Abstract painting-wave of life
Unit 1: My School, myself and I
Unit 2: Land Art
Unit 3: My Vessel of Change: Unbreakable wall
“Unbreakable Wall”
The “Unbreakable Wall” made by me was a ceramic artwork base on a popular social issue — commercial sea animal performing. In the well built aquariums, sea animals seem to swim freely in the transparent fish tanks for people to entertain, but nobody really know that these animals’ lives are captured in these pools forever. Even though the pools are enormous, but the walls are of them are the barriers. Aquatic animals have to live in such limited area unwillingly because they cannot communicate with us. Even worse, some very smart animals like dolphins, killer whales and sea lions are trained to perform in front of us without any choices. The cause of letting those poor sea lives to become tame is huge. The animals have sacrificed their freedom and suffered from various types of “punishments” in order to perform in front of the public. In the process of training, many of them have mental illness. I want to use the “Unbreakable Wall” influence people not to go to Aquariums and pay the money to let those pathetic animals suffer more. I also want to catch more people’s attentions to stop all sorts of commercial animal displays. To show my ideas, I build a box without a lid over the top. The box is medium sized and it is made of grey clay. On top of the square base, I sculpture a whale painted in dark blue and white. It is a symbol of one of the largest animal in the world. The head and tail of the whale come out of the water and the body is in the water. I create the pose to embody freedom because the aquatic lives yearn for freedom. Around the square base, I use coiling to make two round strips around the square. Coiling the base softens the sharp corners of the square which makes the base of my vessel looks gentle without harming. I build four thick walls to form the cube. The walls are like the building where all these animals are kept. The animals have no hope of escaping unless if everybody can make a change which is not to go watch animal performances. On one of the walls, I kneaded two small round clay pieces which I later on turn into a small penguin. The penguin seems to run away, but the edge of the wall might let it fall into the chasm of torture once more. I scalp some parts of the wall down to make the walls disruptive. The cracks on the walls are symbols of “danger”. It is also a metaphor to show the scars that exist over these animals after they are treated awfully. I painted the walls of the vessel with light colours like Too Clear, Pure Blue. I want to show freedom and also how animals are being imprisoned by people. In side my vessel, the colours are very dark. I painted the inner walls with Navy Blue. It is a contrast with the outer walls. The dark blue colour can be a symbol of the deep ocean where those sea animals should belong to. It is also a metaphor of sadness and pressure. When you look into the vessel, colour blue makes the vessel look isolated and cold. In my vessel, the small 3D whale is also painted with navy blue. It is alone and the walls are its living place, small and restrictive. I want to use my whale to let people to stop watching any animal performances. These animals belong to the nature. Jungles, oceans and forests are their real homes. Humans should not cage them put in a way to entertain themselves.
Unit 4: Print Making-The man with greed
The man with greed
“The man with greed” is a lino block printing created by me. The final piece is done on a large piece of white paper with six smaller printing in four different colours. This artwork is meant to criticize any bribing actions that happens in the society frequently. People attempt to use money to buy off things like relationship, a job or some business trades. The side receiving the bribe has extreme greed on money. My work is exactly reflecting this phenomenon as a result to show people that such action is terrible and should not be promoted. My design can be divided into three sections to explain. First, in the middle of the block, I carved a huge face of a man who is very chubby. The face is very round and I carved the inside out so that it appears white on the print. The man represents a government official because he is wearing a Chinese style cap which only the officer at the ancient time could wear. On either side of the cap, there is a half square which has the Mandarin characters meaning “corruption” inside. The characters do not show very well on my prints because they are quite small and they are really complicated to carve deep. They become one of the misstep I made on my work. Luckily the other parts of the face, the caps and the clothing went out well. The eyes of the officer are ovals which look very greedy. The officer has a very big nose and angled eyebrows. These features all make him look like he falls in love with “money”. The second part is the symbols of money at the bottom quarter of the block. I have put three types of money, dollars, golden ingot and diamonds. These symbols fulfill the bottom of my block and they make the design look more vivid. The third part is at the top. There are many skinny hands stretching out from the top, these hands and fingers are very slim and the sleeves on some of them are broken. They represent the poor people who is reaching the rich officer for money. Since all the money comes into the officer’s pocket, there is no money for the poor. So the poor suffer from poverty. I create a direct contrast of the hands and the fat man. This kind of comparison shows the inequality in the society. Above is the my thoughts and introduction to my block. During the process of producing my final work, I have printed not less than 20 images to select out the best six that I would like to use. Many of the failing ones have the problem of either not to clear or mashed up all the way through. I definitely need to take a great caution to these problems next time.
Unit 5: Surrealism Photography
The Magic Mirror
The Magic Mirror is a surrealism photography I have created for the unit. It calls upon the content on imagining my future. For this photography, I want to amplify bravery as a personality I want myself to have in the future. I found that with my increasing age, sometimes I am not as brave as I was when I was much younger. I consider too many external factors before I do stuff. I scruple about many things, for example I panic when I am facing a complicated situation. I want to use this piece of work to embrace my strength and overcome the fear in life. By showing so, I use “red” as the primary colour of my work. Different shades of red is shown from the adjustment of light and tone. I believe that colour red best express courage. The background of my image is a picture of a very famous painting from Yayao Kusama which I took from an art gallary. Kusama is a well-known artist from Japan. She demonstrates “bravery” in many of her art works. My content is inspired from her. The background is a combination of red tattoos on top of the white base. I find the tattoo very interesting because it has the symbols of a sun, a face and many round dots. When I think of the sun, I relate it with heat and fire. I trust that the hot fire is a sign to inflame bravery. In the middle of the picture is a circle which looks like a round mirror. I clip my face into the circle, so when I look into it, it looks more like a mirror. The advantage of this “mirror” is that no matter when I look at this photography, it will remind me to be strong. When I look at my face in the future, I will think of how timid I was in the past, so that I can act more brave. On top of my face, I employ a double exposure which I blend my face with Kusama’s painting. I like the idea very much because I kind of look like Alita after the double exposure. Alita is a cartoon character who is a robot warrior. She is very intelligent and brave. Obviously, I do not expect myself to be fighting for good, but I hope that I can be decisive on my decision and challenge myself in many areas. On top of the entire picture, I use the double exposure again. I put a picture which shows a wall full of $1 coins. The coins are very shiny. They add a slight of brightness to my picture. They work like a mirror which match the title of my work. My photos mostly use two techniques, close-up and medium shot. The painting and the coins are close-ups, which I use the portrait function on my phone to take it. My own picture is actually a selfie. It is a medium shot. Afterwards, I attach all three of them together by an App calls the Rookie Cam which I find very interesting and helpful. In the app, there are multiple choices of filters and adjustments. It allows me to tune the colour and deepen the shadows. The second exposure part is what I like the most about this App. It makes my surrealism photography have more layers and look psychedelic. The App is a major part of my success in this project. It allows me to use my creativity and show the content of my art work. It helps to enhance the word “brave” in my photo. All in nutshell, I hope that I can always be brave and I want to encourage everybody to get out of their comfort zones sometimes to face the difficulty.