Artwork : Digital Collage
Exhibition Text:
An inspiration to surrealist artist Salvador Dali, my piece "Distorted Avenue" crowds into my inner thoughts with how my life can feel as if it's falling apart, and my own response to that feeling. The sudden emotion of everyone doing what they can do as I sit there is what I wanted to explore with that piece. As everything is falling apart, I stand there, without doing anything to bring it back together. I follow along, as if everything is fine while on the inside, the world feels distorted and unreal. For this piece, I want to get out that feeling and put it into a visual perspective, a perspective of something that has made me who I am.
~The Meaning to My Piece~
Who do I actually want to be? This is a question I ask myself once and a while, and the response is always the same thing, I have no clue. The way everyone looks as if they know exactly their plans for the future makes me feel as if my world is falling apart. How do they know? Should I know by now? These questions keep plaguing me until I think of something else to do. To this day, I only have a few interests but why should I even bother trying to get out there? I never have before, and I don't look like the best person ever, so the chances of anything I want coming true is hardly a possibility. I know I want to get out there, but what do I do? How do I face the criticism? Where do I channel this resolve everyone else has?
This is what I want to bring out into my piece, the question of the future is something pushed onto us since we are little, but why bother when you realize you aren't even yourself? I have some things I like to do. I like to sing and draw. The feeling of listening to music as you draw whatever comes to your mind is a fascinating experience, but if I wanted to do something like that in the future, I need to get out there now. Why don't I exactly go out there and do that? It is because I am afraid.
Most of my life I have been heavily sheltered, I know hardly anything about Milwaukee and I am incredibly socially awkward. Instead of making people like me, I put on this personality everywhere I go, these personalities split into every friend I have, as if I have some secret second life. I want people to like me, and even though I am being myself, I am not truly being me. When I sometimes try to put out these other personalities I have, I look uncommon, and people look at me as if I am a completely different person. That is why I am so insecure about getting out there in life, there's no purpose when there's nobody out there like you. Instead on listening to that thought, I am trying to start off this piece with something actually special to me, something that has turned me to who I am and what I think.
This is what I want to bring out into my piece, the question of the future is something pushed onto us since we are little, but why bother when you realize you aren't even yourself? I have some things I like to do. I like to sing and draw. The feeling of listening to music as you draw whatever comes to your mind is a fascinating experience, but if I wanted to do something like that in the future, I need to get out there now. Why don't I exactly go out there and do that? It is because I am afraid.
Most of my life I have been heavily sheltered, I know hardly anything about Milwaukee and I am incredibly socially awkward. Instead of making people like me, I put on this personality everywhere I go, these personalities split into every friend I have, as if I have some secret second life. I want people to like me, and even though I am being myself, I am not truly being me. When I sometimes try to put out these other personalities I have, I look uncommon, and people look at me as if I am a completely different person. That is why I am so insecure about getting out there in life, there's no purpose when there's nobody out there like you. Instead on listening to that thought, I am trying to start off this piece with something actually special to me, something that has turned me to who I am and what I think.
|Artist Inspiration: |
With the topic of distortion, surrealism sure came to mind, more specifically with my theme, distortion of mind, there was no one better to pick than Salvador Dali. His famous piece "The Persistence of Memory" was an artwork I was very familiar with, and thought it would really fit within the "world falling apart" theme I was trying to put out. I absolutely adore the was he turns objects into these mysterious forms that makes the viewer think. To my piece, I really wanted to experiment with these objects looking as if they were "melting" and to capture that with the environment I am used to seeing. Another thing was more to the movement of surrealism, I wanted to make something that gets the viewer to not only think of the meaning, but explore the meaning in itself, as I have explored life as if it's distorting itself. |
"The Persistence of Memory" - Salvador Dali
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"Elephants" - Salvador Dali
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Another thing Dali does is shown more in the piece to the left, when looking at the colors, they are very saturated and vibrant. It really adds to the nearly empty feeling the background is given. My piece cannot really exude this energy because the background is not very shown. I wanted to see his ways through making ordinary objects into something else. |
"Celestial Ride" - Salvador Dali
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{ Planning: }
First thing to take in was the use for photo shop, when introduced to this in class, this was taking notes onto the various tools that were to be used in photo shop, such follows:
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This is basically the idea thinking process of what the piece was actually going to center around as. With my essay I did have a pretty solid idea, but to bring out that idea I had to think of what to include for my photos to show off my depictions of a "distorting world." This also brought out to my overall theme to the previous theme form deception of reality to deception of mind, as I am depicting how my mind had created a manifestation of my reality.
