ABSTRACT
ARTIST RESEARCH
PABLO PICASSO
Picasso has become a very household name and its no wonder why I included him him as an artist in my abstract theme. A Spanish painter among many other art forms Picasso is known as the most influential artist of the 20th century, his style developed from natrualism all the way into his own movement - cubism where lots of his most famous work bases itself on. He pioneered this movement in response to the fast moving modern world. In his lifetime he created hundreds of thousands of different artworks in forms from sculptures to prints and his influence on art is still extremly crucial.
Nestor Toro
Toro is a Los Angeles based abstract artist who believes In expressionism. He claims his inspiration came from visiting the museeum of fine art in Puerto rico. This exposed him to a wide varity of art- including their individual techniques, mediums and forms. Additionally he also is influenced by aquariums and all their different shapes and textures. I love his work as its all about perception, abstract art is completely different to each individual.
Photographer Research
Harry Callahan
Callahan was an American photographer who ranged from taking everything from nude to botanical photos. His abstract photos however included him shooting images of conceptual ideas instead of literal definition.
He was well recognised for his impressive body of work in colour as well as his black and white shots.
As well as a photographer he doubled up as a teacher and is definitely remembered for all the right reasons.
Ola Kolehmainen
Kolehmainen is a contemporary Finnish based
photographer who specialises in the aftereffects of light on architecture- he makes seemingly boring/ normal buildings have a exciting edge to them with his skills as a photographer.
This may come up as a contrast but many regard his work as minimilist as well as abstract. I enjoy the geometry amongst his work and thought he was a great photographer to include on my abstract research.
MY ABSTRACT SHOTS
For my abstract theme I decided to base it on the wide variety of artwork I looked at on google images whilst searching for abstract paintings. I wanted to try my hand at doing some new styles of drawings and use a diversity of colours. The two big prints above are all by me and then I overlaid them onto past photos.
To create a more striking effect I wanted to place them over portrait photos and due to COVID and not really being able to take many portraits I had to recycle photos. I created this on a iPhone app called 'PicBlenderArt, alas this did kill the quality and restricted the end result. In the future I plan to attempt this on Adobe Photoshop which I find difficult but I feel its very essential to learn my way around in order to adapt to the current climate and also accentuate my photos.
Another route I could have taken if COVID hadn't limited our facilities is printing out my photos on acetate( which is a semi- transparent sheet of plastic) and then placing my own artwork behind it resulting in a similar (but probably more precise) effect. This is a technique we where taught by Belinda in first year and i loved the sleek and professional look it results in.
I really love the way they turned out and think this theme especially has opened up my imagination more and I will now be more likely to try new things, I wish to invest into some good quality oil paints in order to make my future art more prominent and neat which will then result in them adding even more definition to any future photos i decide to layer them with.
