Mixed Media
Title: Pure Life and Death
Size: 30.5cm by 61cm Medium: Mixed Media, and Acrylic on Canvas Completion: January 2018 Exhibition Text: Inspired by Rauschenberg's Canyon, and Monogram; Pure Life and Death is a mixed media artwork made by placing bottle caps and water bottle labels that I collected, strategically around the canvas. The use of found objects from water bottles symbolizes the life water gives, but also the destruction that these plastic bottles can do to the environment. |
Inspiration
Canyon - Robert Rauschenberg
Monogram - Robert Rauschenberg
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Rauschenberg was a painter and graphic artist who mixed methods and different materials in his artworks and anticipated the pop art movement. Canyon was made in 1959 and is one of Rauschenberg's most controversial and recognizable artworks. Canyon is a mixed media artwork made with pieces of wood, a pillow, a mirror, and a stuffed bald eagle. The bald eagle was acquired from a friend before it was illegal to kill eagles in 1940, this eagle is emerging from the board and is looking down at a pillow hanging from the board. The reason this artwork is so controversial is because of the stuffed bald eagle on it, which violated the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Monogram was made between 1955 and 1959 and is also one of Rauschenberg's most iconic works. It merges painting and sculpture into one artwork. Rauschenberg surrounded the goat with a tennis ball, a wooden plank, and other images. I plan to use both of these artworks as inspirations and base my artwork off of them by creating a canvas with mixed media on it, for example plastic bottle caps, wrapping labels, and painting with acrylic on it. Rauschenberg has some 3-D objects on the board to make them come up off the canvas and I plan to do the same with bottle caps and other found objects. By mixing different materials, Rauschenberg's artworks were considered different for the period they were created in. Canyon and Monogram influence me to use a board or canvas as a base on which to place all the mixed media on, swell as the 3-Dimensional features and color scheme.
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Robert Rauschenberg Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works. (n.d.). Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://www.theartstory.org/artist-rauschenberg-robert-artworks.htm#pnt_6
Planning
Process/Techniques/Experimentation
When this project was introduced to me, I started to collect plastic bottle caps specifically from Pure Life water bottles because I had a vivid idea on what I wanted to incorporate into my mixed media artwork. From every bottle I drank, I would take the cap, and also the label because I thought they could be useful for this project. Eventually I ended up with around 50 bottle caps and labels to use on my mixed media.
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After I finished putting 4 coats of gesso on a 1ft by 2ft canvas, I put a wash of metallic blue, and white paint to add a blue gradient feel but not really a gradient in order to match with the labels that I was going to use in the mixed media. I found myself going back and forth from the paint to the canvas, therefore i just several dots of the right amounts and blue and white around the canvas to save time and make painting easier.
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Reflection
Similar to Rauschenberg's artworks, Pure Life and Death is a mixed media with 3-D objects popping off of the canvas. Even though it was my inspiration, theres still some differences for example the color scheme, in which i use more vivid colors in contrast to Rauschenberg's browns and grays. Rauschenberg also has a bigger variety of mixed media objects he used on his artwork. The major components of my artwork are the wave lines, the bottle cap structures, and the folded labels around the edge of the the canvas. The white wave lines means safety, purity, and cleanliness of drinking like the water, and on the other hand the black lines represent death, evil, and mystery which i associated to the environment-harming packaging that the water comes in. The bottle cap structures are distorted to give them a peculiar look. This distortion can be compared to the distortion plastic waste is to the world, since plastic is barely biodegradable because of all the chemicals in it. Lastly, the labels encompassing both of the prior discussed components is meant to cover the truth of water bottles exactly how the label is the outermost layer of a water bottle, covering the plastic which holds the water. The canvas was a canvas that had already been painted on, and i feel that i did a good job of covering that up with several coats of gesso before i could start my artwork. Mostly everything went well for example gluing the bottle caps down, painting the outermost waves around the structures and the gluing labels. Something i could've improved on was painting the black outline around the structures because theres some flaws on that line that could use some correcting. Overall this artwork was easy, thus i had many successes in the making of it, with 1 or 2 challenges which were the black outline on the bottle caps and getting the same color all throughout the canvas.
ACT Questions
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
I identified the relationship because i also used a canvas and had three dimensional objects coming up off the canvas, with the intention to have different sections for different medias.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The approach the authors had was informational and with a lot of good analysis on the artist and artworks.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Rauschenberg was unique and very good at what he did, even though the materials he incorporated at times would cause controversy ( the eagle ) and harsh as viewed by the public at the time.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
The deception of a harmless bottle of water we take for granted but causes a lot of harm especially at the rate its being used.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Art can be made using a countless number of components whether it be stuffed eagles or rocks hanging off a canvas.
I identified the relationship because i also used a canvas and had three dimensional objects coming up off the canvas, with the intention to have different sections for different medias.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The approach the authors had was informational and with a lot of good analysis on the artist and artworks.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Rauschenberg was unique and very good at what he did, even though the materials he incorporated at times would cause controversy ( the eagle ) and harsh as viewed by the public at the time.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
The deception of a harmless bottle of water we take for granted but causes a lot of harm especially at the rate its being used.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Art can be made using a countless number of components whether it be stuffed eagles or rocks hanging off a canvas.
Bibliography
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-rauschenberg-robert-artworks.htm#pnt_6
Robert Rauschenberg Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works. (n.d.). Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://www.theartstory.org/artist-rauschenberg-robert-artworks.htm#pnt_6
Robert Rauschenberg Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works. (n.d.). Retrieved January 10, 2018, from http://www.theartstory.org/artist-rauschenberg-robert-artworks.htm#pnt_6