Graphic Exam Evaluation
The exam theme for this year was - Flaws, Perfection, ideals or compromises. From this given theme I explored different issues such as deceit, concealment and beauty flaws/ bad characteristics. The first artist I looked at was Adam Krawesky a Toronto photographer known for taking spontaneous pictures in the street. I choose this artist, because in a particular project, he took pictures at random of individuals on the street covering their faces. I felt this nicely played on the ideal of concealment and flaws in how the person was physically covering their face and their flaws and the idea in which when people conceal their faces it is very hard to tell if they are lying – deceit. In response to this artist I conducted a photo shoot initially with one of my friends and then later on with more to allow some diversity. In the photo shoot I asked the subject to cover parts of their face that they did not like and believed were flawed, in order to develop the technique of the artist to better respond to the issues that I was exploring. From these images I explored different techniques, to incorporate images together. As a basic response to the issues I was exploring I believe this piece was fairly effective, however the artists work which I was responded to was very limited and therefore didn’t provide me with great scope in which to explore the issue of flaws and concealment and deceit, as I would have liked. The pieces, which were responses, were very simple and had little development. The next artist I chose to explore in response to my chosen issues of concealment, physical and personality flaws and deceit was Gillian Wearing who was an English conceptual artist. I looked at very early project, which she had conducted that had first started of her career. The title of this photographic project was called - ‘From Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say.’ This project explored the idea as to what people on the streets were really thinking. I felt this nicely linked in to my theme of deceit and concealment as there was no telling whether subjects that participated in the project had told the truth or not and the idea whether they were more like to tell the truth when they were out in the public or when their identity was hidden. Also when studying her work initially it had appeared that it was a great deal of oxymoron between the appearance of the individual and what they had written on the sign. In response I conducted a similar experiment with my friends and took photos of them holding signs with what they were feeling at the time.
Particularly the second image of my response nicely displayed the technique oxymoron and I feel both pieces reflected on the idea in which out in the open they were very honest as to their feelings, which are reflected on the signs. However again these responses weren’t fairly complex and the artist I had chosen was fairly narrow in the work she did. I feel that these pieces although do respond to Gillian’s work, are too simple and not complex enough to be very effective. I took care when looking for my next artist to ensure their work was more complex and was broader to allow for me to better respond to my chosen issues. I decided to explore and respond to Dan Mountford a 23-year-old artist
from Brighton. Dan’s work was based on the technique of double exposure and I believed that it was more broad and complex and therefore better to respond to. I feel Dan
Mountford’s style of work linked well to my issues of physical/behavioural flaws as his subjects are all concealed by other images such as cigarettes, nature, a landscape. This led to the idea of concealing my subject’s faces with different images to represent their beauty/ flaws. I created a series of different pieces in response to this artist as follows. Here I used the double contrast of pink blossoms covering the silhouette of a face in order to represent beautiful flaws. I also did this with the black and white piece where my subject is covered by flowers. I feel these pieces are more developed than those done in response to the other artists previously. However I feel they could be more effective as the piece with the pink blossoms the figure isn’t obscured enough as well as in the one covered with flowers. Possibly if my subject was facing a different angle the pieces could have looked more effective. Furthermore, the 3rd piece in which my subject has the face of a lion reflects on behavioural flaws. In being a lion the subjects behavioural flaws are of being violent and very quick tempered. I did a further piece of a different subject as a wolf to reflect upon different behaviour flaws. The idea in which to conceal the subject’s faces with animals was from dam Mountfords use of creatures such as butterflies to partially cover a subject’s body. I feel these pieces a more intriguing and interesting however I feel they are not realistically edited enough.
The final artist I looked at for this exam project was Eduardo Mata Kaza who had interest in art at a very young age. Eduardo’s artwork looks for the essence of the human being, their inherent characteristics of existence as well as the contrasts of life. He plays with lights and shadows, black and white, finished and unfinished compositions as means of exploring the period between life and death. I have chosen Eduardo as an artist for my Brief as i feel that his work in showing figures with parts of themselves erased can reflect on the idea of the removal of a person’s physical flaws. As well as the other pieces in which show a figure covering his face can relate to concealment and covering flaws. In response to this artist I took pictures of my subjects from different angles and then on Photoshop removed parts of their face (flaws) and added an outline so it could be clear what was missing of the figure. I also responded to Eduardo’s choice of colouring for the figure and background which I felt were very complementary to each other and made them more effective. Critically I feel more detail of the subjects could have made it more effective to respond to Dan. However I am generally happy with these pieces as I feel I captured the artist’s choice of colouring well and the technique nicely links in with the ideas of physical flaws and concealment. To develop these further, I experimented with adding typography to make it more complex as the piece was quite simple and minimalistic. For example the first piece here I used large block letters repeating the word flaws and making it cover my subject. I like this design as the text doesn’t stand out to much as it isn’t bold or black but of similar colours of the subject. The text is simple and large covering the entire figure to represent a person is covered in ‘flaws’ However I feel the text size is possibly to large and the piece could have been more effective if the letters were drawn over the image by hand or the letters were cut out to represent more the idea the flaws are a part of a person and they can go away. The second piece is more complex than the first and has a smaller text size covering the individual whilst also a part of the figures face as been erased (Dan Mountford) and this is filled with the quote ‘I am made entirely of flaws stitched with good intentions’. I like this piece as there are more elements to it making it more complex and it would work as a good cover for a magazine. I feel the bright colouring reflects well upon the quote that it more like hearted on the issue of flaws. Furthermore, the missing spaces and slight differences in the text that covers the subject nicely plays again of the idea of ‘Flaws’ in the design being flawed itself. To improve I would have possibly used a different font for the repeated ‘flaw’ words and enlarged the quote size. I may have also erased a different less central part of the figures face as it is a little to perfect. The last design mainly responds to inspiration found on Pinterest. I feel it is nice in being smaller and less dominant on the page, and the word placement is interesting. However to improve I would have thought about replacing the
missing part of the figures head with text so it shaped what was missing or made the design more complex in adding symbols and shapes. Final Outcome – For my final outcome which I created in the 12 hours, I produced a 10 paged magazine editorial. I incorporated designs I had made prior to the exam as well as adding different textures such as crumpled paper and cracks, broken and dirty brick wall to further illustrate the idea of ‘flawed’. The entire piece included influences from most of the artists although I covered predominantly Eduardo Kaza in the choice of colour scheme and erased parts of person’s features in the 2-3 pages and last page and back cover. I also used some typography for titles of pages etc. I feel I was fairly effective in creating designs that best illustrated the concept of physical and behavioural flaws and I responded well to the artists I had chosen. However, I feel the design was still too simplistic and could have used more elements of design in each page to be more effective. Furthermore, I feel the first inside double page was quite poor in terms of a design and I needed to respond to all of the artists more than predominantly responding to just one. Typography could have been a lot more of a dominant element to the design especially the paragraphs were not very interestingly set out. And the design may have lacked consistently which is very important in an editorial.
In general, I feel that I should have been more careful when selecting my artists throughout this exam period. Also in looking at multiple different elements – physical/behavioural flaws and concealment I feel I was more restricted and had less time to develop one concept fully and well enough. However with the artists I chose I think I responded to their style of work well and my final outcome was successful in clearly illustrated its issue.