A recap of the first bite size classes on Mondays.
The topic was about reproduction and the tutors had us separated into groups to create reproductions of a ‘reproduction’ of The Girl With The Pearl Earring by Vermeer. Our group’s reproduction item was a few paragraphs describing the painting on a piece of A4 paper. Our task was to come up with as many reproductions as possible in an hour.
We tried a lot of different things focusing more on the text than the original painting. I did an illustration based solely on the description from the text.
As the text suggested, the painting is of a young woman with cream-coloured skin contrasting with dark background. Her eyes starring at the viewer wearing a yellow and blue turban and adorning a large tear-shaped pearl earring. The text didn’t mention the pose, the style of the turban or even her clothing ( so I simply made her naked ). This illustration also turned into a GIF in which Finn and Sarah each took turns to capture this illustration with their phones creating a kind of inception. In the end the illustration became unreadable and created a strange visual.
The text also mentioned that the painting is “The Mona Lisa of the north” so Sarah merged Mona Lisa and the painting together and created an eerie image. She then turned them into horror and sci-fi film posters in a very kitsch style. Finn also experimented with reproduction through the copy machine. He copied Sarah’s sketch over and over on cream-coloured paper creating an overlay of colour until they turned extremely yellow. This technique is quite interesting as it may open up the possibility of overlaying colours using only a copy machine. Another interesting one is Finn’s robotic voice reading the text which sounded so removed from the actual painting that it started to sound horrifying.
In an attempt to reproduce the text in a very contemporary way, I decided to use the paper containing the text itself as the main object. I placed the paper in different places inside LCC and took some photos. They all turned out quite nice.
Even though all of theses images are unplanned and has no specific meaning, I received quite positive feedback. It turned out that these images can actually be printed out in a large format and shown in galleries and no one will question the legitimacy of them.
I found myself having a better sense of photography more than I thought. Although I never use photography as my work, I have worked as an art director before which would explain a bit of a composition skills that made these images surprisingly nice. I would love to explore more about the spontaneous quality of creating work as well. I’m the kind of person who can come up with workable ideas in a short amount of time and it’s actually a good challenge when I have a time limit. Maybe what I need to practice further is how to come up with concepts quickly but also find a way to stick to it and develop it to the fullest potential in a much longer timeline.
As for the topic of reproduction, I don’t think we can create anything original anymore in this day and age when all information is available so reproduction is common. It’s just that mass-produce objects such as the tote bag of The Girl With The Pearl Earring is simply in bad taste. Vermeer probably hates what we do with his painting but this is the world we live in. We feed off the dead.
I just wish we have better merchandises in museum gift shops. Japan has the best gift shops ever. They reproduce an artwork in so many creative ways that it becomes hilarious.
For example : Munch’s The Scream x Hello Kitty….
It is beyond.
td @ ual 