BOY LOST IN RAINBOW.

We're now well into our final major project and if I'm honest it's taken me quite a while to find my footing with it, but this past week I've been working so much. I don't want to go into too much detail as to what the project is about, because I'd rather leave it until the end so everything is coherent and I can explain it better. But I've been working on several illustrations based around old television testcards, incorporating my own imagery into the patterns. This is the first one. I'll post a few more over the next couple of days.

OUI!
I fucking love Patrick Demarchelier. I was rummaging through all my old magazines the other day and came across this French Vogue editorial from April 2006 he shot called 'Oui!'. You could argue that a lot of the reasons the images from this spread are so effective is the styling which IS ridiculously amazing. But the composition of the shots themselves, the expressions and the lighting are so inspiring. He manages to convey the macabre in a way that isn't cheesy at all. It's fucking beautiful and decadent and there's so much black.

A complete archive of his work is available on his website and the site itself is also really easy to navigate. GO GO GO.

http://www.demarchelier.net/home.html

K-K-K-ATE
I said I'd try and upload my sketchpad from the project I produced based around Kate Moss.  I'm still trying to get everything scanned in and stuff.  But for now I'll upload a couple of the pieces I have saved on this computer and talk a little bit about them.

This was an illustration I came up with really early on in the project. I wanted to try and show how drug use within the fashion industry often leads to the corruption of models. The boots and the dress represent this idea, they are physically taking over Kate. The limbs are elongated and purposely very thin, there isn't really any 'hidden meaning' behind this. I just like skinny bitches.

There came a point during the project where I kind of got sick of the work I was producing and wanted to do something different, so I started to look at figures throughout history who were as controversial at the time as Kate is today. Marie Antoinette sprang to mind immediately, so I created this image of Kate as her inspired by the colours used in Sophia Copolla's film about her life.

 

THE TASTE OF INK IS GETTING OLD.

Last night I found out that an old friend and an incredible artist ended his life just over a week ago. Chris Jones is undoubtedly one of the kindest, most genuine people I've ever met. He's the sort of person who would do just about anything to help just about anyone and he spent his life working incredibly hard, not just to produce great artwork, but to encourage and support the work of others. I haven't seen Chris in what feels like forever, but I always found great comfort in knowing that there were people like him in the world.

The news is still very fresh and I haven't quite figured out how to process it yet, but my heart goes out to his family.  I know not a lot of people read this and I know I struggle to keep it updated, but if you do stumble across this post somehow then please take a minute to check out Chris' blog Headspace..... It has always served me well in providing inspiration and I hope it remains in cyberspace as a testament to the wonderful person he was.

Chris, you are beautiful and you've touched so many people's lives. I'm so thankful I got to meet you and have you in my life, even for a short time. I hope one day we get to have that drink and catch up.

THROW SOME GLITTER. MAKE IT RAIN
I feel sick. Physically sick when I look at work like this. Minjae Lee is a 22 year old painter from South Korea and his work is so fucking amazing that it makes me want to sit in a dark room and cry because I'll never be this good. For real though? 22? That's only a year older than I am and there's no way in hell I could pull this kind of amazingness out of my arse.

So if you want to feel like crap, click the image for more sickeningly awesome work. If I don't post again for a while, it's because I'm kinda pondering suicide.

DUNZO.
Figured I'd put up my final piece from the 'Kate' project.  Like I said, I am planning to put up all my sketchbook work too, I'm just trying to figure out a way to do it without bombarding you with like a bajillion pictures to scroll through. But it's coming, I promise.

I made my own canvas which is something I'd never done before, I'm glad you can't see the back from the image because it's a fricking hot mess of staples and shit.  But it looks good from the front. I used image maker to transfer an illustration onto the canvas and then created the background using decoupage with old issues of The Daily Mirror. I wasn't going to write on it initially, but it looked like it was missing something so I scrawled 'What Would Kate Do?' on it with my mum's Elizabeth Arden lipstick... fucking it up in the process.

UNFAITHFUL.
I've been such a neglectful bloghead recently, so I just wanted to apologise first of all. I am going to try way harder to keep this thing updated. I guess it's been a bit of a stressfest getting my project completed and handed in and then half term reared its head and the lure of vodka/my bed was way overwhelming.
We just got our marks back for our last project though and I did really well, so I'm kinda chuffed.

I'm gonna try and get like a copy of my sketchpad and my final piece up later today or like tomorrow or something. So yeah. Love it. Ciao.

BANANAS. I'M DEAD
For real though. I've hit such a brick wall with my project this past week. I'm tired ALL THE TIME, I'm super cranky, I have no ideas and I'm about ready to hang myself...

On the subject of hanging myself, check out this deathrope scarf from Virgin Blak. Gahhhhh... actually kill me. I have no spends.

 

ANOTHER SLICE OF KATE?

Figured I'd update with a few more pieces I've been working on for my current project. These aren't completely finished, I don't think. The portrait is based on a number of old Corinne Day photographs of Kate from like 1989, but I'm not sure how great the likeness is. I really wanted the eyes to be the main focus so I've tried to keep it pretty simple. Continuing on the sort of religious inspired theme, the second piece is more of a concept really for a larger piece I'm hoping I'll have time to work on. Kinda wanted to do something sexy and Jesus-ish. I've been working pretty steadily on this project so far, so I'm probably due a flag by now. But I'll try to keep updating as stuff gets done.

