Process portfolio Rania Zouganeli

Page 1

Study: Lichtenstein’s personal

interpretation of POP ART was defined by the use of parody. The coming strip was his main inspiration. However, his paintings were influenced 1) popular advertising and 2)comic book style. The painting is based on a panel from the romance comic Girls’ Romances. The techniques used by Lichtenstein: GESSO: Is a preparation of plaster medium. The purpose of gesso is to prevent the canvas from absorbing too much paint. I used the technique in my portrait with the exposed thyroid in order to create a rough surface. MANGA: type of acrylic. Easily removed with turpentine, it shows colour better than waterbased acrylic paints. For a sick- screening print, also known as GRAPHS, an artist places a stencil on a stretched piece of silk. He puts a paper underneath and then draws ink across the top of the silk with a kind of rubber- wood paddle. WOODCUT: I found it very hard to copy his drawings because of the ben-day dots. I found it very difficult to draw those dots and this is why I don’t consider my copy a successful drawing. Sources: http://www.lichtensteinfoundation.org/ http://www.zoumboulakis.gr/m/lichtenstein33472.htm?lang=en&path=-1294107586


Study: Paul Morrison

creates large scale monochrome landscapes that have been described as “Disney without the characters”. He uses botanical guides, children’s storybooks and cartoons as his inspiration and source material. I copied Morrison’s drawing “Symbiont” with a black marker.

Connection with Dali

Botanical Landscapes with “Clocks”

When I was looking up his work I found a link with the well-known “clocks” that Dali used to draw. After that I decided to put Dali’s drawing into a drawing of Morrison. Since Morrison used botanical guides I also did a research on the botanical effect on artists through the years. Leonardo Da Vinci had also done some drawings of a botanical study. Sources: http://www.designboom.com/eng/fun club/morrison.html


Study: Van Gogh

1886, PARIS FRANCE, still life, oil on canvas

By analyzing Pair Of Old Shoes, one will recognize that Van Gogh’s artwork evokes emotion and conjures a GodGiven experience within its viewer’s heart and mind. One of his most emotional painting periods was articulated during his work in expressionism. He was a very sensitive man and he took opportunities to express that on paper. Van Gogh made pair of shoes from a pair of boots he purchased at a flea market. He wore the boots on an extended rainy walk to create the effect he wished for his painting, which may have been a tribute to the workingman. They may also be symbolic for his difficult life. He was known to say: “Dirty shoes and roses can both be good in the same time.” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_life_paintings_by _Vincent_van_Gogh_%28Paris%29

Observational coloured drawing, inspired by Vincent Van Gogh The drawing in the right side, depicts a stool. It was an observational colored drawing during class. What I did was to use a usual object and turn it into an object with significance. I tried to use a lot of paint in order to create layers and strong paintbrushes like Van Gogh’s paintings. Moreover, I used the brush in a way that all of the lines would be very clear. I used many colors but it turned out to be very dark.


Rene Margitte was a Belgian surrealist artist, known for his thought-provoking images and his use of uncanny everyday objects. With the word “uncanny” I mean that he gives an almost weird meanings to familiar things. He was born in 1898. In 1912, his mother committed suicide, a tragic event that influenced his work, tremendously. After 1927, he moved to Paris and he was close to the surrealist movement. Sources: http://www.renemagritte.org/

With his repeated motif of human feet in place of shoes, Magritte sees the treachery of emotions in the “A pair of shoes” painted by Van Gogh. Concepts on which I will work on:

Feet/Shoe Human/non-human Inside/outside Civilization/Wildness Compositional idea, inspired by Rene Magritte

Being influenced by Magritte, I used the same object as before, a stool, turning it into a surrealistic object. It seems like a stool but it has hands for (podia) and some people hanging from it. The reason why I chose to have some people hanging is because Magritte’s personal life influenced him a lot, and the death-suicide of his mother had a huge effect on his painting.


Juxtapose and alteration of Rene Magritte’s and Vincent Van Gogh’s works (sculpture)

Being influenced by Rene Magritte and Vincent Van Gogh, I created an uncanny sculptural stool.

Medium:

The materials which I used were, a stool, plaster gauge and acrylics.

Formal qualities:

Ready-made object Modification with addition of my own sculpture -created with plaster- that represent hands and feet Acrylic dark colors – mostly green, blue and red

Reflection The colors turned out to be much more darker that I wanted. Moreover, I wasn’t able to apply harsh and clear lines, neither horizontal nor vertical. In the beginning I wanted to create a surrealistic stool, as seen in the compositional drawing, standing on hands. However, this construction wasn’t successful and thus, I came with this idea to place hands, and legs on top of the stool. Moreover, using wire, I tried to fix a person. However, I wasn’t pleased with the result and I therefore, consider this final unsuccessful. My initial concept was to create something much more surrealistic and dreamy but I didn’t make it.


Volleyball- Today I have been playing volleyball for 9 years. It has been very important for me. I had high goals and expectations. I was really close in achieving them but our coach disappointed most of his athletes. Most of us have quit playing volleyball. This is very sad since we all love the game but our coach who made us fall in love with it, made us loose our interest. Moreover last year I had a surgery which made me quit playing volleyball for 9 months. This however is not like me, I never quit doing something I love. Volleyball always made me happier, I had a second family and I always felt safe in the court. Today, I don’t even want to be a part of that team.

MIND MAPS Early Years - Childhood I always wanted to act like an adult. My sister, my cousins and my friends were always older than me. I had a black doll named after my nanny’s name, Bistrat, who came from Ethiopia. I felt as if I was a mother. Since then, having a “daughter” and a nanny from Africa, I became familiar with people with different skin colour. Living in a country which has citizens with a different skin colour can be very difficult since racism exists. However, I was very lucky to have grown next to Bis because I’ve learned since a young age that different is not bad, and that we are all equal no matter where we come from and what we look like. Even now my dream is not to go to America but to Africa. This is why through my final piece I wanted to emphasize on the effect that doll had on me. I also used some other dolls I had, more specifically animals because I loved nature and playing with animals.


COMPOSITIONAL IDEAS : 80 years Moraitis School, Memories My school is celebrating the 80 years of its foundations. Being a student in this school for 14 years, has made it very important for me. This year I will have to say goodbye to a huge part of my life and therefore, I decided to make a art work about my memories for those past 14 years. 1) I created this page with some of my drawings that I made during class 2 years ago. I also photocopied an essay that I wrote 4 years ago and was published In the school’s magazine. At the end, this collage was created, which shows sadness, pain and loneliness. This were my feelings during this period, since many deaths had influenced me .

2) This wasn’t what I wanted to do, but my plan failed so I tried something different. At the beginning, I was going to melt the oil pastels on top of the picture. I wanted to put some colour because despite the fact that I had some rough times during high-school and they were really sad, I have many colourful memories. However, while I was melting the oil pastels, they fell. They were so soft that when I tried to catch them they were destroyed on top of the pictures. This is how it ended up.

Using black and white pictures from the school. I melted the oil pastels using a hair drier. They are 3 pictures of the same art work in different phases.


PROJECT based on given works from Literature, Theatre and Films Based on my Mind-Maps either in the workbook or on large papers, I created two final pieces, a video and a painting. In the video, all of the words are shown. On the other hand, the painting symbolizes most of the words.

Studio work - Painting

Compositional Ideas on Workbook Pages

Literature: Andreas Empeirikos Theatre: Two directions Movie: Dogtooth

Reflection It was the first time that I learned the face’s measurements.

My idea was to create a double-face portrait inspired by the title of the theatrical project i.e. “Two Directions”. One could say that, the one face belongs to a woman and the other to a man. The hair is made out of leaves from the wonderful plane-tree. Although unusual for Greek islands, Andros is full of those trees. My intention is to symbolically represent words that can oppose each other for example: relationship, nature, freedom, solitude, prison security, path, lies.


MIND-MAPS on large piece of papers

Based on the common words derived from my mind-maps I started to plann my studio works.

Literature: Andreas Empeirikos Theatre: Two directions Movie: Dogtooth

Mind Maps


1st Video Title:

Video stills (above) The 1st video I made was filmed in a Greek island named Andros, where the famous poet Empeirikos came from. The whole video shows pictures from the nature of the island. I have connected every picture with a word coming from the common mind map. I have created a video where I talk about the perception of life and how I feel about it.

Reflection

Common Mind-map This mind map contains all the common words that were in the previous mind maps.


Source:www.fridakahlo.co m

When I was young I used those materials in order to make jewelries. Frida Kahlo most of the times used to portray herself wearing wonderful, traditional jewelries in her paintings and this is why I chose to use them as a ready-made object instead of drawing them.

The dress that Frida would often wear belonged to the type of dresses that women of the Tehuana would wear. These were long dresses with decorations which were both beautiful and useful as they helped her hide her injured leg. This is the dress that she is wearing in the double self-portrait which was painted after the end of her marriage. Tehuana dress à the Frida that Diego loves, European dress à betrayed because of the brake up Frida. • Double portrait: basic example of her work, expressing her feeling for Diego

Thyroid Project Source for the photo:

"Posts Navigation." Anatomyhumandbinfo. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2016.

Kahlo has suffered from health problems, having a huge impact on her work. She mostly painted selfportraits and her paintings were related to her experience of life either physical or emotional. Based on that particular idea I am thinking to start my next studio work. Having problems with my thyroid that have influenced me a lot in many ways, I am thinking to incorporate the physical and emotional instability that is caused from the thyroid in a series of paintings. Thus, I will start a selfportrait using the thyroid as a symbol for my mood swings and the experiences of my life.


DIGITAL EXPERIMENTS on PHOTOSHOP – Photographs Being influenced by Frida Kahlo, I experimented on Photoshop using some of my portraits and many pictures of cells, thyroids etc. • Image sizes: A3 • Changing the opacity and fade and fill levels • Contrasting colours

Thyroid Project - Compositional ideas Having problems with my thyroid since a very young age, has had a big influence in my life especially in an emotional way. I did a self-portrait using pencil and for the thyroid I used colored oil pastel. My idea is to create a contradiction so as to visualize the difficulty with the swing-moods..


Study: Karen Kilimnik

is well-known for her collage-based work and installations of objects from popular culture. She was born in 1955 in Philadelphia. The portraits she draws are well-known persons but the titles do not let on. For example on my workbook page I copied the painting which portrays Leonardo Di Caprio and the portrait of Marie Antoinette who actually is Paris Hilton. “Her works find a vein where pop-cultural obsession meets a highly interiorized imagination.” She began attracting attention in the late 80s, for her “scatter art” productions which involve”: 1.Photocopies 2.Photographs 3.Pieces of fabric 4.Smashed mirrors 5.Furniture

Thyroid Project Connections and influences

Kilimnik portraits are sarcastic, a way of creating contemporary parody with famous people (the way LICHTNESTEIN also did with comics). However Kahlo depicts herself while exposing her serious health problems. At the end the “problem” becomes art itself, a way of overcoming difficulties and being able to create.

Sources: www.interviewmagasine.com www.serpantinegalleries.org www.theguardian.com www.artspace.com www.artnet.com

Connection with my work

I was searching for contemporary ideas and concepts for a portrait. Being influenced by Karen Kilimnik, I might try to paint the final self-portrait with the thyroid using bright and “girly” colors in an attempt to create a provoking image were a personal matter of health (which creates “stormy” moods) is juxtaposed with the “lightness” of the pink color.

Broken Column Source: https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/journalofhumanitiesinrehabilitation/2015/07/08/f rida-kahlos-body-confronting-trauma-in-art/


1st trial: Emotional Swings, happy face / angry face

The double self portrait

Thyroid Project Symbolic use of gray scale colors: The reason why I used gray scale colors is because it symbolizes my betrayed self, due to various reasons such as break-up ( like Frida Kahlo’s double self-portrait. Symbolic use of intense and vivid colors: This portrait shows the “better version” of me, when I am calm, hopeful and happy.

2nd trial on Photoshop: In the background I have used a painting by Leonid Afremov and in the front I have used a picture of me, (horizontal reflection). In this trial, I wanted to draw me two times, with one change only; the one portrait is slightly bigger than the other. In the back, one can see two women (same picture – horizontal reflection) in the back who see to be getting out of their bodies – it seems as if their soul – emotions, are trying to escape and exit their body. This symbolizes the aim of this painting. My aim was to find a way to express this conflict that I feel, due to my mood swings.

3rd trial: painting the profile with colors The next stage was to draw the “Photoshoped, double selfportrait” on a canvas. Using acrylics, I copied this picture on a canvas 100cmX100cm.


studies on artists that work on portraits 1st study: Alexa Medea and Pablo Picasso

Workbook page This drawing is illustrating a painting of my hand. I used acrylics and inspired by Alexa Meade, I tried to demonstrate my skin tones.

Sources: http://www.pablopicasso.org/

Reflection on copy: I don’t consider my experimental drawing successful. I wasn’t able to apply the sense of cubism and using water colour pencils didn’t help me apply the colours I wanted to.

