How have artists explored the telling of visual narratives within their artwork? And how it may have related to my own work.
A narrative is a piece of work, which is designed to tell a story or a sequence of event without the use of text. It can be made in any media, from illustration to the use of primary photos. The image is subjective because it allows the reader to interpret the story in their own way. This assignment will discuss examples of artists’ artwork, which has a narrative style and how effective these pieces have been. The artists that I will be using are ones that have either influenced me in my own projects, such as Dara Scully, Paul M Smith and Zev, also, artists that generally inspire me such as Kyle Thompson. The first still image of narrative artwork is this by Robert and Shana Parkeharrison who are photographers most famous for their work in fine art, among other things; their work has been displayed in many solo and group exhibitions, also in over 20 collections such as the Museum of American Art. When analysing this narrative it allows the viewer to create their own perception and interpret it in their own way, for example, in this image, it can create feelings of suspicion, secrecy and mystery. However, to another person it may provoke different feelings, such as sadness. It is subjective to someone’s own opinion which may differ to the original artists’ concept. The gloomy dark green, black and grey colours are put in to portray a certain mood within the image which may reflect onto the two men are actually doing. The atmosphere of the image is used to set an idea as to the original concept that the viewer would try to understand.
Paul Smith is a graphic artist who is most famous for his work in narrative pieces; I have chosen to look at this artist because he uses very different methods to normal artwork to create a telling in his visual narrative pieces. His technique is combining images of the same person performing different actions in one image. One interesting point about the work is that although each person is the same you feel as though the person plays many different roles due to the way they have been
displayed, for example in this image, which is probably his most popular piece, ‘Sing when you’re winning’. Robbie Williamson is set to be like a different team player for each different figure of himself, as they are showing different individual expressions. During my A2 graphics course Paul Smith inspired me to create my own narratives in a similar style to his own. I created an image using on person and portrayed them as different people. Typically in narratives there is no text which is why it is important to induce emotion through the characters. For example,
In this piece, he differentiates the characters by having a different facial expression on each image of himself, in the image above; the three people are showing different emotions on their faces to do this. The two people kneeling have basically the same expression so it is easier to realise that they are on the opposite team to the person under them, whereas the third person that is lying down looks in pain and in need of help and in agony, this is his technique in showing a narrative visually through his work. Having said this, facial expressions are not the only way Smith creates expression through his work; he also displays it through the postures of the characters as shown in the image. The two people kneeling are very close to the third man, almost over him pinning him down, giving the feeling that they have just captured the third man. The man lying down shows the most obvious emotions, even with just the hand he has raises showing that he is trying to get free. I achieved this is my work also using the same techniques. The posture of my characters creates different ideas and allows it to be open to interpretation as the viewer can decide which emotion the character is portraying. Another feature he used the create a narrative is using contextual backgrounds, by this I mean that he sets the background to link
with the main images of the people in front, so that the background could tell a narrative and give a storyline in itself. The background suggests further ideas into the story behind the image, for example, in the army image, he uses contextual backgrounds with the tank and war torn ground everywhere around the people. This background gives a better idea of the events which may have occurred in the narrative. I applied this feature to my work by using a stage and flashing lights to emphasize the characters success and which the other is envious of, we know this because she is not in a spotlight but a dull, empty place.
This is another image by Paul M Smith that I have chosen to analyse because he has used the same methods of work in this as the others that I have looked at. As I said about the previous work, Smith makes sure that there are facial expressions in his pieces to help differentiate the people, even though they are just images of himself. In this piece, the person kneeling down is clearly on the opposite side to the two people standing. His facial expressions show that he is scared and in need of help, but as if he knows what is coming to him, something that supports this idea is his posture, he is leaning forward as to get further away from the gun, a normal reaction. The other two people standing have similar facial expressions which seem to be calm like what’s going to happen is just a routine. Like on the image before, this is to show that they are on the same side, as well as their postures are basically the same, very calm and in control of the situation. Despite this, other narrative artists do not feel the need to use contextual backgrounds and solely use the characters to depict the storyline. An example of an artist who uses this technique is Dara Scully. Dara Scully is a Spanish photographer, but unlike many others in this type of field, she didn’t specifically set out to be one, she said herself that she did it ‘without noticing’. Dara says that a narrative in her work is essential, she like photographs that tell stories half way through and let you give them the ending. Dara’s work is some of the most imaginative narrative work I’ve seen, filled with so many different stories and emotions from just on image, unlike others where they may have a specific theme. Dara related herself more as a “drawer of scenes” than a photographer.
In this image, the background is clearly contradicting to the characters, for example, the background is a forest, and it would be near impossible to find an elephant in that habitat, this is why the characters in this piece go against its background. A significant way that Scully tells a story within a visual narrative is by creating a relationship between the human figure and the animal, and in most cases of her work it is friendship between them. This makes the narrative have a more positive atmosphere straight away. You can tell that they are meant to be portrays as friends by how they are interacting with each other, in this image, they both seem very gentle and welcoming to one another. I attempted these techniques in my own work. In this piece I used a staircase as a background which is contradicting to the characters as they are helping someone up the stairs, which is completely unrelated. I also tried to create a relationship between the people by the way they interact which each other, and I created a sense of friendship by the two people helping the other up.
