Final Piece - Tonal and Oil Pieces

These are the oil painting and the tonal study pieces that I produced within my exam and added into my final piece:

These are the pieces that I used with in my final piece and this is the lily image that I used under the face:

Other Artists That Link Into The Theme of Decay/Multiple Images

Fine Art America

I am unsure on who this artist is, as it just came across it during my research into 'digital artists', and this piece links in brilliantly to the backgrounds of the mould like substance and also the actual mould that features within my folder that came from the cup of coffee that I left to decay over about a week. 

Mihail Miho Korubin

I felt that this piece above by Mihail linked in extremely well with the emotional side to my project, linking in with family memories etc, as the colourful finger tips that cover the eyes, links in with dreams and memories, as if when the eyes are covered the individual is thinking about all of their memories. This links in with the Shakespeare poem, as this is also the emotional side to my project, as it explains memories and stages within someones life, again linking to the life cycle of decay. It also links in with the oil painting technique that I have produced within my final piece and in my folder.

Photoshop Artists

Yuki

This artist links in with my sillohette pieces that I have produced within my folder of the side profile of my pictures. The technique also links in with Jasper James double exposure work.

Emiliano Ponzi

This skull piece by this artist links in with the secondary skull image that I used within my deacy trails within photoshop. 

Mocchi Mocchi

This poppy piece by Mocchi Mocchi links in with my flower photography, as there are poppies within my flower photography and my final piece, showing a clear link within my research and final piece.

Laura Varksy

Now this artist links in extremely well in terms of the theme of decay and multiple images, as it links to the flower experimentational work that I produced when I was taking the images of decaying flowers. This piece can either work in one or two ways, as you could see it from a flower that hasn't opened and then it takes its journey to develop and open or you could reverse it and see the flower as already open and then it starts to close and decay, which is how I interpret it, as it links in well with my photography decay work. 

Final Piece Trials - Before Final Piece

Before producing my final piece idea for the final FINAL piece, I wanted to trial it out first:

I wanted to bring through different materials, coming through underneath the skin, like Alberto Seveso does and Jennifer Healy. I had the idea of bringing through a pure eye, to represent the youth within the piece, which contrasts with the decay side of the face that will be opposite that. 

From my lily photography, it began to represent old skin/wrinkles, which really linked in extremely well with the whole theme of 'decay'. I felt like this added a whole new layer to the piece, by using different materials that could be interpreted as wrinkles skin that I have placed underneath my face and then rubbed out with the rubber tool; however, no, I was a completely new experimental material that I had new used before, yet it worked extremely well. This shows how my skills have developed in investigation and refinement, as I started with using the wrinkled skin within my trials previously, thus I have experimented with new materials, gaining new skills.

Here, I had just added in one of my photography piece of a daisy, and this was truly experimental, as I wasn't expecting it to fall into place to create a double-exposure piece; however it really added to my project. This screen shot above links in with the artists that I initially started to look at, such as the ones within this post: Initial Ideas - Artists - Double Exposure

I then started to rub out numerous different layers that were beneath the prominent face in the middle of the piece, to reveal the tonal study of my grandad, to act as a trial of the wrinkles that I will be drawing in my final piece and then adding into photoshop and then I will blend through underneath my own eye, linking to decay. 

Here, I haven't completed a full final piece, I was merely experimenting, as I didn't know whether I wanted to include a petal around the eye, like Jennifer Healy's work and I have found that I think it looks much better with the wrinkles, as it connects with my previous pieces of work with my decay trials that I have previously created, showing numerous different routes that I have experimented and investigated with. I also didn't know whether I wanted to use mould or my decaying lily underneath the skin on the face and I have found that I want to use the decaying lily because it offers a new interpretation to the piece, allowing the audience to work out what material I have used. This shows that I have refined my ideas by creating a final piece trial before the real outcome. 

The oil painting eye that I have imposed into the piece above was an image that I found from secondary resources; however in the exam I will be producing an oil painting from the colour image of the actual image that I am using within my final piece, which is shown above. I will also be producing part of my grandad's tonal study again, by producing the lines around his eye, so that I can scan both the oil painting and the pencil study in, to then impose and blend into the piece. This shows a contrast between each side of the face.

Gunter Brus Links to Final Piece

As my current work is exploring the complex nature of decay, covering such a wide range of ideas, this artist, Gunter Brus links in extremely well with the theme of project as the use of the tone in his images relates to the black and white within the images that I have explored also the contrast within his images brings out the decay that surrounds his face, by the use of the lines that cut down the middle of the individuals face.

