Comparative_Visual_Art_Essay

Visual Art 2B Investigation Task Part B Sarah Webb Comparative Art Essay Del Kathryn Barton and Carrie Ann Baade Portraiture art work can be used as a means of defining, or providing insight into who a person is. A portrait looks beyond a simple persona by using certain elements that characterise the subject in the way that artist wishes the audience to perceive them. Contemporary portraiture artists Del Kathryn Barton and Carrie Ann Baade have created pieces that use such a technique within their works. Although the artist’s styles differ from one another, both seem to incorporate similar ways of emphasizing certain characteristics and adding particular objects that shape their art work. Del Kathryn Barton’s “Keeper of the Polka Dot’s” is an acrylic, gouache, water colour and pen on polyester canvas, it was produced in 2007 making it a fairly recent piece. This image consists of a young female standing above eye level through the centre of the work. Various objects float around her in the background that has no sense of depth, these objects include flowers and kittens. The girl herself is staring into the distance and looking upwards, her dress is covered in polka dots and the artist has used pale washed out skin to contrast with patterned clothing and the busy background, which draws our eyes immediately to the girls face making her the focal point of piece. Like the majority of Del Kathryn Barton’s work this is an illustrative and representational piece, unlike Carrie Anne Baade whose work, even though surreal, always looks incredibly life like. “Death and the Maiden” by Carrie Ann Baade depicts a lady laying down the centre of the art work amongst a bed of leaves, the lady is bare apart from the gloves on her hands and the collar around her neck. We know she is deceased as the colour of her skin is composition of greys, blues and purples. The bottom of her face looks lifeless whilst the pasted on eyes that cover the upper half of her face are still alive, however they are sad eyes that are filled with tears. This piece is far more technical than Barton’s and the only media that has been used to create it is oil paints. “Keeper of the Polka Dots” could be interpreted as the dream like state of a young child. The various objects that are floating around and the illustrative drawing of the female take all the realism out of the work and gives it an imaginary feeling. The far off expression on the girls face matches the creative background as imagining and creating is something that we link with youthful ignorance as well as being a talent that we often lose as we grow up. The Polka Dots and patterns are also consistent with and are representative of childhood. The girls round and magnified eyes bring a sense of innocence to the piece, the complete opposite of Carrie Anne Baade’s work, where emphasis of the eyes turns what could have been a peaceful death into a sad a woeful one. “Death and the Maiden” tells a tale about the person within the piece, much like many of Baade’s other works. The ruffled collar around her neck and the purple silk and diamante studded gloves are all that the corpse wears. Both these objects are status symbols and are representative of wealth. If the maiden sought out her own death it could be possible that these were the only two things that she wanted to take with her into the afterlife. It could also be interpreted as metaphor for wealth and status being the only thing that she lived for and now are the only things that are witnessing her death. From the bottom half of her face that is exposed we can tell that she looks restful and peaceful, but the cut out eyes that cover up the rest of face are filled with sadness and grief. Baade has used the eyes to add to the story within the piece. The eyes could be seen as an insight into the maiden’s true feelings and what possibly may have driven her to her death. Both Carrie Anne Baade and Del Kathryn Barton have created pieces that play with particular elements in order to shape the way that the audience perceives them. Both artists have used eyes to aid the interpretations even though the ways that they used the eyes are different. As well as this both artists used symbolic objects to tell their stories and there for characterised their subjects and by doing have given the audience the means to base a judgement and interpretation on.