorative pattern motifs with realistic animal renderings, successfully integrating the animal into the background environment in an interesting and exciting way.
The online polls that were conducted asked the public questions like “which of these animals are your favorites, which animal would you like to see in a painting, and which would you be most likely to purchase?” Focusing on African animals, the surveys determined the top nine in popularity out of the twenty-five that were introduced. The data collected from these types of questions, along with colour palettes taken from Vogue and designer fashion companies that release their “in season” colour guides, in combination with patterns that I constructed myself resulted in the artwork within this series. Other influences on the series were home décor, design, illustration, pop art, and popular culture.
I chose to focus on exotic animals for this series as they are beings we do not see every day and when we do have the opportunity to see we enjoy seeing. Statistics say that there are more people who visit zoos every year than major sporting event in North America, and I wanted to make paintings that not only everyone can understand, appreciate, and become excited about, but that also somehow speak to wildlife conservation.
Knowing when I am finished a painting comes with matching the expression within the animal’s face and body to the photo I am referencing. I complete the animal’s face and eyes last, so when I finally put the highlights in its eyes I can see if it “comes alive” or not. My use of pattern and colour is simply to highlight the animal, and make it more important, exciting, or eye catching. I am constantly playing with colours that are bright and fun to create an automatic connection with the viewer through levels of joy and happiness. I wanted the viewer to feel like they could look at these pieces every day, or that they wanted them within their homes. I didn’t want to inflict any kind of prior conceptual aspects within the work other than immediate responses like “those are my favorite colours!” or “oh I love lions!”
The work was my way of understanding trends that come and go such as what’s being printed on t-shirts, what are people buying, which sorts of animal motifs are popular in home décor, and how art becomes a consumer item. The idea for this work came from visiting boutiques around BC and seeing wildlife that had been resorted to kitsch, such as salt and pepper shaker owls. Even though they were border line ridiculous, I loved the idea of amplifying the notion of turning the natural world into something society could consume, and in turn manufacturing objects for people to buy. I then integrated these ideas with my love of colour, design and decoration to then construct a series that was constructed by society to then be sold to society. Sort of in the way Andy Warhol used consumerist goods as a means for his creations, I wanted my own creations to be thought of as a consumer product.
The online polls that were conducted asked the public questions like “which of these animals are your favorites, which animal would you like to see in a painting, and which would you be most likely to purchase?” Focusing on African animals, the surveys determined the top nine in popularity out of the twenty-five that were introduced. The data collected from these types of questions, along with colour palettes taken from Vogue and designer fashion companies that release their “in season” colour guides, in combination with patterns that I constructed myself resulted in the artwork within this series. Other influences on the series were home décor, design, illustration, pop art, and popular culture.
I chose to focus on exotic animals for this series as they are beings we do not see every day and when we do have the opportunity to see we enjoy seeing. Statistics say that there are more people who visit zoos every year than major sporting event in North America, and I wanted to make paintings that not only everyone can understand, appreciate, and become excited about, but that also somehow speak to wildlife conservation.
Knowing when I am finished a painting comes with matching the expression within the animal’s face and body to the photo I am referencing. I complete the animal’s face and eyes last, so when I finally put the highlights in its eyes I can see if it “comes alive” or not. My use of pattern and colour is simply to highlight the animal, and make it more important, exciting, or eye catching. I am constantly playing with colours that are bright and fun to create an automatic connection with the viewer through levels of joy and happiness. I wanted the viewer to feel like they could look at these pieces every day, or that they wanted them within their homes. I didn’t want to inflict any kind of prior conceptual aspects within the work other than immediate responses like “those are my favorite colours!” or “oh I love lions!”
The work was my way of understanding trends that come and go such as what’s being printed on t-shirts, what are people buying, which sorts of animal motifs are popular in home décor, and how art becomes a consumer item. The idea for this work came from visiting boutiques around BC and seeing wildlife that had been resorted to kitsch, such as salt and pepper shaker owls. Even though they were border line ridiculous, I loved the idea of amplifying the notion of turning the natural world into something society could consume, and in turn manufacturing objects for people to buy. I then integrated these ideas with my love of colour, design and decoration to then construct a series that was constructed by society to then be sold to society. Sort of in the way Andy Warhol used consumerist goods as a means for his creations, I wanted my own creations to be thought of as a consumer product.
Final Artist Statement
Images of wildlife are often depicted on kitschy home decor objects. Even though some of these objects are ridiculous, I love the idea of turning the natural world into consumer items.
My paintings are all based on data from surveys that I conducted online through social media. For this series of African animals, online questionnaires included pictures of animals alongside a list of questions. Questions for respondents to answer included: “Which of these animals are your favourites? Which animal would you like to see in a painting? and, “Which image would you be most likely to purchase?” Respondents were also asked to pick their preferred colour palette from a selection of options taken from designer fashion companies such as Vogue.
After collecting this consumer data, I drew patterns to highlight each animal, in order to make the images more eye catching. The resulting paintings are intended to elicit responses such as: “Those are my favourite colours,” or “I love lions!”
My paintings are all based on data from surveys that I conducted online through social media. For this series of African animals, online questionnaires included pictures of animals alongside a list of questions. Questions for respondents to answer included: “Which of these animals are your favourites? Which animal would you like to see in a painting? and, “Which image would you be most likely to purchase?” Respondents were also asked to pick their preferred colour palette from a selection of options taken from designer fashion companies such as Vogue.
After collecting this consumer data, I drew patterns to highlight each animal, in order to make the images more eye catching. The resulting paintings are intended to elicit responses such as: “Those are my favourite colours,” or “I love lions!”