BEAUTY OF THE MIND
Exhibition Text
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PROCESS
PLANNING SKETCHES
First step of dry point was to make planning sketches based on the theme of nature, beauty and desire. I use many elements from nature such as trees, sky and wild animals to represent the theme of nature and beauty. In the end I chose to go with the planning sketch that features a female figure with an Afro. I chose this sketch because it clearly symbolize my theme of beauty and nature using an aesthetic look.
ARTISTIC INSPIRATION
For my dry point piece "Beauty of The Mind", the inspiration came from post-impressionism movement. In this movement, artists believed in the capture of light and color to express feeling, emotions and imaginations. Post-impression arts also have a lot of meaning and symbolism which is the inspiration for my piece as I try to incorporate my theme of desire, beauty and nature. With impressionism art work, they often used short brushstrokes and movement in which I will also planned my piece to be like. Another inspiration for my piece is from Nouveau movement, in which they believed in the use of long lines, usually of flowers around a subject, usually a woman. to give it an aesthetic look. Art Nouveau is the inspiration for my theme of beauty and nature as flower and tree are being used to express beauty. In my piece, I try to incorporate the use of nature such as flower and tree to give the aesthetic look to a feminine subject.
CARVING PROCESS |
PRINTING PROCESS |
Before the carving process, I taped the plate down onto the sketch so that it would be easier to carve. With dry point, I only needed to use one tool through out the whole process which as the inscriber. The technique that I used to carve out my piece was cross-hatching so that wide range of value and details could be added to the piece. This process surprisingly was very fast because it was like sketching the planning sketch using the inscriber as the pencil drawing the image. It was however quite difficult to grip the inscriber because the blade has a triangular form which caused my hand to cramped up after a while of etching.
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First step of the printing process is to submerge the printing paper in water for about 6-8 minutes for the fibers to loosen up. After 6 minutes. the paper will be taken out to dry on towels. Next step is to use palette knife to apply the ink onto the plate. I then used small pieces of paper to wipe off the excessive ink on the plate carefully to avoid taking ink from the carved areas. After the surface of the plate is clean from ink. next step is to put the printing paper onto the plate. I then put the printing and plate between a paper folder. Finally, the printing will be rolled through a press. For cleaning up, I used mineral spirits to wipe off the ink from table, plate and my hands.
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EXPERIMENTING |
TOOLS |
First, I had to experiment with the different amount of ink on printing. This process took a while to gain the personal knowledge of how much ink and where to carefully apply ink so that the print would come out clean. After obtaining more than three printings, I began to experiment with the water color. During this process, I did not have a certain vision for what my piece to look like so I basically just play around and be creative withe coloring. I used cool dark colors such as blue and purple because I want to express the feeling of depression. I also tried to blend other colors in to add contrast. Finally I played with the idea of dripping color down from the top of the print and creating a puddle of water below the print. This idea was somewhat successful and came out quite interesting however it was not what I was looking for.
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CRITIQUE |
REFLECTION |
There are similarities between my process and my inspiration of post-impressionism and Art Nouveau. My piece contains many symbolized elements such as the roots Afro that represent the confidence in natural beauty. This element of symbol is inspired from post-impressionism as they believed in using color and light to express certain emotions, feeling and imagination. My piece is similar to Art Nouveau as it features an aesthetic female figure representing beauty. However, there are also differences between my process of "Beauty of The Mind" and my inspiration from post-impressionism and Art Nouveau. In post-impressionism, movement is quite often being used to show motion throughout the piece and my piece does not have movement. In addition, Art Nouveau movement believe in the use of long lines usually flowers to give the aesthetic look. In contrast, my piece uses mostly straight lines to around a subject to give it the aesthetic look.
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Throughout the dry point project, I've learned many things from challenges to gain personal knowledge. I learned that the inscriber should be taped close up to the tip so that it is easier to control when etching. The process of etching did not take long because details can easily be etched onto the plate using crosshatching technique. The printing process however took quite some time to complete because of many processes had to be done. I've learned that it is very important that the paper is flat when scrubbing ink away from the plate so that no ink will be taken away from the etched lines. I also learned not to rush while scrubbing the ink because there could be dirty spots left on the plate will be show up after being rolled through the press. One other thing I learned is to leave the print dry flat on a surface and avoid any uneven surface because the print will dried up and take the surface form that it laid on. One limitation from the process is that there were be some areas that I can not scrub the ink off from because of cluttered of etched lines. If I am to do this project again, I would take more time during the process of etching and printing. I would like to produce a more detail piece also using stippling technique and to also carefully produce a clean print.
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THE MEANING
"Beauty of The Mind" is one of the two printing series explore the theme of desire, nature and beauty. The piece further discusses my advocacy on the confidence of natural beauty and to celebrate our roots. The print features a portrait of a woman with the emphasis on her Afro that is made up of roots and branches. In this day and age, one can easily loses oneself in the pursue of perfection and beauty being portrayed by social media. I myself struggled with my identity as a vietnamese when I came to America. The cultural shock that I experienced forced me to turn into a person that would fit in with the society here in America. But after years of living in America, I was able to redirect my focus and to learn more about who am I as a person but also to understand and appreciate my roots of where I came from. The Afro of the woman symbolize confidence in one's roots and also in the natural beauty that one possesses. It is very important that we notice our roots and to be able to appreciate who we are. There is also beauty in self-confidence because to be able to say we love ourselves no matter what take more than self-esteem, it takes courage and devotion.
CONNECTION TO ACT
- The use of symbolism and capture of beauty from post-impressionism has an effect on my artwork as I was inspired to use symbol such as Afro roots to carry out my theme of nature and beauty. Another inspiration that has an effect on my artwork is Art Nouveau as they believed in using long lines such as flower to give the aesthetic look usually to a feminine subject, this inspired me to use straight lines to add to the aesthetic look of the piece representing beauty.
- The overall approach of post-impressionism is to use light and color to express feelings and emotions. Art Nouveau uses long lines to create flowery details around a subject to give the aesthetic look it it.
- I've discovered that during the post-impressionism art movement it is a revolution in the history of art as they tried to further bring art to express emotions. This movement give artwork a deeper meaning when analyzing. In Art Nouveau, I've discovered that it is a period of appreciation for beauty as most of the artworks contain feminine subjects and flowery details to add to the aesthetic look.
- The central themes around my inspirational research are beauty and nature.
- I've made an inference that during Art Nouveau, beauty is in the feminine things such as flower and long curved lines. Women are the main model during this period as it is an appreciation of women to promote their aesthetic features. During post-impressionism, it was a time for revolution as they tried to bring in emotions and feelings into their artwork.
References
- "Art Nouveau". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 15 Oct. 2016
- By 1888, Van Gogh Had Returned to the French Countryside, Where He Would Remain until His Death. There, Close Once Again to the Peasants Who Had Inspired Him Early On, He Concentrated on Painting Landscapes, Portraits (of Himself and Others), Domestic Interiors, and Still Lifes Full of Personal Symbolism. "MoMA Learning." MoMA. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.