Peter Blake
Peter Blake creates works by combining collage and painting,
the collage materials he uses are normally everyday ephemeral commercial items
like magazines, food packaging and cigarette packaging. For this reason he was
one of the first artists I thought of when I read this question. One of my
favourite works by Blake is ‘On the Balcony’ a piece which has great visual
impact by confronting the viewer with the popular imagery of the 1950s. If I decide
to continue with this question for my project I would explore Blake’s direct
use of everyday object and combine them in meaningful and intriguing ways.
Cellini Benevento
Thinking about this question I pondered the idea of an everyday object being taken to the absolute extreme. When a men’s watch can range from five to a million pounds the vast variety in everyday objects becomes apparent. Also great works of art and design are often simple objects take to the extreme of beauty or interest. Cellini Benevento was a celebrated goldsmith and sculpture who created works of massive beauty and value for kings and emperors, he took everyday Items and made them as lavish and beautiful as possible. The best example of this is his famous salt cellar which is almost solid gold and feature beautiful figure of Ceres and Neptune. The over complication of objects could be related the engineering curios like ‘Rube Goldberg Machines’ which do simple acts in complex ways.
Roy Lichtenstein
Lichtenstein is one of my favourite artists and looks at
everyday object in a very interesting way. His most famous works are giant
paintings based on small comicbook cells, he turns everyday images from comic
books (everyday in themselves) into fine art. He works in an interesting was because his
work drew the art world’s attention to everyday simple object like comic books
and begun to spin the idea that anything can be art if it is created to be. One
of the main things I always remember about Lichtenstein is his use of Ben-day
dots to create light, shadow and colour tone this powerful use of such an everyday
object as a dot is intriguing in itself. His work links to my own idea because of
the crisp colourful way he depicts machines like planes in his work, perhaps the
best know example being ‘WHAM’.
The three artists above whose work I have touched on demonstrates the variety of ways artist have used everyday objects in their work. The subject of everyday object is close to my heart, much of my previous works have been assemblage of everyday objects. Some of my favourite work is by people who use everyday objects in abstract ways so this question would be good for me. How it links to the theme I want to explore require something of a stretch. The complex mechanisms and the massive engineering which goes into simple everyday objects like cars or mobile phones is all around us but remains a mystery to many. I haven’t yet learned to drive a car but I know a lot about how they work, I can easily explain a limited slip differential and the intricacies of internal combustion. I could see how I could create work based on the hidden engineering in everyday life so this is a viable question to explore. My past work has often been me using everyday objects to create pieces of art, I could easily use this question and create work similar to what I have in the past however I want to branch out more in this project. Because so much of my past work has been based on the idea of using everyday items in interesting ways I would like in this project to still use elements of everyday objects but link my work to other complex meanings.
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