Exploration_Proposal

Exploration Proposal I am to focus on the concept of Emotion, specifically personal feelings that are conveyed by body language and facial expressions. I plagued by the question ‘what is emotion'’ “An emotion is constant; it is a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than conscious effect and is often accompanied by physiological changes” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/emotion). When people ask the question, ‘are you okay'’ Our immediate response is, ‘I’m fine’, which is not always the truth. Humans tend to hide their deepest emotions because they’re afraid of how others will react and if they will be judged. The purpose in life is to connect physically and emotionally with the people around us, whether it is the guy who scans your groceries to your romantic partner. We all need to connect with people somehow to keep us emotionally healthy. But if we suppress our feelings, we would barricade the intimacy of formulating relationships and the ability to express ourselves. I remember hearing a quote from an old film called Magic in the Water, ‘Trust your heart as much as your mind’; I became intrigued with the idea of trusting my heart because that’s where intimate emotions are formed, and trusting my mind because I decided what I want to do with my feelings. Sometimes emotions can cloud our judgement and it is confusing to make decisions to articulate these sensations. They become so strong that it becomes difficult to communicate them to people whom we want to share them with. And after watching the 1999 production of American Beauty, I also became fascinated with the concept of the American beauty rose that encapsulates beauty and stability. But deep down the roots start to rot and deteriorate. Growing and watching many dramatic films and television series, I feel compelled to explore, investigate and develop ideas based on emotion because of my personal interest of how people in general detain their feelings and once they start a relationship, slowly start to communicate their deepest feelings. Swedish artist, Mia Makila paints her demons, nightmares and fears as a way to overcome them. Personally, Makila has generated my private childhood obsession of drawing my nightmares. Her work reminds me so much of my own fears and how I would interpret them. What I find intriguing about her work is her use of old Victorian era photos added with other mixed media such as acrylic paint to endorse her nightmarish work with dark humour. Her artwork is inspired by the Lowbrow art movement that began in the 1970s and I admire how her work has haunting quality through the mixtures of old, simple tones with bright, rich colours of the acrylic paint. I want colour to be a major part in my work, and an artist who uses colour in diverse ways is South Korean artist Minjae Lee. I adore his assorted use of colour in his artwork, as well as his use of mixed media both conceptually and aesthetically. I admire how he uses colour to represent tears streaming down a girl’s face as seen in his mixed media piece, ‘Kiss 2’, he incorporates pencil, marker and assorted paints and devises them into structured puzzle contrasting the colour of the markers and watercolour paint with led pencil. Like Lee, I aim to explore the use of mixed media to create exceedingly expressive artwork that emphasises on a certain emotion such as happiness with bright contrasting colours or sadness with dull, dark tones. I will weave the image drawing attention to particular areas to enhance the emotion that is being conveyed in the artwork. In order to investigate my idea, I will ask close friends and family about their emotional experiences and how they’ve expressed their most personal emotions and anything that triggers that emotion. I want people to be able to relate to my emotions, and if not at least be able to understand what it is that I want to express. My main subject matter in my artwork will focus on the human form which also includes facial features. Body language and facial expression will be an important part in my work. Body language can be misunderstood and most of the time we articulate our emotions through our body. It is an essential part of connecting. In order to convey this I will need to take photographs of people exemplifying certain emotional experiences or use ones that I already have. The costumes, lighting and the background in my photographs will signify features – the clearer and stronger the aesthetic qualities and forms in the photographs, the easier they will be to transfer into my paintings and drawings. I want to be able to capture detailed facial features, tones and detail of body movement that will be enhanced through my drawings and paintings. In regards to aesthetic qualities I will focus mainly on texture, tone and colour. Colour will be a vital element that will be used to present my idea of emotion in an expressive way. I don’t want people to think of colour as if they were traffic lights; green is good, red is bad and orange is in between. I want people to have a broader mind thinking of what the meanings of different colours could entail. To me, colour will not only help enforce the emotions I want to state in my artwork, but also evoke the viewer’s curiosity of the colours I’ve used such as the colour red for tears that can resemble blood for anger and hate. Colour will help to portray the emotions in my artwork. Tone will also be an important aspect in my work, to contrast the light and dark areas as well as colour. Tone will also be used to illustrate realistic features such as folds and creases of clothing, the detail of someone’s eyes. I want tone to show simplicity in my drawings and emphasise on specific features and finer details such as facial expressions, strands of hair and the detail of a reflection in someone’s eyes. Texture will also be an important element as it illustrates many emotions; the textures can be rough and hard to express feelings of frustration and pain. These textures will be defined using a variety of techniques such as pressing down on a paint brush so the bristles are visible in the layer of paint, or smudging oil pastel with a finger to create smooth, soft textures. I will also incorporate text of lyrics, quotes, poems and phrases that link with the emotions I will convey in my artwork. The text will also be printed in a certain colour, size and font to suit the artwork to reinforce that emotion being conveyed. A quote I may use is, ‘ he made a diamond from shattered glass’, it is a quote I made that reminded me of a scene from a Filipino love movie where a young women had married the wrong man and says, ‘mababasag ako, mababasag ang puso ko’. In English she says, ‘I will break, my heart will break.’ In the film she is married to the wrong man, and the man she loves was going to marry someone else. My quote means the opposite, the heart is already broken but someone I love has made me stronger and has made is whole into a diamond. The materials and techniques I plan to explore and experiment with a combination of mediums such as acrylic paint, oil paint, water colour, pencil, marker, fine liner, pastel and various materials such as paper, wire and plaster to build up 2D surfaces to create a low relief. Relief is an art technique; it is the projection of figures from a flat surface or background or the apparent projection of shapes in a paint or drawing. My art forms will be a combination of drawing and painting on works of a medium to large scale. Throughout my experimental process I will work on a range of surfaces; canvas, paper and newspaper. I will explore include photographs of me, friends and family taken on a basic digital camera with a self-timer and I will enhance them on Photoshop, as a reference material for my paintings and drawings. I am using myself and family as models for practical reasons because I know when I am available and can also achieve the desired positions, props, setting and lighting. I may also use friends as possible models if they are willing and have the available time. When using pencil, I will use various techniques to emphasise on the tone, texture and detail. I enjoy using a paper stub to increase the smooth light textures on the skin to create lighter tones that reflect the light and shadow. I will use various pencils including graphite and even charcoal to help emphasise on the light and soft textures. These utensils are easily smudged that can create a soft, smooth effect to help emphasise on the light and dark tones. I will use various materials to and techniques to create mixed media pieces; these include pencil, marker, watercolour, pastel, acrylic paint, newspaper, watercolour paper and canvas. The use of mixed media will help build on the emphasis of the emotion that will be conveyed in the artwork. For example to create a really bright painting that is full of joy and expresses happiness, I will use a combination of oil pastel and acrylic paint to emphasise on the brightness. As I mentioned I also intend to trial materials and techniques to create a low relief. In the past I’ve used sculptamold, paper magic clay, paper mâché, glass tiles, wire, calico and plaster. I’ve enjoyed creating relief pieces in the past and I want to incorporate them again in my artwork this year too. I will explore different mediums to create relief to gain a greater knowledge of those mediums and how to incorporate them in my work.