Heart of rose

The rose

Design for a wall decoration

The Wassail

Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer and watercolourist. He was a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and also the main expotent of the Art Nouveau movement in the United Kingdom. He had a considerable influence on European Design. He took his inspiration from his Scottish upbringing and blended them with the flourish of Art Nouveau and the simplicity of Japanese forms. Working in architecture he developed his own style:a contrast between strong right angles and floral-inspired decorative motifs with subtle curves e.g. the Mackintosh rose motif.

Emilie Floge

Judith

The Kiss

The Kiss

I researched Gustav Klimt because he was an influential part of the Art Nouveau. He was an Austrian Symbolist painter and of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, his works are marked by a frank eroticism, nowhere is this more apparent than is his numerous drawings in pencil e.g. Mulher Sentada. I used inspiration from Gustav Klimt's work in my first main piece of A2, because of the patterns and the use of colours. I really like the way he used simple shapes to create intricate patterns. I had a go at using the sort of shapes Klimt uses to fill in blank spaces. One of the most common themes Klimt used was that of the dominant woman, the femme fatale.

This was the first piece of A2 coursework. It is based upon the Hockney joiner style and is of my own bedroom, making the composition and colours relevant and representative of me. I used lighter colurs such as acid greens and yellows for the lighter areas, and the blues and purples for the darker, I used this contrast to high-light the extremes of the colour spectrum and to define the possessions which are important to me and my daily life. This was my first attempt at batik, and I found that I enjoyed the technique as the colours blended easily and the vibrancy that the inks gave.

David Hockneys photocollages inspired me to try to create my own versions in this style using photographs of my bedroom. Hockney referred to these images as his "joiners," Hockneys creation of the "joiners" occured accidentally. He was working on a painting of a living room and terrace in L.A., he took polaroid shots of the living room and glued them together, not intending for them to be a composition on their own. Upon looking at the final composition, he realised it created a narrative, as if the viewer was moving through the room. I have tried to recreate this feel in exploring this technique with my own images.

I researched a more contemporary British artist called Brian Clarke because I like the way he works with stained glass. He designed and created the stained glass windows in Leeds victoria quarter. I used influence from his work in my first main of A2 because I admire his use of colour and abstract shapes it is unequaled. He has said himself that his main influences were or rather are William Morris, John Piper and Johannes Schreiter.

I love how abstract Mondrians work is. Piet Mondrian was a Dutch painter who evolved a "non representational form" which he called Neo Plasticism. This consisted of white ground, upon which was painted a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and the three primary colours red, yellow and blue.

I have researched Gilbert and Georges work during this projet because I really liked the use of non-naturalistic colours such as acid yellows, bright greens and deep blues. Gilbert and Georges colour use is almost artificial or plastic, which sort of makes snese because they worked on perspex a lot. Each of their compositions is almost an advert in itself, because of the harsh grids and lines, which strongly links this kind of work so strongly with Pop art.
In a way Gilbert and Georges work is an observation or advertisment of the world around them at that time. It expresses a 20th century view of a man made world and the message it conveys is "It's a mans world!"