Another point in Scully’s work is the way she uses lighting effects to create a certain mood to the narrative. In the image above she uses multi-colour effect which creates a more positive output to the audience because of the bright colours used, I say this because brighter colours are more related to positive things rather than negative. This gives direction to the story being told in the image as we can see it has a happy and uplifting effect on the characters. I have used this technique in my work to create a similar mood in my narrative. Without it, it could create a completely different mood and narrows the story options down.
However, other artists use minimal colours to create a mood within the narrative images. An artist who uses this method is one named Zev. Zev is a graphics artist who I researchers when looking for an artist to base my A2 narrative project. His work drew me in because it was very unique compared to other artists that I have looked at in respect to how he displays the figures in his work and how he explores the telling of visual narratives through his work.
In his narratives he uses a black and white effect, this creates a gloomy outcome and influences the narrative and suggests the story has a dark side to it. A very effective method that Zev tends to use throughout all of his work is to blur out the sides of the images, leaving only the main image which is usually in the centre on the piece. This makes the viewer look directly at the focal point of the image, thinking of a possible story line straight away, but as well as doing this, the blurred background could also give clues as to what the narrative could be telling, so all in all there are many different possibilities to the narrative, as there a different things within the narrative that could tell a story. Zev uses disproportional sizes within his work; for example, is one piece the figure is smaller than the object they are on, when in ordinary proportion it would be the opposite way around. This gives a different and edgy feel. This could tell a narrative that the world is over whelming to the individual, or perhaps the artist himself who is expressing his emotions through his work. This is effective in telling a narrative, as it is a very broad method where you can combine any figure with any object to create a storyline. Through my work I wanted to experiment with this method. I thought it would be most appropriate to use a figure and an inanimate object as Zev did. I explored the use of many different objects to see what created the best storyline, which can be interpreted subjectively. One of my examples that worked particularly well is this image of a girl sitting on a guitar, and as you can see there are disproportional sizes being used as shown in Zev’s work.
I feel as though this narrative worked well because the two images allow different ideas, such as the figures expressions and physical stance set the mood of happiness, like she is in her own little world. The guitar obviously gives the sense of music. The two things allow the viewer to bring both ideas together to create a storyline. I have used a black and white effect on the image to create a similar effect as it does on Zev’s work, I also blurred out the sides of the piece so that there is a focal point to the image, which is left un-blurred in the centre of the image allowing the viewer to think of storylines straight away.
The stances of the people in Zev’s work are very well set as give an instant clue as to what the mood set the narrative is in. This allows us to carry on thinking of what the storyline could be. The image of the woman sitting on the type writer gives of the feeling of sadness; this can be shown by how she is sitting and how her facials expressions are set. She is sitting is a very strict and proper manner which could show that she has been told to sit there in
that way but she doesn’t want to. You can then link the focal image to the background as say that she is being made to type write but doesn’t want to. I used the same method in my work by taking very specific photos so I could use them in my narrative, which I had to plan out before even thinking about taking the photos, ass every aspect of the narrative has to work together. An artist that I have not based my narrative project on but is still very inspiring and talented is Kyle Thompson. His work is mostly composed of surreal and bizarre self-portraits, often taking place in empty forests and abandoned homes. His style, as he describes it, is surreal conceptual photography; the creation of a surreal world in order to depict concepts. Thompson uses a lot of props within his work; the props are the focal point of many of his pieces. In this picture we can see that where he is holding an axe in his hand.
The use of props occurs in much of his work as it instantly sends thought into our minds as to what the narrative is about. This is different to other artists that I have looked at such as Zev, because is his work he relies on his figures, props and the figures expressions to explore the telling of visual narratives within his work. The method can also be seen as not very effective, the reason is that the possibilities to different storylines is narrowed down as in reality, there can only be a few reasons why someone is holding an axe like in this image. Another thing you can notice in the image that relates to his general method of work in the forest and the building in the background, as he said he is fascinated by these things, and this is where he seems to be walking to. Everything taken into account, this particular piece of work is very gloomy and dark, with a very negative atmosphere. The next point is the way he uses colours in his work. He uses very bold colours, which is similar to the work of Dara Scully, who also uses colour to create a mood. In Thompsons work the use of specific colours creates a certain mood in the narrative because of how each colour sends signals off to us. Dara’s work does this similarly by creating the same mood with her colours. Particularly, Thompson uses the colour red; this could infer the meaning that the colour represents blood or evil, which also creates a negative mood in a narrative. In the same way, the colour red could give off signals to us that mean love and
provoke that kind of emotion, this is particularly well set as there are lots of different storylines that could emerge from just one piece with a red colour involved. In all of the artists that I have looked at there is always a certain emotional being portrayed in each piece, in most of Kyle Thompsons pieces he is alone, hence the use of self-portraits. This gives of the emotion of sadness due to him being lonely in most of his pieces, this could relate to why things are happening in his narratives or how things are set out. For example, in the image with the balloons, the actual balloons could be his only sense of comfort from being alone and the red colours could be the love from the balloons, metaphorically speaking. To sum up my essay I feel that I have conclusively shown how different artists explore the telling of visual narratives within their artwork, and how in some cases I have been able to relate it to my own work. Artists can use many different methods such as facial expression through their figures to the bold colours of props, to explore a storyline through a narrative. Each technique that I have researched used effectively can produce a very successful narrative with many different possibilities as to what to actual story may be.
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