A PIECE OF KATE.
College have asked us to come up with a body of work based around someone we admire. Haiii Kate Moss.  This is mostly black waterproof pens and then really really cheap felts that I rinsed off with water for the shading.  It came out alright though. I was trying to go for a slightly distorted look by drawing the eyes larger and the face wider, but it doesn't really look distorted at all looking at it now so I definitely could've gone a bit further there.  Nevermind, eh?

FUCK ART. WE WANT THE FAME.
The effects of Celebrity Culture on Art in the Noughties


I think the most influential stage in any person's life is their teenage years.  It's only really as we move into adulthood that we begin to develop those solid interests that help to shape us into the individuals we're destined to become.  I was born in 1989 and as a result spent my entire teenage years living in a world famed not for it's internationally acclaimed painters and sculptors or culturally significant literary masterpieces, but for social networking sites, iPods and most of all... celebrities and society's fascination with them.

Celebrities are not a new phenomenon; prominent members of society have always attracted public interest.  But in the Noughties, with the rise of the paparazzi and internet gossip sites like Perez Hilton and TMZ, that interest has skyrocketed into something more akin to an obsession. The air of mystery that once surrounded the world's superstars has been broken down to the point where we can find out exactly where our favorite celebrity is at any time, with relative ease.  We delight in seeing them get fat, get thin, stumble out of nightclubs, cheat on their husbands, cheat on their wives, get arrested, suffer mental breakdowns, struggle with anorexia, drug addiction, alcoholism, forget to wear deodorant, forget to wear makeup, forget to wear underwear, forget to wear anything at all.  WE ARE HOOKED!  Sure, some of us pretend we aren't.  But I think every one of us derives at least a tiny amount of pleasure seeing a celebrity we hate looking like crap.  We've been asked to write about art, music and culture in a decade of our choice.  In the Noughties, our obsession with fame and the relentless pursuit many of us endure for our own fifteen minutes in the one bond tying these subjects together.

Fashion has been influenced significantly by celebrity culture.  Singers and actresses replace models on the covers of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar and there isn't a celebutante worth her meat who doesn't have a clothing line in the works.  The masses look towards celebrities for inspiration on how to dress, what make-up to use, how to smell.  Gossip magazines are littered with pages emblazoned with headings like 'Steal Her Style' or 'Get The Look', why bother cultivating your own style when you can nip down to Topshop and squeeze your size 16 arse into Cheryl Cole's?  The downside is that if you walk down any British high street, it isn't long before you realize nearly everyone looks exactly the same.  There are exceptions, of course. Websites like lookbook.nu offer users the ability to showcase their own original looks and alternative fashion bibles like Dazed&Confused, LOVE, i-D etc are still producing cutting-edge editorials and featuring innovative new designers.  But those brave enough to try and think outside the box when it comes to style and often lauded by passersby on the street until a celebrity steps out in similar garb and makes it acceptable.

Up until the late 90s, if you wanted to make it in the music industry and be taken seriously, you had to be talented and you had to grind.  These days, with the ever increasing popularity of TV 'talent shows' like The X-Factor, all you need is a reasonably good-looking mush and a well thought out sob story and you're halfway to striking double-platinum.  You don't even need to be able to sing anymore to make it big.  Artists (and I use that term loosely) like The Black Eyed Peas and Ke$ha have managed to swindle their way to number one with songs where the vocals are so heavily manipulated, you can barely make out what they're saying!  It isn't about being a good musician anymore... it's about being a good celebrity.  That isn't to say there are no talented, famous musicians anymore.  I enjoy a lot of contemporary music.  But even the most talented performers aren't safe from the glare of the paparazzi flash bulb.  In fact, it's often the truly groundbreaking musicians who are affected by the pressures of fame the most.  Look at Amy Winehouse or Pete Doherty for example, both exceptional songwriters and performers reduced to dithering, drug-addled shells.

It's this hedonistic, self-destructive aspect of contemporary fame that has had the most significant influence on art in the Noughties.  Many elitists harbor under the impression that true art no longer exists, that we live in a society devoid of creativity, where everything has been done before and nothing is ever really new or exciting.  But art is nothing if not a reflection of the society we live in and its values.  Take a look at the work of sculptors like Guy Portelli or Marc Quinn for example.  Their pieces, immortalizing celebrities like Winehouse and Kate Moss fetch hundreds of thousands of pounds at auction and are littered with unashamed references to their subjects' destructive natures.  Moss, in particular, has influenced a number of artists in the past decade from Lucien Freud's infamous nude painting of the pregnant supermodel in 2002 to one of my favorite artists, Stella Vine, who capitalized on her infamous 2005 cocaine scandal through a series of beautifully distorted and rather comical portraits.  Artists nowadays are fame-seekers in their own right, using websites like Facebook and Twitter as instruments to interact with their fans and communicate their work to a wider audience.  Marina Abramovic's 2010 performance piece 'The Artist is Present', where she sat immobile for 736 hours in New York's MoMA and invited spectators to sit across from her, was widely publicized on Facebook with many supporters gathering together online to discuss their experiences.

This is the world Andy Warhol always dreamed of, where all it takes to become a superstar is an internet connection and a copy of Adobe Photoshop.  It's just a shame he isn't around to see it.