My intentions with my self-directed
project were to explore the themes around the urban environment focusing on
colour, light and structure to create atmosphere. I wanted to produce ideas in
response to what I experienced myself whilst there, looking at locations during
the day and night expressing different colour pallets to show this. It is the
atmosphere felt whilst in a bustling city which captures my attention to colour
and textures in order to represent the environment. The colours within my ideas show what
I see with my own eyes.
(Oxford Circus 2, acrylic,
photography & varnish on MDF, A1)
photography & varnish on MDF, A1)
To begin my project I focused
on ideas which expressed perspective and composition from locations
in both Leicester and also London. It was from
these initial ideas that I began to produce colour responses allowing
me to pick out certain tones that I felt were dominant exaggerating what I saw
within them to create a strong atmosphere placing the viewer in that situation.
I experimented with
many arrangements looking at ideas during the day and night to allow me to
capture contrasting atmospheres through my use of colours and textures. I
started off by developing my ideas using paint brushes as well as pallet
knives. I found that when using the pallet knife I could apply the colours
creating strong textures which in turn emphasis the environment being shown.
When developing my ideas I looked at the composition as a whole and
also zooming in on particular sections that I felt best expressed ideas of
colour and texture without the need to use structures. I found this very
interesting as it allowed me to see how I apply colour and texture together to
generate ideas of a particular location. However after comparing the two
together for me I find painting an environment as a whole more rewarding,
looking at perspective as well as colour and texture. I believe using a strong
sense of perspective combined with colour and mark making pulls in the viewer’s
gaze placing them in that situation.
This idea of exaggerating a
location in terms of colour to help portray what I experienced whilst there
came from my initial research into the Post-Impressionists. They came about
during the 1880's and were a diverse group of artists who took aspects from
impressionism and exaggerated it. For example Van Gogh intensified his already
vibrant colours painting them a lot thicker onto the canvas, a technique known
as impasto. These bolder brush strokes expressed more energetic ideas. The
artists within this group developed a style which focused on the emotional,
structural, symbolic and spiritual elements which they believed to be missing
from impressionism. I think that the influence the post impressionists had on
my ideas is clear. Within my paintings I have exaggerated colour and texture to
help create a particular atmosphere reflecting an urban environment and how I
experienced it.
It was
during the development stages of my ideas that I found the
combination of acrylic paint and photography to be very successful. I found
that this process of using textural paint over a focused image generated ideas
of memory which further more emphasised my personal interpretation. The picture
becomes a captured moment in time, the paint surrounding it representing how I
remember it in terms of atmosphere and emotion. Due to me selecting urban
locations I feel that a variety of audiences could relate to my work as they
may have felt the same busy over whelming emotions that I did when in
particular city environments. I also feel that I have achieved what I set out to with my
own brief to look at urban environments representing them through my own
interpretation; what I experienced whilst there.
