Nick Cave - Soundsuit, 2011

 

Nick Cave is a American artist from Missouri, and some of his famous artworks are from the series, Soundsuits, which are wearable fabric sculptures made with many other materials that are bright and whimsical. Nick started out as a kid focusing on assemblage and using found objects to create art. He also dances and does performance art. I think his multiple skills and talents help him to create his artworks. I can understand and relate to this because I am also skilled in many trades, sports, and art mediums.

            Nick Cave’s, Soundsuits, is inspirational to me because he involves so many materials and use knitting, body suits, and mannequins to hold them together.  This assemblage and combination of ideas and objects inspires me to look for unique objects to go in depth about my theme of coexistence.  The rhythmic visual, repetition of form, and bright colors intrigue me also and I hold to create a strong visual with wire twisted into forms that can create a sense of natural, organic materials.

Mario Merz - Places with No Street, 1987

Mario Merz was an Italian artist that created this piece in 1987 and it involves numbers lit up on natural materials like twigs with wire mesh, stones, neon tubing, aluminum and wires. Without any outside knowledge about this piece, I come to conclude that it is suppose to signify a unique story. It involves mechanical pieces leading into a dome with natural materials like stone and twigs with wire mesh over top of it. I love the effort into making a twig rug this large and the unique ideas as well as the piece from a composition perspective.

Mario Merz’s, Places with No Street, evokes a emotion from me that is leading me to be less literal and use unique materials to create a piece that displays coexistence between humans and the environment.  In this piece by Mario Merz, I see the lit numbers and wire mesh as humans, and the stone and twigs as nature or the environment.  Mario thought a lot about the creation and technical aspects of this piece before he made it I believe and the outcome of his piece, Places with No Street, inspires me to create a piece using materials that can evoke a emotion and specific theme from the viewer.

Marc Chagall- I and the Village

                                                      Marc Chagall - I and the Village, 1911

Marc Chagall was an artist that worked in many periods such as, Surrealism, cubism, expressionism, fauvism, and modern art. He is inspiration to me because of the abstract, cubist, expressionist qualities to his pieces, movement, action, and most importantly coexistence that is displayed in this piece in particular.   Chagall’s, I and the Village, was done in 1911 and displays a place where peasants and their cattle coexist and respect each other represented by the animal and person looking into each other eyes.  The abstract, cubist style influences me to think about how I can display the idea of coexistence.  This painting has a quality and style to it that reminds me the positive side of coexistence instead of the negative, which I am dwelling on both in the project.

Chagall liked lines and angles when growing up which led to his cubist style. I also focus on lines and angles, but with wire.  I like that fact that Chagall made suggestions to the orbiting sun, moon, and earth in this painting with the circular forms.  That is another element that makes this piece interesting. I shape my wire in all types of ways to evoke a emotion and display a theme, which Marc Chagall does well and inspires me to do.

Henri Matisse Dance (I)

Henri Matisse- Dance (I)

Henri Matisse is another artist that is famous and is not a contemporary artist but worked in many periods including fauvism, impression, and modernism which intrigues me and the fact, this work really inspires me with the theme of coexistence in my project.  Dance (I) is a painting that is inspiration to me because of its composition, interaction, my reaction, and its figures.  Coexistence is the term I get from the painting and may be different to other viewers, but my project makes me look more intently into this aspect within this painting. 

                I like to focus on a variety of media for visual keys that may lead to greater critical thinking of coexistence of my part. The is painting by Henri Matisse displays women that are holding hands in a circle with the blue sky behind them, while they are standing on green grass.  The idea, aesthetic, and composition are relatively simple, but help me to think about displaying my figures made of wire, in different ways.  The positive aspects of coexistence could be displayed with figures dancing in some sort of way similar to this painting by Matisse.  So in essence, this painting is more than a painting to me and makes me think out of the box when relating it to my project.

                                                   Auguste Rodin – The Three Shades

                The famous Auguste Rodin isn’t a contemporary artist by any means, but is a artist that relates to my project for Senior Seminar because of his style. In particular, this sculpture in bronze made  from 1881-1886.  He displays three men that are with the heads together leaning in unity. Arms extended out, fists closed, and a sense of teamwork, togetherness, and loyalty is thought.  The act displayed reminds me of a strong interaction of coexistence I am displaying in my project.  Their bodies together and gestural expression signifies this to me.  I like the action displayed and the interaction between people . It can evoke a strong emotion from the viewer and create questions. A narrative can be conclude in different ways and I respect this. I am making figures in my project that display a strong gesture and have body positioning that makes the viewer walk around the piece to fully perceive the meaning behind it. This sculpture by Rodin is inspiration to me and I am influenced by this to create figures with even stronger qualities portraying stylized positioning.

Huma Bhabha created this work, entitled, Bleekmen, that is made up of many materials like clay, wood, wire, Styrofoam, plastic, cast iron, fabric, ink, paper, brass wire, synthetic polymer paint, and ink. Huma likes  focusing on composite sculptures, combining organic and industrial materials. This artwork is inspired by African, Egyptian, Native American art and futuristic aliens.  The name comes from a science fiction book from the characters that were indigenous to Mars. Yet, the artist also thinks that this form relays the form of a derelict building. Furthermore, Bhabha suggests the form of a mask with this artwork made up of found objects.

               This style is very intriguing and caught my eye because I am focusing on making wire art and when you look at wire, it can become anything you want it to be.  Huma Bhabha had this thought process and took it even farther to find objects and arrange them together to form a representational piece.  This idea is what really catches my attention and the way she arranged her multitude of materials creates an illusion of something that is asymmetrical in shape, but has a sense of balance, rough texture, and creativity that is displayed in an very interesting fashion.

Massoud Hassani: Mine-Kafon wind powered deminer

Massoud Hassani grew up in Afghanistan and was inspired to create these works of art as not only a interesting piece, but to have a useful significance.  He grew up playing and creating sphere shaped objects that could be used to race with that were powered by the wind with his friends.  Hassani knew that once one of these balls went into a mine infested location then they were never to be retrieved, so he became inspired to make something that can help find the safest path to take if someone needed to cross mine field.  The material is bamboo and biodegradable plastic that if came across a mine and exploded, some of the material could be retrieved and made into another mechanism, or art work.

               This fascinates me because the significance behind this artwork as a mechanical object used for the greater good. I am inspired by it because the bamboo and biodegradable plastic seem to interact and create a rhythmic sequence throughout it and my project is going to portray this.  Coexistence is my theme and the materials used and the location of this artwork in the picture gives the aurora of coexistence in nature and with itself.