Jamie Reid is an English artist and anarchist with connections to the Situationists. His work, featuring letters cut from newspaper headlines in the style of a ransom note, came close to defining the image of punk rock, particularly in the UK. His best known works include the Sex Pistols album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols and the singles "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save The Queen", which was based on a Cecil Beaton's photograph of Queen Elizabeth II, with an added safety pin through her nose and swastikas in her eyes, this was seen as the single most iconic picture of the punk era.
For my page on Jamie Reid's work I have tried to replicate his work, however, with my own twist on things. I have taken the "God save the Queen" quote and using his style of letter cuttings I have pasted this over a recent photograph of the queen. As I could not find the photograph he had used for the single cover art, I used this one of the queen as I thought it would have worked just as well. I then used more examples of his work which also display the paper letters cut from newspaper headlines. In a lot of Jamie Reid's work he uses short phrases and words such as 'pretty vacant', 'no feelings' and 'liar'. I cut these out and displayed them around my page as I believe this is a big part of his work.
I chose to look at Jamie Reid work as it presents a unique vision that articulates key issues of that time. I like how he uses passionate anger and sadistic humour to portray his attacks on politics and civil liberties, coalescing political drive. Jamie Reid's work will not affect or influence my own, however, I have enjoyed studying him and his work.
2. Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an American artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s by expressing concepts of birth, death, sexuality, and war. Haring's work was often heavily political and his imagery has become a widely recognised visual language of the 20th century.
One of many consistent ideas, sexuality was a predominant theme throughout Haring's work. Through much of his art there are scenes of penetration, in a bodily and sexual sense. These scenes are often filled with monsters, skeletons and beasts, which almost always add a nightmarish feeling to the work. The theme of AIDS permeates Haring's late work, most likely because it had a heavy influence on his personal life. Midway through Haring's journals there is mention of the disease claiming his friends' lives, and later passages show Haring worrying increasingly about his own HIV status. In his work Silence=Death Haring portrays multiple figures covering their eyes, mouths, and ears. The piece is intended to illustrate the oppression and invisibility that AIDS victims felt in the 1980s. Works like Haring's helped to give those living with AIDS more visibility at a time when many were suffering in absolute silence, with no voice, no visibility and no support from those around them.
In July 1987, Haring visited an AIDS specialist. On May 1, 1987, he mentioned in his journal rumours that were circulating throughout the art community about his AIDS status. Haring died on February 16, 1990 of AIDS-related complications.
For this page I wanted to portray a strong focus of Haring's use of colour in his work and his very distinctive style. I collected a range of images of his work and used them to draw from, for this page. I then used gauche to paint them. I wish I had drawn them slightly bigger or maybe have drawn a few more in the middle as I feel the page is very heavy in the top left corner with a big space at the bottom of the page. However, I do like this page as it is bright and colourful and I feel I have portrayed his work well. One thing I do not like about this page is that I have smudged a lot of the black gauche by accidentally resting my hand in it, I then found it difficult to cover as it smudged further when painted over.
I chose to look at Keith Haring as his methods of portraying his messages are in art are very well and subtly done, which I think is hard to achieve. I love how his work his made less aggressive and sadistic by his use of doodles and colours. His colours is something I would have liked to take forward in my work, however, I have already chosen to display my work in a pastel colour theme.
4. Bubble Palace - Antti Lovag
Antti Lovag was a Hungarian architect.He is best known for his Palais Bulles (Bubble House) design.
The Bubble Palace was built between 1975 and 1989 by the Hungarian architect Antti Lovag, who wanted to design a home that mimicked prehistoric human dwellings in caves. Its undulating lines, circular spaces and lack of corners were the trademarks of Lovag, who said he considered the straight line to be ‘an aggression against nature’.
I chose to look at the Bubble Palace as I was intrigued at the experimentation of organic architecture within this design. I like how the house has been developed and transformed throughout its designing and building stage even now in its restoration process forty years later.
For this page I washed the background with a mixture of terracotta, yellow and burnt orange water colour paint, using a sponge to create a textured effect. I chose to use these colours as the original colour of the building is terracotta. Using images of the building I collaged them onto the page. I like this page as I find it simple yet effective, however, when I painted the background it caused the paper to dry crinkled, making it difficult to stick the photographs of the building neatly on top.
5. David Hockney - Pool Paintings http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hockney-a-bigger-splash-t03254
David Hockney, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. An important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.
Hockney made prints, portraits of friends, and stage designs for the Royal Court Theatre, Glyndebourne, La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Born with Synaesthesia, he sees synthetic colours in response to musical stimuli. This does not show up in his painting or photography artwork, but is a common underlying principle in his designs for stage sets for ballet and opera—where he bases background colours and lighting on the colours he sees while listening to the piece's music.
Between 1964 and 1971 he made numerous paintings of swimming pools. In each of the paintings he attempted a different solution to the representation of the constantly changing surface of water. He began to leave wide borders around the paintings unpainted, a practice developed from his earlier style of keeping large areas of the canvas raw. At the same time, he discovered fast-drying acrylic paint to be more suited to portraying the sun-lit, clean-contoured suburban landscapes of California than slow drying oil paint.
For this page on David Hockney I have looked at his collection of swimming pools, focusing on his use of colour and movement within his work. To display his work within my sketchbook, I printed a selection of his swimming pool collection off from online, collaging them in my sketchbook over a blue watercolour wash. I would have liked to have attempted to recreate his work, however, due to time restraints and my lack of skill and technique in painting, I stuck to collaging to present his work. From his work I have considered a similar colour scheme, taking the pale blues and pastel colours he has used.
6. Tracey Emin http://www.traceyeminstudio.com/biography/
Tracey Emin is an English contemporary artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork.
Emin’s art is one of disclosure, using her life events as inspiration for works ranging from painting, drawing, video and installation, to photography, needlework and sculpture. Emin reveals her hopes, humiliations, failures and successes in candid and, at times, excoriating work that is frequently both tragic and humorous.
For this page I chose to look at Tracey Emin as I feel she is a very honest artist and very open about herself in her work. I like how she uses materials that have personal significance to her in the pieces that I have looked at. I have tried to recreate some of her work, however, I have used paper instead of materials. I cut out lettering from different types and colours of paper and used them to duplicate some of her slogans such as 'She went out like a 40" and 'I do not expect to be a mother'. I believe this page is somewhat successful as I feel it is a good attempt at her styles, however, if I could redo this page I would make the lettering bigger and I would actually use materials like her instead of paper.
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