 |
Some thoughts....
I didn't really know what to expect when I suggested the theme for this year's contest. One of the things I struggle with in my own art is creating work with a purpose. I'm pretty good at recognizing the potential in an image I'm working on, and knowing how to take it from there. But I'm not as comfortable with having a goal or plan ahead of time. So it occurred to me I would be uncomfortable if someone ever commissioned me to create a series of works representing a particular theme. I was quite pleased at the range of creativity and imagination in both the competing and non-competing entries and there were some notable submissions upon which I'd like to comment.
I don't know for sure which of the contributing artists started with an idea and built their series from that thought, and which took an already created image, and devised a theme around it. Either way, it seems important that the individual images within the series share some sort of cohesiveness -- color, shape, compositional style, etc. A costume designer once taught me that in order to create unity in a group of costumes onstage, there should either be a limited palette and diverse silhouette/design -- or the same design constructed in a range of colors. I think the same concept applies to a series of artworks. The exception to this might be in a set like Morgen Bell's Playing Games which strives to whimsically but realistically depict a set (rather than a series) of very diverse games. The games themselves are very different, so it stands to reason that the images would also be quite varied. This set displays a masterful command of tools and technique by the artist. Red Williams would have been very impressed by this one! Equally impressive, technically, is Tina Oloyede's Fractal Embroidery series, which so realistically uses fractal structure to depict fabric and fabric art.
There are several series which literally used the same gradients or structures for every image. Kerry Mitchell's A Love Supreme, Michael Ray's Naturalism of the Mind, and Damien M. Jones' Introduction, Conflict, Climax, Resolution all use the same palette for each image in the series. This left them free to explore diverse shapes, although in each of these cases, the artists chose to stay closely connected in structure, too. I had the opportunity to listen to John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" while Mitchell's series was rendering and, as his commentary suggests, the coloring algorithms chosen quite closely reflect the complex musical rhythm and color of the instrumental lines. It was really helpful for me to view this series while listening to its inspiration and I wish I'd had the same familiarity with all the artists' subjects.
In his All the Perfumes of Arabia, Xavier Fretté used the same fractal structure to depict the perfume vial, and then chose differing palettes and coloring algorithms to suggest the various fragrances. Likewise, Kerry Mitchell, used a similar-looking Julia structure for each image in Converging on Phi, and then varied each only by a systematic change in parameters and a gradual change in palette.
Other series incorporated more variety of color or structure between individual images without compromising the unity of the whole series. Brian Prentice's Broken Spirals uses a broader palette -- the orange, yellow, green, blue end of the spectrum -- and many variations of the broken spiral structure, but it's easy to see just from the thumbnail page how well the images work together as a set. Faye Williams' Cosi Fan Tutte series is similarly varied in color and fractal structure. There seems to be two distinct groups of characters -- those portrayed in the soft muted grays and those more dramatically represented in orange-brown tones. I am sorry to say I am not familiar enough with that opera to have an opinion on how successfully she depicted each character's personality, but the images certainly work well together as a set. Another series which abstractly portrays human personalities is Queri's The Matriarchs. Again, I am too unfamiliar with her characters to know why Lilith and Hagar are so differently colored than the others in their sets, but I want to believe those colorings were intentional.
As one of the more realistic interpretations of a theme, Heliantha's Flowers and Butterflies uses not only similar colors and fractal structure to depict the subjects, she also uses borders as a common compositional element. Her 7 images, in their 3 different image ratios would be fun to arrange in a more aesthetic grouping than I used on the thumbnail page. Another series which makes a powerful statement with its use of common image ratios and borders is Bill Decker's The Four Elements. Here, Decker could use completely different palettes and diverse fractal structure and coloring and still achieve the necessary strength of unity.
A Day at the Beach, by Tina Oloyede, does a really good job of illustrating a simple story line in almost childlike, geometric shapes. There is a wide variety of colors used, but the circle, spiral and wavy figures used throughout provide strong connecting motifs. The last image (The End of the Day), although one of my personal single-image favorites in the contest, doesn't seem to fit stylistically with the rest of the series because of its subtle earth-tone coloring and hazy texture, but perhaps it serves to heighten the contrast between the cognitive details of a busy day and the subjective feelings of relaxation at nightfall.
One of the strongest and most artistically satisfying series overall is Maureen Press' Things Unseen. Like Oloyede's "A Day at the Beach", the use of figurative and textural motifs throughout the series really ties the images together. Colorwise, they all work well together except the pink/purple/blues of "Water Droplets". Perhaps it could have retained a bit of the yellow end of the spectrum or the other two water images could have incorporated a bit more blue to help tie it into the rest of the series. All in all, though, "Things Unseen" makes a very strong presentation.
And last, but not least, is the striking Where Do We Go? by Andrās Szolek. This series pushes the limits of unity in color and shape, yet it still works. My favorite single image in this series is "Messiah" (the first one). The first image doesn't work so well for me -- both its coloring and the image ratio seem incongruent with the other images. But then each image after that seems to lead into the next -- sharing common shapes and introducing new ideas which gives the whole series a sense of flow. I don't care for the 3D object floating in the final image, but perhaps that's Szolek's point in depicting "Revelation."
Finally, I want to commend all the artists for their energy and creativity. I hope the artists enjoyed the challenge of the process as much as I have enjoyed studying their creations.
Janet Parke
August 14, 2001
Back to Janet's UF Contests