Two weeks have passed and I finished my second ISU artwork. I was very excited to see the result for this second ISU project because I created new challenge for myself. My ISU theme is about ‘Purity, Comfort, and Need’ my main challenge for this ISU project was to promote good environment that has purity and comfort. To heal our polluted environment, we first need to identify our problems; and in this ISU I will show my observers the shocking environmental issues that are occurring today. The environmental issue I want to show for this art work is about soil contamination. We might have heard about global warming everyday but, we haven’t look through the problems quite yet. Based on my research, I think soil contamination is one of the largest environmental issues we need to deal with. Soil is raw material to produce vegetation. We feed ourselves and make ourselves healthy by receiving these gifts from our nature. However, we never gave back anything to the nature. We rather make them sick by producing fuel emission and increasing human waste products. Also, because we are lazy workers we create toxic pesticides to kill the bugs around our vegetation and contaminate our soil. We might be admiring these new inventions we created but, this is will only give us a short term benefit.
Collecting my knowledge and thoughts about our foolish behaviors to nature, I decided to create a painting about soil contamination. For this artwork, I have not directly conveyed the message because I thought creating a representational art is a bit too boring and not expressive. Besides, as a young teenager, I think all young artist should be more rebellious on classical art. We should create art that is more imaginative and creative. To make myself as an active young artist, I decided to make a new interpretation of my inspired artist, Francis Bacon’s painting. To give a bit my knowledge about Francis Bacon, he is one of the artists and depicts the darkness and pain of an individual. His distorted portraits, the screaming pope, and the hell-like background of painting really describe the hell and the inner pain we all have in ourselves. Francis Bacon expresses these pains because; we want to express his grief and pain of his lost lover, George Dyer. Using his theme of pain,
I used a photograph of screaming nurse that is wounded by being smashed with the spectacles. This screaming nurse will personify the soil contamination. This is why I titled my artwork as “Drunken Soil” to show that the soil is sick and drunken with all sort of toxic chemical.In my artwork, I painted the screaming nurse face with a pale greenish blue tone so I can show the sickness through her face. I also added chemical floods and stains behind the nurse’s face. The bright colours show the various type of toxic chemical that is flooding in the soil. The reason I put a dark background is to make the nurse’s face stand out and convey my indirect message to my viewers. Lastly, I wanted to show the causes of soil contamination so I painted few pipes to show how sewages create the flood of polluted water. In this painting, I try to create layers to not make art piece look like a flat 2D painting. So I experimented with the Coarse Alumina (sand mixed with glue), Gold Mica Flakes, and textured papers to imitate the texture of the soil.
While I was working on this painting I went through few struggles. The first I struggle was the composition of my painting. My rough sketch was similar to the final painting but, the only difference was that the painting had buildings and pipes in the background. At the end, I decided to take away the buildings and paint only few pipes to keep the main focus on the nurse’s face. By eliminating my ideas, help me to create a good composition of my painting. Secondly, I was excited for this project but I pressured to finish my artwork to meet the deadlines. I feel like when I am pressured, I get more concentrated into my art. Also, I think extending my work time for each day helps me keep concentration for a long time.
Overall, I am quite satisfied with this artwork, I feel less nervous compare to the last artwork. I felt like I was more planned and organized throughout the process. This artwork gave me a new way to express my painting. The challenge made me enjoy making this artwork more. Hope I could challenge myself more and build more experience throughout the next art projects I will make.
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