How have artists told different 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 events 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 readers 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 first still image of narrative artwork is this by Robert and Shana Parkeharrison. When analyzing this narrative is 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. It is subjective to someone’s own opinion which may differ to the original artists’ concept the gloomy colours included are put in to portray a certain mood within the image which may 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. His technique is combing images of the same people 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 persons plays many different roles due to the way they have been displayed in the art, for example in this image, which is probably his most popular piece, ‘Sing when you're winning’.
each person looks like a different team player and are showing very individual expressions. During my A2 graphics course Paul Smith inspired me to create my own narrative in a similar style to his own. I created an image using one person and portrayed them as 2 different people. Typically in narrative texts there is no text which is why it is important to induce emotion through the characters. For example, He creates this by using facial expressions in the characters which tend to be emphasized to make it particularly clear on the mood it is supposed to portray. Having said this, facial expressions are not the only way Smith creates expressions through his work; he also displays it through the postures of the characters as shown in the image. I achieved this in 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 uses to create a narrative is using a contextual background. The back ground suggests further ideas into the story behind the image, for example, in the army image by Paul M Smith, he uses a contextual background with a tank. 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 space.
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. An example, of one of her pieces is this image. The background is clearly contradicting to the characters. This makes the characters the focal point of the piece. I also attempted this technique in this piece. I used a staircase as a background which is contradicting to the characters as they are helping someone up although the background is a flight of stairs, which is completely unrelated. However, after using this technique I found using Paul Smiths work with a contextual background works better and is more effective because it tells the narratives better. 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. 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 Zev. Zev is a graphic artist who I researched when looking for an artist to base my A2 narrative project. His work drew me in because it was very unique and he uses methods I have never come across before. He is not a worldwide known artist as there is no factual information on himself as an artist but his work still inspired me above other artists due to the way he tells a narrative. 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. I also used this technique in my work as shown in the black and white image above. I
used a black and white effect on my narrative; I believe this effectively created a negative atmosphere, like it does in Zev’s work. 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 this narrative. I have tried my best in order to succeed in doing this and blur out the edges to create a focal point in the image above. Zev uses abstract sizes within his work; for example, in 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 figure sitting on a guitar, and as you can see there is abstract 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, is music her world? Or is she thinking about music as something he can never have. Another feature in Zev’s work is that it has an old theme to the narratives. He shows this through the colour and the style of individuals and the objects used. This affects the narrative because it set the scene of the storyline. However, it is not as effective as other methods because it narrows down the options of what
the storyline can be about which doesn’t allow the audience to be optimistic about it. I attempted this method with the old time theme, but I preferred using no time theme as it allow a broader narrative which, in turn is, much more effective. The stances that the figures are placed in is also very well set as they give an instant clue as to what mood set the narrative is in. this allows us to carry on thinking of what the story line could be. 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, as 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. Different to most of the artist that I have researched, Thompson uses a lot of props within his work. The props are the focal point in the picture. We can see that in this image where he is holding an axe in his hand. The use of props occurs in much of his work as it instantly sends thoughts into our minds as to what the narrative is about. This is different to other artist I have looked at such as Zev, because in his work he relies on his figures and their expressions to give a storyline to his narrative. 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 reason why someone is holding an axe like in this image. The next point is the way he uses colours in his work. He uses very bold colours, which is similar to work of Dara Scully, who also uses colour to create a mood. In Thompsons work the use of bright colours creates a specific mood in the narrative because certain colours send different signals 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 the narrative. This is very effective as it already gives us a certain emotion when looking at the rest of the narrative, but also doesn’t allow us to think that the narrative could be anything positive. The general nature of his images is quite negative and dark. This makes the story options very constricted, however gives more of a direction, as the atmosphere of the narrative is very subjective and specific.