Connection with my work: I am trying to research on portraits so as to have a general idea of the formal qualities used by the painters. However since my theme with the “thyroid” needs to express also emotional states I am also looking for ways to express a concept beside the formal qualities. Medea and Picasso Picasso tried to represent all dimensions with his cubistic approach. Space as well all the possible views of a face were “mixed” in geometrical compositions so as to result the cubistic painting. Medea literally uses the actual space of her model an the surrounding to create an illusion of a 2D canvas.

What makes Meade unique is that she uses acrylics on people, objects and walls instead of on a canvas. Then she captures the 3D scene but doesn’t edit it on Photoshop.

She comes from Los Angeles. • Painting on humans • She turns humans into 2d art • She makes the viewer she things that do not actually exist – painting instead of a human • She doesn’t use technology to do so.

Sources: http://www.alexameade.com/sheila/#artwork-1-page


“Painting…isn’t based on three dimensions, but on four. The fourth dimension is a projection of myself.…The other three dimensions are based on the vision of both eyes…the fourth dimension is based on the essential nature of vision, which is creative.”

Sources: www.britannica.com/biography/Oskar-Kokoschka www.wikiart.org/en/oskar-kokoschka

In 1937 the Nazis removed all of Kokoschka’s works from German museums and collections, denouncing them as “degenerate art”. This act outraged Kokoschka less for his own sake than because it boded ill for the future of culture and humanity. The fact that a great Kokoschka exhibition was held in Vienna that year did not allay his fears. After the Munich agreement between the English prime minister Neville Chamberlain and Hitler in 1938, Kokoschka fled to London with Olda Palkovska.

studies on artists that work on portraits 2nd study: Oscar Kokoschka – Roger Fry Both artists use intense brushstrokes in order to emphasize facial characteristics and emotions. However Fry keeps his color palette with dark colors. Kokoschka on the other hand use a palette with vivid colors almost un-mixed. Connection with my work: I am thinking to use intense colors for my self portrait trying to make visible the brushstrokes, hoping to achieve an emotional outcome.

Experiment: first I printed on a single paper Roger Fry’s self-portrait and then painted on top of it with acrylics. In that way I had the chance to “trace” colors used by the painter.


Mirror self-portraits: using different medium and experiment with artificial and natural light

First portrait using pencil during class / natural light

Experiment: over-paint on my own photographs following Roger Fry’s experiment. Trying to achieve smooth blending on the face, using warms colors. Tones of Orange – Pink – Red. create different skin colors and tones. I consider the picture on the left successful because the colors I used where very close to those from the actual photo and it seems very real. However, the drawing on the right, depicting a girl is not as successful as the previous one because I wasn’t able to create many different hues and thus create a realistic portrait. Mirror self-portrait using acrylics. Again I usde brushstrokes the same way Kokoschka did. Warm colors are applied on light areas. However the attempt to paint shadows with cold colors I think it did not came as I want it. The area around lips looks rough.

Mirror-self-portrait using pencil / natural light

second portrait using pencil during class / natural light

Mirror self-portrait using watercolor pencils. I also tried to incorporate Picasso’s approach with geometrical shapes. I used yellow for the light ares and green a cold color for the shadows


Compositional ideas for the emotional portraits and experiments Mind map in order to document words related with feelings. HOPE / DESPAIR

Acrylics on gesso

Colored pencils and experiment with atlacol on the background

Black and white experiment. Two photos depicting different aspects of the face. The subtraction of color it seems to remove any possible connections or symbolization with feelings or emotions.

This final depicts a selfportrait. Using acrylics, and mostly made different hues of yellow, purple, red, white, I made a “perfect” portrait, very smooth and soft to show that this is me, being very calm, happy and optimistic. However, in the beginning the background was nothing more than a blue colour. Then, I had an idea, to mix blue colour with glue, more specifically atlacol in order to create a different texture which will symbolize the “disaster” and the feelings that are coming to “get me” and destroy this calmness.


I visited his exhibition in the Museum Benaki, Athens. My two paintings are observational drawings during my visit in the museum.

“Tony Cragg is one of the world’s most foremost sculptors. Constantly pushing to find new relations between people and the material world, he works with stone, wood, glass, stainless steel, aluminium, cast bronze and cast iron, and found objects, from plastic consumer goods to rubbish from the streets. His early, stacked works present a taxonomical understanding of the world, and he has said that he sees manmade objects as “fossilized keys to a past time which is our present”. So too, the floor and wall arrangements of objects create an outline of something familiar, where the contributing parts relate to the whole. Cragg has always had, a passionate interest in science and natural history and worked as a young man as a lab technician at the National Rubber Producers Research Association, an experience that is reflected in his vigorous approach to material. He has said, “I see a material or an object as having a balloon of information around it” (1992). For him form and meaning are interdependent, any change in form changes the ‘balloon of information” and vice versa, so that any change in materials also changes meaning and significance. Cragg understands sculpture as a study of how material and material forms affect and form our ideas and emotions.


