Special Edition Blog: Trip to the Art Institute








Professor Peck



  The name of this piece is called "Composition in Blue" (1921-1927) and it was done by Fernand Le'ger. It was created with oil on canvas and it was painted during his "mechanical period". In this period, he created paintings that had tubular machine like structures to them. This piece inspired me because of these mechanical parts and the shapes that are formed from them. It is funny when you think of any type of mechanics you think of a designed "order" to things. The painting is shaped in an abstract form seemingly unorganized, but all somehow related like the chaos theory. In the painting it seems like a robot (upperleft) is climbing a rocket or building. As the rest of the city shaped in circles and squares lay in the background. Also I notice like little eyesin he piece as if to be onlookers watching the robot scale the rocket.

 
  This piece was created by Lee Bontecou in 1960, the piece is "Untitled". The untitled piece was composed of old canvas discarded from an old laundry. The canvas was stretched and attached by copper wire to an armature and welded framework. From reading the description in the museum, it compares the opening (hole) to a geographical or biological reference. Like maybe a volcano, a black hole, or a hole in the human body. It inspired me because seeing the hole led me to the question of what is inside? The layered canvas provides endless possibilities or answers to the question. If one thought on the biological level you would look into a body to see bones and organs. If another looked through the hole on a geographical level, you would expect to see the earths crust or its molten hot center. If I looked at the hole on an spiritual level, I would expect to see a soul or a lack of it. Therefore, begging an introspective question, asking is my soul still intact according to my actions or has it become polluted/lost due to them. I wonder what someone else would see inside.

 
  This oil painting was created by the surrealist painter Yves Tanguy, called "The Rapidity of Sleep" in 1945. This painting inspired me because of the ripple affects the brush strokes make you seem to travel at a great speed. Even with the cluods they give the same affect causing a blur because when moving at a slower pace the clouds would be more defined. The object in the landscape looks to me like a wasteland of broken bones. The bones represent to me a sign of aging, that these bones or the structure of what the dream was is starting to end. As if the framework for the dream state of sleep is decaying at a fast pace, waiting for the dreamer to awake.
 

Week 8 - Series 6

  This piece is called "From the World's Cage to Glory". It is basically, a recreation of Series 3.

Week 7 - Series 5

  The name of this piece is called "War of the Fragile Heart". It was inspired by the last piece, from which I am dealing with the time that transpired between series one and two. I wanted to look into not only his mind state, but also his heart or his will to live due to the circumstances that transpired. In the picture, we see inside of the man's body being entered by a black hand. The black hand would belong to one of the reapers that was shown in series one. The difference in this hand is the light spots which are made to be boils, demonstrating that the hand is an infection to the body. The hand seeks to destroy the last remaining life that he has. The man that is within the body is a representation of his soul, which is fighting for the heart that is being taken out of his chest. The soul's color is gray and he has black marks over his body to show the strain the hand is putting him through. He is also gray to show in a since that he is dying; the soul has no vibrancy therefore his will to sustain his own life is dwindling. He struggles to fight for the heart that he has left. I find personally in life, that sometimes trials & tribulations seek to destroy your will, when it has stripped you of everything else. The only options left are to either give in/die or to fight with what you have left to survive the destroying of ones soul. The drawing was done in pencil and was outlined in Illustrator. The coloring of the heart and boils were done in Illustrator. The soul, hand, and background were done with prisma-color pencils.

Week 6 - Series 4

  This piece of the series is called "The Conflict of Emotions". In creating this picture, I wanted to take a look at what mind state the man in the series would be in between the first and second pieces of the series. Being afflicted by these different "situations" in the first piece, the question would be how has this affected him? The answer would be his brain is over taken by a host of emotions that control him. The following emotions are (from left to right) confusion, sorrow, anger, greed, anguish and depression. He is no longer in control of his life, but a slave to his own mind. Being in a place of torment which is depicted in the first series, he loses himself. All goals and visions of a better future are lost in a brain of negative emotions. The white eye he has alludes to the control that he is under. So he is in a self induced limbo waiting fo some type of salvation to come. This piece was created through the medium of Adobe Illustrator.   

Week 5 - Series 3

  To continue from the second piece, this peace is the "Beginning of Salvation" of the three. I find that when we are realeased from the situations that binds us, there some key things must change. This is the mans release from the negative emotions and struggles that he once suffered. To become free, the poisoned altered perceptions of the world must change. There must be a new way of thinking, this can only be achieved when the individual chooses to "wake up". The great philosopher Socrates said, "the unexamined life is not worth living," to be free their has to be a realization that these situations have caused your living to be unproductive /faulty. Until we have examined ourselves and allowed ourselves to be free their is no change. Thus, in this change, the man ascends above the corrupted, cracking world of false perception and anguish. Allowing himself to let go because the only way that world survives is that he stay their in bondage and sustain it through pain.  The medium that was used for this piece was prisma color pencils, black micron pens, and pencil.

Week 4 - Series 2

 

  This piece is part two in the series. The name that I came up with for this one is "Saving Grace from the Troubles of  the World". I call it this because once people have gone through a number of tramatic events (one after another) they begin to, in a since, become submissive to these life struggles. The submission is shown in the bowing position the man is currently in. In this submission, people begin to form their own since of reality, viewing the world through the perspective of their pain. They shape their own world through the ill perspectives of the events that have transpired. The "Saving Grace" would be the angel coming to take away the spears that afflict him. This series for me is personal because I find my own "Saving Grace" through Christ. This "Saving Grace" can also be found in family, friends, or strangers that help to pull us out of the depressive/secluded world that is built from the victims own construction. The medium that was used for this piece was prisma color pencils, black micron pens, and pencil.

Week 3 - Series 1

  This piece was inspired by the "Plundering of Creativity" Adobe Illustartor drawing that was done at my previous college. The concept of this drawing is when difficult situations in life happen to where they seem like they are inescapeable. Just when you try to escape one situation another atacks you. This is shown by the chain that is being held around his neck from one of the reapers. As the man tries to get away he is attacked by more of them representing the extreme circumstances of life that seem to combine to become a conglomerate of stressful opposition. The medium that was used for this piece was prisma color pencils, black micron pens, and pencil.