For our first main project in Drawing in Space, we explored atmospheric perspective. The inspiration for my drawing came from my camera roll- There’s a specific photo in my favorites I’ve always wanted to recreate, and I knew this would be the perfect opportunity. The scene is an abandoned school I photographed in the beginning of 2020, and the eerie fogginess of the scene really contributes to the “atmospheric” component of the project.

I started by importing the photo into a digital art program called Procreate, then I drafted the vanishing points and eye line on top of the image. Once I had a good grasp of the overall composition, I cut a sheet of tan paper down to 15”x 20” and began drawing the lines with graphite in estimated locations. I then drew basic figures like the ceiling tiles, wiring and chairs, and decided to add some imaginary plants in the foreground to emphasize perspective and frame the scene. I continued to refine figures, then slowly built up shading/highlights with graphite and white charcoal. 

If I could change anything about the final outcome of my piece, I would continue to push the contrast (which I worked on after critique) and maybe explore media outside of charcoal that can blend easily without bringing out too much of the paper texture. Overall, I’m satisfied with how this piece turned out. Success!

Wangechi Mutu is a collage artist born in Kenya. Her work contains many subjects, from plants and animals, to the female body, to the industrial and the natural world- Within her work is a narration of how all these different subjects work together to make the world flow. Here is a quote from one of her interviews that I feel perfectly captures an important main theme in her work:

“I’m trying to just push up the volume on how incredibly important every single plant, and animal, and human is in keeping us all alive and afloat.”

https://art21.org/artist/wangechi-mutu/

Another topic explored in Wangechi’s work is the relationship between her Kenyan roots (she was born and raised in Nairobi) and characteristics of the western world. Through works like Ghouls on my Back Celebrate Murder (see below), Wangechi explores preconceptions made about African culture within the western world, and the overall impacts of globalization. She also criticizes colonialism and highlights its irreversible impact on human life through use of unsettling imagery and graphic connotations.

Currently, Wangechi resides in Brooklyn and continues her collage work. In her pieces she uses a variety of mediums including vinyl, mylar, and recycled material. Besides collage, she also practices sculpture, drawing, and digital work. With an education at the Yale School of Art, and her immersive work held in galleries internationally, Wangechi Mutu is a unique, talented artist worth checking out.

For this Collage/Overlap project, I only had a vague idea of having something open to a different world like a portal or a window to view it. So I worked with that idea and started to pick out images from magazines that I thought would work well together and make the idea of viewing into a different world a reality.

When I started to assemble the scraps of magazine paper together to try to form a cohesive image, I started to like the idea of a bedroom having a window that opened up to a weird portal of a world. The curtain of the bedroom picture bothered me and I was about to cut them out completely before getting the idea to cut them out to a certain amount and fold them accordion-style. Doing this made the curtains not take up too much room on the paper and the folded curtains added a small 3D/pop-up element that made this piece all the more interesting to look at.

From there, I liked the idea of having some of the elements of the collage pop out and have a 3D element to the piece, so some of the element pieces of the collage aren’t fully flat on the paper but rather pop out and slightly move when you pick it up. I felt this added to the overall feeling of weirdness and viewing into a different world a lot more versus if I had made every element on the collage flat.

I then decided to focus on finishing up the bedroom part of the piece to make it feel complete. So I tried to gather more pieces of magazine pictures to finish and develop a bedroom. After the piece was done, I decided that I would make the piece have a comic book/cartoonish feel to it by having dark outlines and some white highlights on some of the elements of the collage. I used India Black Ink with a paintbrush to make the black outlines and White Acrylic-Gouache to make the shiny highlights.

In the end, I love the end result of the Collage/Overlap project and what I ended up with was something I didn’t expect to have. Letting my mind guide me through this piece and just seeing whatever I felt would work together seemed to make this piece interestingly weird to look at.

Amanda Burnham creates large scale drawings that are often site specific installations. Burnham has a BA from Harvard University in Visual and environmental studies and an MFA from Yale University in Painting and Printmaking. She is now a Professor as Townson University. Throughout the years she has had her work shown in many places; a few to note would be the Delaware contemporary,  Smithsonian Anacostia Museum, and  the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art.

Civic Body

Site specific installation at Visarts, Rockville Acrylic, flashe, paper, and tape on wall/floor approx. 30′ x 10′ 2017 photo credit: Joseph Hyde

The works shown below are a series of wall drawings that are of cities. A subject that became of interest to her when she moved out of the midwest to the east coast for school. The cities in the east coast were so much different than what she knew back home that it caught her attention. In and interview with inertia studios she specifically points out how “spaces that were dense, dynamic, and mixed use, where a lot of space is shared, and neighbors weren’t a thing you mostly avoided or ignored”. These are themes that I think come across really clear in her work.

