Hybrid Heroes |
EXHIBITION TEXT
Title:
Size: 61 x 46 x 30 cm Medium: Colored and corrugated cardboard, hot glue Completion: February 2022 My piece explores the representation of feelings such as anxiety through Edvard Much's work, particularly The Scream. The intentions of my piece aim to portray similar feelings through line work and use of orange and yellow hues implemented in Munch's art, however in an extremely different medium of cardboard. While my work expresses that of my own feelings, it also works as a representation of growing from these feelings.
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Inspiration |
Edvard Munch contributes to the expressionist movement with his greatly demonstrative style characterized by figures enacting expressive gestures. Munch also lived in a time when Art Nouveau was a popular movement within the United States and Germany, and some of his work reflects the inspiration of the movement. Munch's use of line, especially in his works The Scream and Anxiety, illustrates characteristics of Art Nouveau with their curved and arc-like qualities. This use of color within the lines contributes to the expressionist movement which Munch's paintings characterized. The bright orange values, highly contrasted from the black, contribute to an emotive expression of anxiety. The modernist movement of expressionism is defined by its portrayal of the world from a specific perspective, often distorting images of communities to illustrate emotions and views of the world, and Munch's work reaches to demonstrate this.
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With the goal of my work to be personally expressive, I was inspired by Munch's pieces in the expressionism movement. His use of bright orange and red values to express feelings such as anxiety is one that I also wanted to apply into my own work. In addition, I also wanted to create a piece with a similar application of color through line work. I was also inspired by the themes of anxiety in which Munch chooses to explore. While I wanted my piece to reflect similar struggles with anxiety, my goal was to create a positive piece. With the intention to incorporate themes of anxiety into the piece, I ultimately decided to have my work reflect the effort to overcome this feeling. I began to plan how I would approach similar themes as well as styles. With the medium of the project being cardboard, I began to plan how I would implement line and color work as well as how I would create the structure of my piece.
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Planning |
The first process of my planning was to decide how I would create a cardboard piece implementing inspirations from Munch's The Scream. The figure presented in this painting embodies the anxious and agonized feelings Munch works to portray. I decided I would use cardboard to transform myself into a representation of this feeling. Due to the differences in medium, as Munch's The Scream is an oil painting, I began to plan how I would implement similar techniques to the artist with a completely different medium. With my goal to capture the same element of line work which Munch uses, I planned to explore layering different colors of cardboard to create a similar effect. In addition I would use these colors to portray the feeling of anxiety, however I would also create an element to represent growth from this feeling.
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I then created an outline focusing on the more structural aspect of creating the my figure. An element of the cardboard medium is its third dimension, which I considered in this planning. I deduced that I would create structural rings of cardboard which would capture each different depth of the head of the figure. My cardboard figure would embody that of the figure present in The Scream, characterized by its open mouth. The structural rings would then be connected by other strips of cardboard to create a 3-dimensional form.
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One of the challenges that this planning lead to is the question of how I could manipulate the cardboard to have a less stiff and moldable quality, and I realized this would be a source of experimentation. I also wanted to ensure the concept of Munch's The Scream was emphasized and almost exaggerated. While one way I planned to achieve this was through the elongated open mouth on my figure, I also decided I would add the hands on the side of the figure's face to fully draw out the inspiration. I then planned for the structure of the hands to be similar to how I would conduct the construction of the face through my connected ring structure. As this piece is intended to be an extension of myself, I wanted to highlight the feelings expression through the piece as related to myself. I emphasized this with the addition of a hole for my head to fit inside my figure of the head along with holes in the hands of my piece to allow for my hands to rest inside.
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Process |
The first thing I wanted to ensure was that my piece was structurally sound and that I was able to wear it. While creating my structural rings, I ensured the measurement of the smallest ring for the head was not smaller than the largest width on my face. Applying the same reasoning to the structural rings for the hands, I ensured my hands would be able to slip inside the opening in the bottom of the hands. These rings served as a guideline for creating the entire structure of the piece. |
After creating the structural rings to act as a base for the construction of the head, I began connecting the each of the rings with pieces of cardboard. Within this process, I made sure that The distance between the rings was a sufficient amount of space to fit my head. I also began constructing the mouth of the figure, which is meant to extend down over my torso. Adding more pieces of cardboard to the original structure allowed me to begin creating a solid figure and building the rounded form of the head. |
After having a basic structure for the figure of the head, I began adding pieces of cardboard as the outer layer of the figure. I used a scoring technique with the cardboard to make it more pliable and easier to adhere it to the base structure. I continued this process until the figure for the scream head was completely covered. |
I then tried on the figure I had created, however with the intention of exaggerating the mouth, I decided to elongate the scream mouth. I wanted to ensure that the emphasis on The Scream was apparent. To do this, I created another smaller structural ring with I could attach to my figure to extend the mouth down. I then proceeded to cut own the hole that the mouth occupys. I also cut eye holes to enable me to see. |
To better adhere the hands of the figure to the side of the figure's head, I implemented scoring techniques which would allow the cardboard to bend past its usual breaking point, making it more moldable to organic figures. After this process, I began applying color to the piece through many different values of colored cardboard.