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From the previous block-print page, I usually take my inspiration and try out how they made their art and art style within their pieces. Of course, the project is digital, but to experiment with other artists styles can capture the way they made that art, which was what I was trying to capture. I took some of Dali's famous work and put them into quick sketches to test out that "melting" factor and object distortion.
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The fist original design I had was the one shown above. My starting plan was to take a photo of me into the city looking around as it seemed to be in havoc. The difference between this one is that I didn't follow the plan to keep an emotionless feeling to my face, and I actually react to the situation I would portray myself into.
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In the middle here is the actual final design that's close to how I wanted the piece to turn out. This revolved around me looking around a tree, being emotionless, though it was not drawn into the background, it was supposed to be distorted havoc close to the one on the left, but not as drastic to how that one looks.
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The plan for this one was to have differing perspectives and bring a fantasy to reality kind of feel to the feeling of world falling apart. Instead of me looking around, it seems as if I created the situation I seem to be looking away from, this connects to how I know I could be doing things, but I do not choose to.
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|Experimentation: |
After the planning process, it was the actual photo taking time, this is close to a tree in my neighborhood, which is a place very close to me, and a place I have known all my life. I wanted to capture the walking around the tree but at various points I switched up my process. The photos were taken by my sister, and her camera that was able to get very high resolution pictures. It was a great help, and she had done a lot of photography so she understood the ideas and got various camera angles. I picked one out of the various pictures to use, but these are how most of them looked. Next, was the use of photo shop. |
Photoshop was...an experience. Actually to do most of this project I used a site called "Photopea" it isn't much different than actual photo shop so it was actually the same source, just without some perks. First I went to distorting the perspective from a view of my neighborhood from one of the pictures we had taken. I used something called "warp" to change the perspective of the outside area and I changed the gradient of the background to follow the saturated orange color Dali has in "Elephants." With that I would use this as the background of the main piece and would eventually add more layers from other photos. It was actually very convenient considering some parts felt like procreate, which I use on my tablet, so I was pretty familiar with layering and overlaying colors. Though the loading of the computer took a very long time... |
Even though it took me many computer resets I finally added another layer of myself and at a different part of the area I was in. I used various angles and erasing of the background to finally get the right look I wanted or at least one that looks right. This was before I would eventually change to a more lighter color to this piece, as Dali has a lighter color with the orange in the background. This was to show me into such a distorted area and just show how I do not really do anything to stop it, I am just standing there, looking. With that I would eventually find a way to the last and final part, after a long while of testing.... |
This was the close to final part of the project where I added in the third layer that would take space in between the first and third layer. Using another part of my neighborhood I explored and distorted the are and then changed it's color to match the other two colors. With that I would finally be finished with the collage and had created something that actually showed me. This was something I had never done before so it was pretty confusing to work in the end. Even getting the photos to this website took quite a while to figure out. Less than predicted. |
|| Critique ||
I would really say my connection between my piece and the artwork by Salvador Dali is more of a connection you would have to look into to see in the piece. Dali's pieces really get the mind to think, and he really gives out interesting pieces with almost silent backgrounds with confusing imagery of objects and how he changes their forms. My piece can be seen to do that as I do distort the images of my neighborhood by making the images follow a curvy structure, but it isn't as obvious as I wanted it to be, but ill go more into that during my reflection. Dali also uses a very saturated color of orange in his piece, as mine uses the color, but I feel it isn't as saturated as Dali's actual work. My objects are more complex, while Dali's can be more shown to the viewer. Though the pieces exclude the same thoughts and process, it doesn't depict it completely. Still, Dali and my work do depict an image of distortion which was exactly what I wanted to capture.