In the work she often uses paper scraps. Her process starts by her taking time to walk around in the city to get inspiration and ideas. From there she then begins the process of making quick gestural paintings using acrylic. These paintings are then collaged together on the wall and armatures on site. Lighting is also an important aspect of this work as it is used in a way that emphasizes the layering in the work and as Burham states animates it.

Untitled (Under Surveillance)

Untitled (Under Surveillance) (installation view) Site specific drawing installation at Arlington Art Center Flashe, acrylic, paper, tape and lights 2016

When a show/exhibition is over Burnham will tear down all the paper from the works and put it bags with the intention of using it again in future works.

Citations

https://amandaburnham.com/artwork/4514108-Civic-Body.html

https://bakerartist.org/portfolios/amanda-burnham

This week I will be talking about the french illustrator, Tom Haugomat. Born in Paris in 1985, Haugomat fell in love with drawing and telling a narrative in his pieces. Studying art history, archeology, and design, Haugomat’s first public project was a short film “Jean-Francois” (2009) with co-creator Bruno Mangyoku. (source)

His approach to visual storytelling of incorporating multiple figuring interacting to create a sense of dialog or a lone person surrounded by large nature/architecture. His style is very minimal in the sense of being very deliberate about the highlights and lack of detail to allow the viewer to feel a sense of participation in filling in the rest of the details. In terms of drawing into space, Haugomat uses scale and contrast and is able to control the scale of space in his work.

Haugomat currently has two animations produced and a number of art books released with a collection of his work. He has a large following of 258k followers and is still working in France as an illustrator / author.

Tiffany Rankin is an Austin Texas artist. She has lived here for 18 years due to wanting to be closer to family. Rankin comes from a creative family and is mainly self taught, although she did go to art school for a degree in graphic design.

The mediums they use is acrylic ink and oils. Their biggest inspiration would have to be history belonging in ancient times. A lot of their work is revolved with the idea of time and beautiful women. They are also a women advocate and how females have point of view on life.

The way Tiffany Rankin is inspired is through her inspiration wall. She has color palettes and several images that she looks at and waits for an idea to simmer.

Here is a work she did where she is focused on the women perspective of life. The colors are absolutely beautiful. Another thing she mentioned was how she didn’t want to tell people much about the work or how to feel. She wanted her audience to decide for themselves how to interpret her pieces.

In this next piece, you can see how her history and the pov of a women really stand out. With the marking on her face and the leaves popping out, you can sort of tell that its suppose to be historical.

citation: https://artofaustin.com/tiffany-rankin/

Laslo Antal – Visual Diaries

Laslo Antal is a Hungarian artist from Serbia, based in Berlin. He creates collages of a unique nature and concept, this is what drew me to him. He started a series in 2017 called “Visual Diaries”, in which every day he would make a collage that represented an event from that day. He has collages depicting topics called “Pain Thing” where he is representing himself in deep pain, to more mundane themes like “Early Morning Duties” where he is showing his morning routine and such. He uses the same materials and sized paper to create a cohesive series. He also carries these materials with him everywhere. As a Hungarian who grew up in Serbia and moved to Berlin, he often feels somewhat separated from the communities around him and uses his art to create grounding connections with his surroundings. He uses collaging to tell the story of his life, and record the many events that happen in a persons everyday life. It is relatable, but also personal to the artist.

Hi! I’m Fifi 🙂 I am an art major and a Junior. I don’t have a specific medium I work in, and my main goal as an art student is to explore and try new things. I tend to create art that is personal, and based on my own life and experiences. However, I like to have work that others can connect to and feel something from. When it comes to drawing, I feel I am somewhat lacking. It’s always a starting point for me, but rarely the finish, so I’m interested in seeing where this class will take me.

The artist that I chose to research this week is Wiley Ross. Ross was born and raised in Springfield, Missouri and then moved to Austin to pursue his passion in music. In the early 2010’s, he has toured all around the country including the famous “Viper Room” in LA. He also had serious notability from Guns N’ Roses as he caught their attention. Wiley is a credible painter, muralist, sculpture artist and musician. He believes “the world is a blank canvas”, and that’s why you can see his murals all around Austin. He uses bright contrasting colors and is most influences by people, especially musicians, and his journeys throughout the world. I was fortunate enough to see some of his larger paintings at WCC in Austin, including one of his newest, Athena. Most people in Austin have probably seen his work without even knowing it. The Willie Nelson and Janis Joplin mural, located at 407 E 7th St, is one of his most recognizable.

https://www.wileyross.com