Multiple Images : 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: