Surrealism

A 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind.

The Morgan Library www.themorgan.org has mounted a large show that is open to the public until April 21 and definitely worth visiting.

"Bringing together more than 160 works on paper by such iconic artists as Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, and Joan Miró, this is the first major exhibition to explore the central role of drawing in surrealism, one of the most important movements in twentieth-century art. Once considered a minor medium, drawing became a predominant means of expression and innovation among surrealist artists in the first half of the twentieth century, resulting in a rich array of graphic techniques including automatic drawing, collage, decalcomania, exquisite corpse, and frottage."

I then created a surrealist collage of my own:

Color Studies and Motion

My last two collages deal with 2 elements:  color studies and motion:

What inspired me to create the above piece was seeing "The Life of Pi" for the second time.  The cinematography was so beautiful that I was mesmerized by the amazing graphics and colors especially the scenes on and under the ocean.  I think that is why I chose the fish to be an important part of the collage.  The round form represents the motion and the fish are swimming either toward or away from the shape depending on the viewer.

We all grew up with "The Wizard of Oz" and in this piece I inserted Dorothy and friends in a surreal environment.  I painted wooden triangles to match the original road and then proceeded to display them in a way that looks like the road is breaking up.  I also added shiny black triangles to add more contrast to this fantasy.

Matisse at the Metropolitan Museum

I recently went to the Metropolitan Museum to view the latest Matisse exhibit "Matisse in Search of True Painting."  I have always enjoyed many of Matisse's paintings in particular his strong use of color and shape.  What was particularly interesting to me was to see his process.  Before he finished a painting he would rework it, sketch it, overpaint it many times.  What appears to be a simplistic piece of work was often a very thought out and carefully rendered work of art.  As part of the exhibit, the process he went through is displayed below:

Abstracting a Landscape or Interior

Recently my class was given the assignment to create an abstraction from a landscape or interior.  Duncan Grant's "Interior at Gordon Square" was the example as part of the show at the MOMA "Inventing Abstraction."  Below is an image of his painting:

I took that as an opportunity to create my own landscape using dimensional materials, primarily wooden triangles and cylinders, adding some pieces of grid paper and then adhering everything onto cardboard, and finally mounting the piece on an off- white board.  I created this from looking at a print of an old-fashioned town with many little houses and a waterfall.  Below is the finished piece: