18/7/2016 Seminar II MJ Mayo
Ty is an all round type of guy. He is outgoing and charismatic in each and every
one of his actions which is extremely prevalent through his artistic expression. He described
his artistic attributes towards the fusion of “harmony and chaos” which led him
to choose the Marble sarcophagus with the Triumph of Dionysos and the Seasons as
his research object from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This Roman sculptural sarcophagus
depicts the four seasons (winter, spring, summer and fall) represented by four
“sturdy youths” carvings surrounding the seated god God Dionysos (god of fertility and
wine) which are all intermixed among many other carvings of followers and philosophers
which surround 3 out of 4 sides from top to bottom of the sarcophagus.
When generating ideas for the project Ty pondered on the best way to represent
this piece in a meaningful but charming and humorous way just like his personality represents.
He decided on a personal recreation of each pose/scene making up the stone
sculpture. He did so using a photographic medium and posing in just underwear, in the
various awkward poses using everyday props like towels and fruit resembled the objects
which are depicted in the sculpture to achieve humorous results. Ty’s artist book
consists of over 20 individual images printed each full sized on 8.5 x 11 inch pro-color
paper adding a high gloss and professional look to the book. Bound together by a not so
suspecting 2 rubber bands the final product is not in it’s finished state. Ty hopes to improve
on layout and design in the future to enhance the aspects of the book without losing
its humorous nature.
18/7/2016 Seminar II MJ Mayo
Each pose was well thought out and well executed to best match those which are
prominent figures in the sculpture. A progressive idea for the piece is to combine all of
the individual images into a long landscape image and resize each pose to match that
of the sarcophagus whilst compositing the images in photoshop and reprinting in a large
format to match that of the grand sarcophagus.
I personally love how Ty integrated his great sense of humor into his artist book
really achieving the goals of the project to integrate the characteristics of oneself with
the chosen artwork into a book format; this was accomplished simply an effectively. I do
see this work becoming even more expressive if Ty continues with his future vision of
the piece and executes it well which undoubtedly he will. This is a important aspect in
the intertwining of book and visual culture as they are often battling each other for first
place when in reality these forms of artistic presentation can work even better together
to portray a message or story than they can in their own forms.
Citations:
MET Timeline. New York, New York. 2016. http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/254819
