Research
Kiki Smith’s art is beautifully haunting to me- she explores the human body in ways I’ve never really seen before, and yet they seem like such relatable concepts. Her integration of paper into fine arts is awesome and she’s able to make really stunning pieces with such minimalist materials.
She’s made some really powerful work and it honestly just blows my mind a little to look at even just photographs of it. I’d love to see what these sculptures look like in low lighting or spotlights maybe. It would highlight the contours and negative spaces really nicely and make them read differently than they do in full studio lighting.
Some of Makoto Komatsu’s works are great examples of functional art. Making something “everyday” into art, and making art out of something “everyday”. I love the exploration and experimentation of texture, crinkles, and otherwise. Each piece has a personality and though some were slip cast and can therefore be made identically, again and again, they hold a certain level of personality with each design.
The Flat-Bottom Paper Bag
Final plaster bag
The plaster seemed to dry ridiculously fast, so maybe I mixed it incorrectly. But I’m actually not as upset with the results as I thought I might be. As I was applying the plaster I thought it was way too thick and the bag wouldn’t give the effect I was looking for, but it gave me an entirely new effect that I actually quite like. I think it’ll look cool when I paint it, but it also looks very mode and minimalist like this.
Wire bag
I tried leaving one seam open on this bag just to see how it would affect the way I found a form with it. It did make it more difficult, in some aspects to curl and bend the wire the way I wanted to, but it also provided something I couldn’t control as well as with a stiff bag, and thus it bent and curled in ways I didn’t know it would and created new forms and shapes I hadn’t planned but liked a lot.
Paper bag studies
I practiced a few forms with the paper bags before and after trying my wire bags, and it was interesting to note how the different materials were able to be manipulated. The paper was actually what I found to be the hardest to control and bend to my will. It seems a little too elastic to stay in one place, especially being so lightweight, any shift in weight distribution would make it fall over and ruin my form. But it was fun to experiment nonetheless!
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