Egon Sheile

I completely adore the work of Egon Sheile. 

Especailly when reflecting on the life drawing class, and preparing for the one coming up, Egon Sheile definitely comes to mind as a mentor.

Although his drawings distort the human body in most cases, the real beauty of his pieces (at least for me) derives from the emotion and mood of the pieces that is created and enhanced by the way Egon deforms his figures.

 

Systematic Analysis

Alchemy as it relates to artmaking:
The artmaking process is one that involves taking things that have little or no meaning and combining them to create a new and more refined meaning. Alchemy is also the process of taking basic elements and transmutating them into a more refined and beautiful material.

Jenny Saville's Propped (1992):

This picture is of a very large woman who is propped up on some kind of... pole? there is writing over the picture, however it is illegible. The focus is the figure of the woman. Her face looks to be in pain and the top is cut off from the picture. The womans hands appear to be digging into the skin on her thighs.

My preliminary reading of the peice is that the artist is trying to depict how people who are overweight may be self concious about themselves as if they were constantly on show.

More Images by Jenny Saville:




In further research of the artist, i found that Jenny Saville concentrates on studies of flesh and the human anatomy compared with that of animals. This is because of her fascination with the use of pigs organs used for transplants. This would explain the emmense detail that is in the flesh of the figure.

Louise Bourgeois' The Woven Child (2002):



The peice consists of a torso of a woman that has been covered with what appears to be bandages. Laying on top of the torso on the stonach is a blue bag containing a small woven model of a baby.

I struggled to develop a reading of the peice, as i found it hard to relate too. However i am sure it has something to do with pregnancy. Perhaps it depicts Bourgeois's perception of pregnancy, in focusing on the science side of things rather than the romanticized version we see advertised daily. Perhaps she is reflecting on her own experiences with pregnancy- and delving into the concept of the tiny human inside the body- which is a daunting thing to think about for sure.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol's work, to me, consisted of 3 main ideas. He played with the concepts of fame, the media and death.
For example, the portrait of Marilyn Monroe were done in the months following her suicide. The portraits of Jackie Kennedy Onasis, following JFK's assassination. Although these paintings are portraits, they can also slip into Warhol's 'Death and Destruction' series, in which he explores anonymous suicides, that give the person their 15 minutes of fame
The electric chair images are also included in this series, however are different from the other pieces because there are no representations of people in the images. for my comparison, i chose to do the picture of the car crash vs. the coca cola drawing

The car crash is quite a disturbing image, as it has the image of a burning car, a person hanging from a telegraph pole, and a pedestrian who seems very numb to the whole ordeal in the background. Perhaps Warhol was trying to make the point that the media is so centered around death and terrible events, that we have become desensitized. In contrast, Warhols many drawings of the Coca Cola label (specifically the one at the very entrance to the exhibit) explore the idea of mass marketing. He manipulated his art into becoming a mass produced item in mockery of real life mass production- aka the Coca Cola bottle and various other objects.

Suffering and Sadness

I pondered what was true sadness.
Can some people be more rightfully or genuinely sad
At what point can a persons suffering or sadness mature?

I then looked at what stereotypically made certain groups upset

Babies @ a dirty diaper
Children @ the confiscation of candy
Teenagers @ a boyfriend dumping them
Adults @ a lost job
Grandparents @ losing a friend or loved one

It seems to be as one get older, the stereotypes become less superficial and more emotional.

Then if we look across the culture line, the younger years become far less superficial
like a teenager in ethiopia would probably stereotypically be saddened by lack of food, shelter and perhaps parents.
But does that make the sadness of the teenager crying over a boyrfriend less 'worthy'

it certainly wont seem that way to the now-single teenager.

but then what if we escape the stereotype and say that this particular teenager
has been dating said boy since they were tiny tots
and one day, this girl realises that she has no idea who she is without identifying herself the boy
and so decides to break up with the boy, who she still may be in love with, but just needs time for herself
and the boyfriend over reacts and says that he hates her
which then makes the already emotionally straining ordeal even worse

does this same "teenager crying over a boyfriend" scenario then become more 'legitimately' sad

one could also argue that all suffering and sadness is relative to the subject and circumstances in each case.
i would have to say that i agree with this
which is why it infuriates me when people say 'you shouldn't be upset, there are people starving in ethiopia'
Yes i feel sorry for those people, and i want to help them
but its almost irrelevant to me day to day life because a. its so far away and hence b. i have a completely different set of values and circumstances than someone in ethiopia or other 3rd world country.

However, i do think that there is a line between superficial sadness and really, core shattering sadness
and there is a point in a persons life (and hopefully everyones lives) when they begin to look at the world a little differently and understand really DEEPLY and TRULY what they want from life and the people around them.
It this sophistication of sadness that is my focus (at the moment- no doubt it will change about a million times yet)

It could be a divorce or a death or just something that shakes your normal routine and makes you take a step back, reassess and really deeply consider EVERYTHING.

this re-assessment and consideration then becomes my 'transmutation'. taking whats already there and creating new meaning.

The end product, is a more understanding, empathetic and hopefully less superficial you.
Congratulations.

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