Growing up I am always obsessed with literature and the Dark Wave movement. I remember the first poem I read was Les Flours du Mal by Baudelaire, first fiction was Black Cat by Poe and I fell in love immediately for a reason yet unknown, and I enjoy the way it stays unknown. There is a connection of mine with dark things I born with. Yes, it is certainly dramatic tone in it, but I do find the diction worship best describes this connection.
The work I chose is an engraved black and white illustration by Sir Edwin Landseer on Scene 3, Act 1 of Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Since my major and my main interest is illustration, I decide to do my final piece on illustration, black and white.
I take a darker approach on the play on the same scene which Queen Titania is holding Bottom, the donkey man with some Gothic elements within that I define my own personality: instead of the fairy crowd from the original art work (the angles, the Puck, the enchanted rabbit), I illustrate the queen Titania with deciding skin showing parts of muscles with elements such as skull, twisted dwarves; instead of depicting the donkey man directly from Shakespeare’s description, I create a skinny unicorn with fragmented body. For the background, I chose some of the plants from Shakespeare, such as lark’s heel, wormwood, quince, and put direct quotes from original reference, such as poems and play scripts, but I do them with blurriness in order to add a mysterious touch to the atmosphere.
The main focus as well as the lightest part remains on the queen Titania, and the rest decorations remain in a comparably consistent grayness. I do not direct the light as a stage-light spotlight, but intentionally do the shading with parallel horizontal lines. By organizing the lines, I hope to achieve a dark tattoo-ish style overall.
The conversation in my art work is about metaphor of loss of identity under the influence of love. Inspired by the magical juice of the flower that can make people fall in love with the first creature they see after waking up, the chemical and unexplainable reaction of love makes me wonder is love something more about the one falling love or the one beloved, and what we are talking when we talk about love. Instead of making queen Titania looking at donkey man, I decide to create a tension between Titania and the audience by letting her glazing to the audience, in order to express when one falls in love, is s/he loving the person or the one is only cherishing the action or the feeling of loving. And does love need audience? Also, I leave the eyes of the donkey man, the beloved, blank to argue that is the identity of the beloved important. Obviously, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it is not; not at all.
Love, the eternal question, is a occupation or a random doom? Is love a magical spell or a curse of karma? While composing, I hope I can figure our an answer, yet I fail to do so. Thus, I still have the ability to love, and thus I am still loving somebody. Love is the entrance ticket of two to heaven of our own imagination.