Compositional ideas

Compositional ideas inspired by Leonid Afremov and Antoni Gaudi. Leonid Afremov paints usually sceneries and human figures- many time famous people, in a way that reminds me of the mosaics Gaudi has created. Thus they both use bright colours that make their artwork assemble even more.


Trial 1 :

My final is about what is religion to me, about the feelings I get when entering into a church. Well the only answer I had was “I don’t know”. This is why I went to various churches and took pictures of the things that made me feel something. Using these pictures I created this painting which is about the structure of different temples and religions.

Trial 2: Final


2nd Video “Interior Conflicts” Lyrics: C.P. Cavafy, “Voices”.

Ideal voices we have greatly loved, of those that death has taken, or of those that are, for us, lost, even as are the dead.

Black&White: The damage caused by the time passing. • Timeless value

At times we hear them talking in our dreams; at times in thought they echo through the brain. And, with the sound of them, awhile recur sounds from the first poetry of our lives, — like music, on still nights, far off, that wanes.

Based on the idea of my first video I decided to create another one. This time I used a poem that I really think it touches quite sensitive feelings of existence. This video was the method which I used in order to release and express all of my feelings an thoughts during a rough time of my life. Having to face a sudden death, deal with people with psychological problems and living in an unstable environment, made me create such a video. A video which involves death, love, pain, hope, sadness, strength and weakness.

The “reverse” effect: As a symbol for the interior conflicts. • No turning back • Can erase our actions

Self-portrait and Nature (Andros island) This video as I said is about a difficult emotional phase that I was going through, strongly related with people from Andros. Reflection Using an old camera with a low analysis, made the video look old gaining a timeless value. The theme of the video has also gained a timeless value since as the time passes, emotions are always there, guiding our behaviors. The result was the one I expected, it affects the viewer immediately and makes him/she think and feel deeper.


Experiments on painters who paint landscapes

Warm colors around the sun creates the idea of sunset. I am thinking to paint large scale landscapes, playing with the idea of emotions again. I will use photos that I took on the island and incorporate my idea. Color is always connected with feelings, the expression of soul.

http://afremov.com/ Monet and Afremov landscape Different time of the day and thus, the colours are different. Leonid Afremov mostly uses horizontal lines in order to emphasize the horizon which functions as the focal point. Therefore, it emphasizes the perspective. Contrary, Monet doesn’t have a focal point and thus the painting looks flat. • key figure in the impressionist movement. • Usually depicted landscapes. • landscapes, seascapes, and portraits. • He painted the people and sceneries he knew best. • He used unmediated colours. • In the 1910’s and 20’s he mostly painted water-lily ponds.

Painting on a canvas, using acryllics. This is the light house of a greek island named Andros.


Compositional ideas

This final will contain two paintings. The one painting will be a dark seascape whereas the other one will be a colourful landscape during Spring. With the same function as the double self-portraits, the one will symbolize the betrayed part of my self, where as the other one will symbolize the self which loves and is being loved, the calmness and the happiness that exists.

Colours Ă symbolize feelings Linking my theme with landscape: Instead of doing one more self-portrait, I decided to use two landscapes In order to express the contravention of my feelings.


Clouds Constable • • • •

Oil studies of skies Structure and movement of clouds 3d volume detailed

Fluid Art Being inspired by Emma Lindstrom, I decided to make a painting depicting hope. Using different hues of blue and green and as well using white colour combined with oil, water and sometimes salt, I created a painting which can depict many things. Some say that they see the sea, others the earth from above and others the galaxy. To me, the paintings shows the way mixed feelings crush into each other and this shows the interior conflicts that have captured me.

Workbook page: experiment with Gesso, gauss, oil, salt and water

Painting by Emma Lindstrom

I wanted to make two paintings that will confuse the viewers. No one can be sure of what these paintings depict. As Emma Lindstrom said, one piece can offer many different views, the sea, the earth, the universe etc, but yet “What do you see?” Everyone interprets these paintings in a different way. For me, I do hide a story behinds all this paint, but the viewer cannot understand what I am trying to say. This was my aim and I achieved it.


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