watercolour – Rebecca Elysium

Into the Woods

8.3 x 11.7″
Watercolours and pen on watercolour paper

Exalted

8.3 x 11.7″
Watercolours and pencils on watercolour paper

In continuing my work from the Autumn exhibition I wanted to work on some more powerful and focused imagery following on from my triptych painting series, which I felt some of the imagery for the Wolf and Sorrow of Songbirds pieces could be a lot more developed. I also wanted to try and develop the narratives within these pieces to be much deeper and more complex in their visual language and what they were able to communicate. I began to do more research into the visual language of fairy tales and the various mythical figures, such as Pan, whom I was drawing on in order to focus the allusions and subversion in using them. With Pan, I wanted to make clear that through using the heavily symbolic masculine imagery of stag antlers that this oppressive, overbearing hyperbolic view of masculinity was damaging and self-destructive in its perpetuation, and even the sensual Greek god is unable to live up to the societal expectations of strength, dominance, sexual prowess and lack of emotion that stereotypical defines the traditional, patriarchal man.

In my previous work I also felt that the connection between the language, text and imagery wasn’t working as fluidly and effectively together as I had wanted. The disconnection was not enough to create a subversive disjoint between the imagery and text and so I sought to experiment with how I could better utilise the environment and cultural/societal heritage of fairy tales from all aspects of its history in order to reinforce the damaging and questionable narratives within them which remain unchallenged whenever recycled around us. Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulations has always been a huge influence on my work in its exploration of the saturated, hyperreal media landscape that we exist within, and so appropriation of symbols and language which have ultimately been recycled endlessly so that their is no ‘original’ played a large role in me wanting to further draw from this manipulated and incoherent mass of information and exploit itself in order to expose the vicious cyclical social narrative we are caught in.

March 19, 2016 by InfinitelyElise Categories: My Artwork, UniversityTags: artwork, Baudrillard, pan, simulacrum, watercolour, wolf Leave a comment

Graphic novels, comics, (forms of art in their own right) and the superhero genre have become one of the only things we can reinvent endlessly. Not only this, it becomes a mode of reinvention of our mythologies. The stories of justice, evil and fantastical events and people are all easily read and recognized. These characters and their stories are immortal, the comic medium existing in uncertain and malleable times and realities; which can span all codes and conventions, symbols, images, social, cultural and power issues. This medium has become so effective that its permeated all other aspects of the media and culture, rising above its once underground and dejected status. The new forum that these pieces of art create is a domain where these issues can be discussed and developed democratically. The pretentiousness of ‘high art’ and galleries in failing to recognize or involve themselves this discussion in art and potent visual language is a huge loss.