Final Cultural Piece

For this work, I would like to make something in between the axe bottle and the painting of the planes. I would hope to continue to use acrylic paint, and perhaps carve into the paint (like the axe), or perhaps to use stencil work like the plane painting.

One artist i looked at was Jackson Pollock. He creates a lot of works that contain plenty of "action" it seems extremely busy on the picture plane. He also seems to really use many colours/complex patterns/shapes. Like Pollock, I also looked at Kadinski, who had done similar works. He uses plenty of colour but also manages to make the entire plane look extremely busy. Both artists do not seem to have a distinct focal point (in the works that I chose).

Both artists seemingly use all, if not most of the space they are given. The lines are almost impossible to follow as they follow a very random and wayward path. They form various shapes which all are very hard to describe. The colours of course, are plentiful and do cover much of the picture plane. Their works also seem to take on a sense of visual texture, as some paint is actually thrown onto the canvas, it gives the works some depth.

What I hope to do is utilize their ability to fill the picture plane. I hope to use an plethora of colours on the picture plane. I also hope to throw around a little paint to give a sense of texture.

My Process:

This painting originally had little direction, since I couldn't fully decide whether or not I wanted to follow either my final two preliminary paintings. I started off by sanding down my wooden frame/picture plane to give it a smoother feel. This allowed me some time to think about what I wanted to do as well as to give me a easier time when painting (to make more defined edges and get less splinters). However, until I started painting, I realized that I still did not sand enough to get a smooth board, but it still worked fine. I hoped to incorporate some abstract work that I had seen earlier, with some cubism values to it. I had essentially designed a large wall, in which many materialistic objects were thrown into it. This wall was painted like a brick wall, but I later covered it (very soon right after). This was following in the footsteps of what my axe bottle painting was intended to say - a challenge towards consumerism. It was to give viewers a sense of how much they actually use all the resources around them. It kindof portrays a junkyard in which objects are continously piled in an upwards direction towards space.

I had used plenty of colours, squared-off shapes, and indistinctive linework - similar to that of Pollock and Kadinski (except for the square shapes, which I didn't notice as much). The colours allowed for a busy picture plane to be created, where the viewer's eye could not fully focus on a particular point. The square shapes were inspired from cubism ideas that I had seen while doing some research. I felt that these distinctive qualities of my final painting to be very important. This is because the excited and busy scene on the picture plane reflects on our culture's affinity to spend, and work. It reflects on our malls, downtown core, and business buildings. The cubism idea is also quite fitting as it reflects on our consumerism qualities in creating skyscrapers and other such buildings. The vague lines represent our culture's mind - where boundaries for consumption and wants have been smudged out of existence.

With this painting, it started really by sectioning off of certain areas, becasue for what I was planning, I knew it would be a ton of work, so with the allotted timeframe, I tried to keep things simple, but still somewhat defined. The sectioned areas were used to help create the blurry and confusing background, where some areas were reserved for larger (partial) focal points such as the boat, plane, and car. The process took a very long time since paint was very slow to spread across all the wood, and I tried to solve this by adding water, but then it gave too much of a washout effect, which let the wood grain come through (which I didn't want for this work), so I ended up using a ton more paint that I may usually require. Using Ms. Cockburn's idea of bringing out colours, I began to try and select certain areas that I wanted to bring out or put back. I added some more dark areas around some of my partial focal points to help bring out its lighter components. I felt that this really helped organize the picture plane better (as it may have been too vague and blurry before). When viewed from a distance, it is quite some parts of the picture do come out a bit, which I do enjoy. A problem I also had was with the keeping of parallel lines. With all the "square work", it was hard to keep relatively straight (since I did not want to tape or use a ruler to perfectly define lines). I ended up having to step back more often, or use the input of those around me to help keep the lines straight, yet not perfectly straight.

Later, I tried to touch up the linework, but I also used black mayfair cutouts to stencil in a few materials that I thought were staples in today's culture - ipods, cellphones, and I "borrowed" a shopping center's logo to represent consumerism in other industries.

Overall, I believed that this work was a great success. I felt that I was able to really try a new way of painting, and explore another great, unique part of art. This more abstract work was a bit of a first for me, so it was fun, while also giving me the chance to paint my thoughts on the picture plane.