Art-Essay

Essay- Contemporary Artist

 

Victoria Horkan

 

This contemporary artist is a feminine artist, which she offers bold, vibrant and expressive, and all her paintings are gorgeous bursts of colours that will take you through all the canvas. The inspiration will be taking from the natural world of  creatures found in the sea and in the sky, such as insects and birds. The viewer will be very involved when looking at this type of art that this artist creates and will immediately feel life and energy that will pop out from the artwork in what the artist describe her work as "raw, organic   colour palettes depicting elements of movements."

Wingspan 2

 

All her work focuses on the simplicity of form presented in a modern style, a style in which she does layers of thick plaster together with undiluted oil paints, in order to have an interesting textured surfaces. She also blends beautiful colours together into strokes that reflects the repetitive forms of the object being painted. Her work also draws attention to those very delicate details and gives glorious details to the fragile creatures such as butterflies.

She also combined scale and perspective, making large things which normally will be small and focus on colour, gesture and mark making. Bright and pure colours are set in sharp contrast; light and dark, warm and cold combined with loose, distinct brushstrokes were strongly used by the impressionists’ artists. These marks creates a sense of movement energetic, flickering quality that is particularly evident in her underwater scenes. She is fascinated by sitting down in a studio and tries to capture the dancer’s moves by sketching.

 

She is aware that a colour can be recognised by the mood, that it will creates many emotions. Kandinsky was the artist that he explored the connections between music and art, believing that musical and visual expression could be used to complement each other. He realised that these two subjects are very well connected and claimed that the colour is a power that influences the soul, and in generally it is the most important and powerful part for every artist, that he/she can experiment and explore different things to have good and effective results.
Such theories seem to apply to Horkan’s work. She is not looking to produce an existing work that impose the feelings and emotions on the viewer. She decided to leave the viewer to create his/ her own feelings emotions and the way how they see the painting or artwork, and she will hope that she will bring joyful and happy emotions even when the viewer have a sad mood, by the different colours in the painting that automatically will change in different moods.
Her influences of her work was from the Impressionism period were the impressionist artists used  small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open compositions , emphasis on accurate parts of light in its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

 

Materials used are the plaster, canvas and oils with these materials, the artist has produce a very well amount of works, which are very beautiful and amazing works.

 

 

 The Secret Lives of Butterflies.

Flying Colours.

 

The Vibrant Depths of the sea.

Flying South  

 

DegreeArt,2013.Meet the Artists. [online] Available at :http://www.degreeart.com/users/victoria-horkan [Accessed 14 April 2014].

Art- Exhibition

Place of exhibition: Victoria, Gozo
Date of Visit: 3rd March 2014
Name of Practitioners: Emma Borg & Abi Macleod-Clark
Title of Exhibition: 2 Artists 1 House a Carnival of Creativity

Artist work of Emma Borg:

 

Spring in Gozo

 Gold grows on trees

 



 Garden Flower

 

Flowers wild

 

 Poppy Sunset

 

 Timeless Serenity

 

On a winter day let do bright flowers !

 

 



These are paintings of a contemporary artist and are abstract. They have two techniques that are applied on each painting, which each technique gives a different result and creates different shadows, textures and blending colours. Materials that were used are canvas, acrylics,palette knife [different shape as sizes] and brushes. As we can see each technique is wisely used and each one is combined or alone to have different result.

How She Creates the Paintings:

First it is done by painting the canvas, in different shades colour that she want to include in her paintings,and blend them together, then using the palette knife, the artist done the flower petals and then she add the other details that she wanted to do in her paintings. There are techniques that the artist uses that reminds me in Jackson Pollock art, where she open the bottle of paint, and just let the paint drip from the bottle and at the same time she will move the bottle in the ways hat she wanted to create her designs. Although her paintings are abstract and stylized you can easily identify what she created in her paintings.

 Artist work of Abi Macleod-Clark:

These are her works which are artworks made from mosaics. She said that all the materials that she used are from recycle for example, broken tiles, mirrors, utensils of the kitchen  and much more things and sometimes she will add some religious items, it depends on the theme on the mosaic board the items that she will add to it. She had even old shoes, sandals and flip flops with pebbles and other materials.

How She Creates her Works:

 

She will find a base to work on, that it will be recycled from things she will pick up and then she decided the theme of the mosaic board and then she started to find things recycled that will be associated with her theme. The she will place all the things in the place she wants, after she glued the things by using glue even the mosaic pieces and then if she decided that the mosaic board will have things hidden under, so half of the item will be seen, she will use a grouting that she wants to apply to her mosaic board.

Design- Art & Crafts Movement

Art & Crafts Movement



William Morris was a member in this movement. He is well known for his designs that we applied mostly on fabrics and wallpapers. He combined art on the industry by applying the values of fine arts to the production of the commercial designs which was a good tip to the design to evolve to the design that we know today.  He was an artist, designer, printer, typographer, bookbinder, craftsman, poet, writer and champion of socialist ideals. He believed that a designer should have a well knowledge of any media, and should spend most of the time, to learn the techniques that he will be needed, to use for that specific product. He was skilled in  a wide range of arts and crafts.
 
He felt that the nature was one perfect example of God's designs. His idea was to bring back Gothic Art of the middle ages, to glorify God through the practice of their skills.  The model for this idea was the medieval crafts guilds which he saw as a type of socialist brotherhood where everybody have their level of ability.  So he felt that this would enhance  quality of life for of all  artistic activity itself would be seen as a force for good in society. The medieval crafts guilds were groups of artists, architects, and craftsmen who formed a group to do good work and teach other the craftsmanship to others so these talents won't be vanished.

WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896)
'Tulip and Willow', 1873
(pencil and watercolour sketch design)

His classic designs can still be found on wallpapers and textiles, which the patterns were inspired by his good knowledge of natural forms discovered through drawing, and then stylized them through his process of the product as it will be needed. They were usually titled with the names, that they taken from  flowers such as 'Chrysanthemum', 'Jasmine', 'Acanthus', and 'Sunflower'. By that Morris have bring the nature to the inside at home by using natural forms to decorate the interiors.

WILLIAM MORRIS (1834-1896)
'Trellis', 1862 (wallpaper design)

For example the above design there are birds flying around rose a tree, when you applied it on a wall it is like the wall is transparent and the movement of the birds is happening at that moment, which you can also feel more closely to nature and appreciate the world around you.

Influences to interiors nowadays from Arts & Crafts Movements

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we can see in these interiors there are things that were extracted from the Arts and Crafts Movement, then used in a modern way. For example the whiplash motif was extracted then used in a modern design for a railing and also for stained glass, natural designs for wallpaper, and other designs or motifs for the furniture and other things that will be used for interiors.

 

 ArtyFactory, 2014.William Morris - The Arts and Crafts Movement. [online]Available at: <http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/graphic_designers/william_morris.html> [Accessed on 14 April 2014]



 

 

Design- Graphic Designers in the Fashion Industry.

Designers in the Fashion Industry.

Fashion is a visual  industry that can be a very creative way of doing new things. Graphic designers have been involved in various aspects of  fashion industry since the early 20th century.  They not only they have developed  fashion advertising, catalogues,  and other graphic artworks that were used fashion designers, but it also created illustration that were used by various fashion houses as their main source of creativity. While pushing boundaries and expectations, graphic designers of fashion have represented the their brands.


In general, fashion illustrators, work very closely to fashion designers and art directors to create artistic  visual images, which are basically sophisticated, and elegant drawings aimed to represent a particular clothing line. It is technically a graphic designer who creates integrated in print ads, television commercials, and advertisements. They have to create designs for garments, shoes, fashion accessories, and other things, and to create the vision of the fashion designers by doing the actual design plan. They have to create sketch drawings and layouts that will be used in catalogues, magazines, brochures, flyers, commercials and other advertising media, which will deliver the message of fashion ideas. It is a showcase relationship for a design studio, and it will be a testing for fresh ideas and innovative production ideas.
 
These two graphic designers underneath had done this type of work.
 
 

René Gruau

 

 
He was born in 1909, in Rimini in Italy. When he was a teenager, in 1923, he made sketches which German, Italian and French magazines were accepting. He took the maiden name of his
mother, Maria Gruau de la Chesnaie, who was an artist, and they moved to Paris, in  1924.
 
He  worked for many people including Balmain, Givenchy, Schiaparelli, Jacques Fath and Edward Molyneux, and also for suppliers of  high quality textiles, cars and brandy. He did costumes and ballet sets.  In 1940, he settled in Lyon, and he done drawings of  elegant women, in  bold, rhythm, colorful designs were published  in magazines such as Marie Claire, Femina, L'Officiel and Le Magazine de Figaro. 
 
He collaborated with the magazine International Textiles between  1946 to 1984, and from 1955 onwards, he turned to fashion advertising through photography of fashion accessories, gloves, perfume, cosmetics, lingerie, fabrics and so on. But, above all, he was creatively collaboration with Christian Dior, starting with Dior's New Look in 1947 and lasting in the late 1990s, which it influenced his work and his reputation. His work is in national museums and galleries, including the Louvre, as well as in numerous private collections.  He died in 2004.

Underneath are some works of him:

 

 

 

 

 

Another artist is Erté - Romain de Tirtoff

 

 
Erté  aka Romain de Tirtoff, in 1892 to a rich family in St. Petersburg , Russia. His father was  an Admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy, but he didn't like to follow his father profession.  From a young age, he was fascinated by the Persian miniatures that his father has in his library  and  he became interested in graphic design and fashion. The impact of the exquisite art of the Persian miniatures with their vibrant colours and detailed ornamental designs together with his artistic talent that continued to be an important inspiration source for him, influencing his style. His first costume was designed at the age of 5 and then in 1912, at the age of 18, he moved to Paris.

In Paris he was called Erté, from the French pronunciation of his initials, R and T.  he worked at  Harper's Bazaar,  began in 1915,  where he created over 240 magazine covers.  he had may publications of his work. He designed  dresses for many film actresses such as Joan Crawford, Lillian Gish, Marion Davies, Anna Pavlova, Norma Shearer and others. He also designed costumes and sets for New York’s Radio City Music Hall, the Casino de Paris and the Paris Opera, as well as for the Folies-Bergères and George White’s Scandals. In 1976 he was awarded  the title of Officer of Arts and Letters, and in 1982 he was awarded the Medaille de Vermeil de la Ville de Paris. His workare in many important museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He died  in 1990, at the age 97.

Underneath are his works:

 

 

 

 

 

 
Novin,G.2011.A History Of Graphic Design. Chapter 34- Graphic Designers in the Fashion Industry [blog]Available at:<http://guity-novin.blogspot.com/2011/05/chapter-34-graphic-designers-in-fashion.html>[Accessed 14 April 2014].