[ Reflection ]
Looking at my piece I cannot exactly say I am excited about what the product turned out to be. To be completely honest I really think I could have done way more with this project. It really stinks because of how important this project is supposed to be to me, it really is supposed to tell something about me and I do not think I really captured that. I really liked more of the concept than how the actual project turned out, and that is completely my fault. There were various times I really should have taken time to work on my photos and more planned out planning, but instead most of this project got rushed out by a time limit I choose to ignore at points. Though I guess, that is just another part of me that makes me...me. Still, it is no excuse that I could've done way better with exploring the distortion theme. Next time, if given the chance, I will explore this a lot more thoroughly and planned out in a future project,
The photo shop part was something else. I would not over exaggerate but I think the use of the site "Photopea" was one of the worst experiences I had ever had in one day. Though the site would have probably worked fine on a better more experienced computer, using my chrome book was a horrible idea. Everything loaded after 20 minutes, half of the things I would do could hardly load so I couldn't see if I was even doing the right thing, and I do not even want to get started on uploading the photos onto the website. Still, it is my fault, I had time to use actual photo shop but I choose not to, and I should have used a way clearer computer I actually had at my house to work on the cropping. I do not want this to just be me sounding as if it was Photopea's fault, it was not, my inexperience truly showed through my technology abilities, and the consequences followed out to be the worst experience I had in a while.
In conclusion, I truly think I could've done way better with the photo shop project. I really needed to expand and explore my ideas and follow through with planning my decisions on a project using technology at fast rates. Next time, I will do better.
The photo shop part was something else. I would not over exaggerate but I think the use of the site "Photopea" was one of the worst experiences I had ever had in one day. Though the site would have probably worked fine on a better more experienced computer, using my chrome book was a horrible idea. Everything loaded after 20 minutes, half of the things I would do could hardly load so I couldn't see if I was even doing the right thing, and I do not even want to get started on uploading the photos onto the website. Still, it is my fault, I had time to use actual photo shop but I choose not to, and I should have used a way clearer computer I actually had at my house to work on the cropping. I do not want this to just be me sounding as if it was Photopea's fault, it was not, my inexperience truly showed through my technology abilities, and the consequences followed out to be the worst experience I had in a while.
In conclusion, I truly think I could've done way better with the photo shop project. I really needed to expand and explore my ideas and follow through with planning my decisions on a project using technology at fast rates. Next time, I will do better.
|[ Connecting to the ACT ]|
- Clearly explain and describe how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork?
Salvador Dali's surrealism works really provoked an interest into my inspirations for this collage. The way surrealist art makes the viewer think and make their own opinion was something I really grew into, and brought to why I used most of his features into the making of the collage. While Salvador has various ways of making his objects melt and have drastic looking figures just exudes my theme of distortion and disruption, he was a perfect choice.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
As a pioneer of the surrealist movement, Dali truly believed he was a true surrealist compared to many other surrealist artists. The way pieces had mystical and distorted objects was basically his forte into his actual pieces, it was what he loved to make. So he had a completely positive view on the feeling of disruption or distortion of something.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have actually learned a lot from Salvador Dali, and that goes to the surrealist art in general. Usually, I am no big fan of distorted things because sometimes they can get portrayed into creepy situations, but looking at most of Dali's work it actually got me more interested into hoe surrealism actually worked and the way I found how the artists changed form and perspective really grew on me.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
To put it into a very obvious sentence, I just wanted to find something that changed the normal. Something that changed what we usually see into day and day life. To connect to my central theme of Disruption of reality and the things within our lives, I really wanted to find something that changes the perspectives onto things we usually see and how they can changed our thoughts and ideas on things we never thought about before.
5. What kind of inferences ( conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning ) did you make while reading your research?
I mostly found out some interesting things about Dali, how he got banned form a surrealist school, how he pictured himself as a true surrealist pioneer, and his actual thoughts on his pieces. It was nice to see how a true pioneer of a movement thought about what they were creating and how it made them feel.
Citations in MLA Format
Tate. “Who Is Salvador Dalí? – Who Are They?” Tate Kids, https://www.tate.org.uk/kids/explore/who-is/who-salvador-dali#:~:text=Dal%C3%AD%20was%20involved%20with%20surrealism,or%20impossible%20in%20real%20life.&text=Surrealist%20artists%20were%20influenced%20by%20a%20famous%20psychoanalyst%20called%20Sigmund%20Freud.
“Salvador Dalí and Surrealism.” Salvador Dali Modern Art and Surrealism | The Dalí Universe, https://www.thedaliuniverse.com/en/salvador-dali.