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Experimentation |
In applying the idea of form through contrasting values in my project, I experimented with the different values I could apply. I would then use these values to apply the darkest values in places with shadows and lightest values in places that are highlighted in the light. I experimented with cardboard with darker lettering as a means to explore techniques I could apply to create the idea of depth. |
Through my experimentation I have observed corrugated cardboard is beneficial when concerning the soundness of the structure of the piece, while flat cardboard is beneficial for color use. I also explored my techniques in scoring cardboard and which tools benefit this process. While I observed through my experimentation that cardboard can be more workable after scoring with a sharp object, I also observed that it can be made more pliable by bending it in the hands.
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Critique |
SIMILARITIES:
In both my work and that of Munch, line is used to create movement within the pieces. For example, In Munch's work, the lines constitute that of the railing, bridge floor, and background, which are focus points for the eyes of the audience. Similarly, in my piece, the pieces of cardboard acting as lines move the eye up and down the hands and in a sporadic motion towards the center of the piece. The use of color is also similar in the piece. This is as the warm and bright intensity of the oranges and yellows in both pieces symbolize feelings of anxiety. While a bright intensity of values is implemented by Munch, my piece contains the similar intensities, however this intensity is due to the limitations of the medium cardboard. DIFFERENCES: Although Munch's theme spread throughout the entirety of the painting is relating to anxiety, my theme is slightly different. While Munch concentrates on the overwhelming reactions people may get in response to an uproar in anxiety, my piece focuses on a personal expression of this feeling. Due to the fact that I wanted this piece to be positive, the theme revolves around overcoming feelings of anxiety. The work of Munch and mine are also different in the sense of mediums. While my project is in a cardboard and hot glue medium, Munch's The Scream is an oil painting. Due to this, the means of applying technique are completely contrasting. While Munch's line work is applied with a paintbrush, my line work is done by cutting and layering strips of cardboard. The pieces also have some differences in movement. While movement is created in similar ways in the works, Munch's The Scream contains mainly diagonal lines constituting the movement in the painting while my work also consists of vertical movement. Horizontal movement is also seen in the skyline of Munch's piece, however it is not present in my work. |
Reflection |
This project has made me realize the variation that different mediums bring. Through my observations and experimentation with cardboard I now realize there are many different ways to apply similar techniques and art styles. This is especially apparent to me now after evaluating my inspiration, Edvard Munch, specifically his painting The Scream. While Munch is able to apply line and color through brushstrokes, the process is completely different with a cardboard medium and requires careful attention to the desires look of the piece. However, I was able to achieve similar application of color to Munch, but it is simply the process taken to get there that was different. Along with applying techniques in different mediums, this project also helped me to learn more about visually planning and representing my thoughts. In the process of making my cardboard project, I created many planning sketches to visualize my thoughts and referenced them while I was in the process of building my main structure. One of the biggest challenges of this project was attempting to budget time and figuring out how much time each element of creating the project would take up. I ultimately learned more time is needed than budgeted for when working with cardboard. However, this project was an interesting one to me, as I had never worked with a cardboard medium on as large a scale as my final piece ended up being. Working with this medium taught me about my own style and about myself as an artist.
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ACT Questions |
Clearly explain how you were able to identify the cause and effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork.
My inspiration came from the artists Edvard Munch. The movement, line work, and application of colors are all similar to Munch's and I have similar techniques to capture a similar style. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration? feelings of anxiety are one that many people deal with. For some artists, the idea of expressing this feeling is of value. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration? In some moments in life, people reach a time where they are overwhelmed with what they are feeling. This moment can look different for everyone but can be captured very often in art. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research? The central theme around my research is the feeling of anxiety and how it is expressed. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? I inferred that Munch had experienced many instances of anxiety which led him to be inspired to express it in his own work. |
Citations (MLA) |
“The Scream, 1893 by Edvard Munch.” The Scream, 1893 by Edvard Munch, https://www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp.
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