Final Piece Idea

Initially, after producing my line drawings, I had the idea of producing a compositional final piece with the images that stood out my project; however once I developed them within photoshop, I felt that the image was too busy/complex and I was worried that the viewer couldn't see the deeper message behind it, which was that their is life cycle - birth, decay and death. I felt this message really wasn't conveyed enough and the the overall look, although extremely busy, was too simplistic to me and needed to be deeper in terms of what the audience felt, leaving them with an enigma code, according to Roland Barthes', and they needed to dig deeper and work out the meaning for themselves. 

I didn't want to show the grandad imagery, I felt that that stage of the life decay, decay, could be transformed throughout other ways, such as bringing through wrinkles in a portrait image and the flower image could symbolise birth and decay, as they start to die. Also, to link in with the cycle of the birth stage, I wanted to include some painting work, by either bringing it through under the skin somehow to represent purity and brightness. 

After looking at the range of different artists that feature within the blog post, Influencing Artists, I have started to put a final piece idea together. 

I felt that the images of myself and the flower imagery worked extremely well together, symbolising both youth and purity; however to bring in the symbolic nature of the opposition between young and old, I felt that I would bring through other elements of my previous work, such as the photoshop decay work, where I had wrinkles coming through the skin, Decay Trials; however since then, I have been able to reflect on the photography work that I took of the tulips decaying and I felt that this worked extremely well, showing their journey through time, from birth to death in a way. Also, the use of the mould work that I created by leaving the cups of coffee for over a week and allowing the mould to form and grow, worked extremely well and I feel like I want to produce something that reflects all of my investigation work from previous to now. 

To link with Alberto Seveso's work, I wanted to include the flowers around the face somehow, like I have done within my line drawing trails, to highlight the purity of the young skin that the flowers are surrounding. I loved Jennifer Healy's work and this made me want to include something around the eye that I had done similarly within my decay trials, where I have used the skull eye as the human eye and I had also added the wrinkles from the old man image, showing through under the skin. To link to her work, I am picturing bringing through some of my oil painting technique that I have developed and I want to paint a pure eye, in colour which will act as the eye on the left hand side of the face, contrasting with the black and white image that I will use as a result of the research that I have completed into the old man and women images, as they're both in black and white with the contrast changed, really highlighting their impurities; however the other side of the face will show decay/ruin, which I will include some of tonal techniques within that, drawing parts of my grandad's wrinkles around his eye and placing around my eye and blending it through to look realistic. Again, to link with Alberto Seveso, I want to bring something through the skin and because his work works so well and the decay trials that I did confirmed that it would work, I want to refine my idea that I used by photographing the tulips each day as they began to deform and decay and I wanted to produce something similar, so I have chosen to do the same thing with a lily. I feel like as the lily starts to show wearing and decay, it will start to look like old, wrinkled skin, which will work perfectly showing through under the skin. 

To link in with my flower photography and research into Alberto Seveso, I am going to include my primary imagery of flowers around the face; however as the human eye starts to scan down the piece, the flower imagery will start to show decay and turn into black and white images, linking to the old man and women secondary imagery that I found and I will also start to bring through the mould imagery that I have taken, really starting to link with Damien Hirst's piece, Lets Eat Outdoors Today and Sam Taylor Wood's piece of the decaying hare, which will really start to bring through form and texture to the piece, as I am also going to add some mould under the skin on the shoulder of the image. 

This is my final piece idea:

I then refined my ideas even further and produced an in detail sketch of what I wanted it to look like and how it linked in with my chosen artists:

I will produce my final piece using Photoshop CS6.

Lily Photoshop - Life Cycle of Decay

As the tulip decay trial worked extremely well, I chose to the same with a lily. I wanted to do this so I could involve it within my final piece. These are my images that I took each day for over a week as it started to show signs of decay and death:

As you can see from the images above, as time has progressed, the lily has clearly showed more and more signs of decay, as it has been left to wither away and this was due to the unknowable nature of reality, as each flower is different and the lily took much longer to decay that the tulip, as the tulip is a soft leafed plant, possibly implying that the weaker something is, the more likely it is to wither, decay and die quicker, which can relate to humans too.

I am overly impressed with the quality of the images that I have managed to take over the period of time that it took for the lily to decay. I will be using some of the decayed lily images underneath the skin within my final piece, much like I have discussed within my final piece post: Final Piece.