| Photoshop Collages |
Assignment 2
All of my collages are based on my childhood memory; the first day of school in Switzerland. I was the age of 11 and it was my first time going to a school outside of Japan. The first impression of the country and the school wasn’t so good. I was worried and scared of being in a totally different environment and not understanding what people were saying. The stress was building up everyday and I was suffering from fever that I used to get after school. I just remember the fear of going to this school for few weeks. So the collages will be based on how I felt on the first day of the school and each collages was inspired by different artist’s works.
Title:
‘Melancholia’ by Jesse Treece
Hand-cut collage
Movement: Contemporary/ Postmodern
This is my collage that I got inspired by Jesse Treece’s ‘Melancholia’. When I saw the piece for the first time, I felt loneliness and fear. I wanted to address my fear of the school by using the technique that Treece have used. The books symbolize the school, and I made the composition like this so that it feels like they are walls that were stopping me to move forward. I made the background is unclear so that it shows how I couldn’t see myself in the future. The green glass with leaves represent the season of fall, which is the season of the new school year.
Title:
‘Red Painting’ 2009 by Mark Bradford
Mix-media collage on Canvas
Movement: Contemporary/Postmodern
This is a collage that I got inspired by Mark Bradford’s ‘Red Painting’. I found the delicate shapes, and the colors really attractive in the collage. I also wanted to explore Photoshop by trying to imitate this technique so I chose to reference this particular collage. For the background, I chose to use dark color so that it can show how sad and scared I was. The blurred picture represent how I couldn’t understand what people were saying. Things were unclear. The chaotic geometric shapes that covers the background are my thoughts of that day. Because I couldn’t understand anything, I remember I was really confused all the time. My thoughts were spread out and it was out of control. The whole thoughts are like a puzzle, and this day my puzzle was never completed.
Title:
Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the last Weimer Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany
1919 by Hannah Höch
Movement: Dada, Modern Art
I really liked how Höch created a collage by putting many things in a piece with different scale. I wanted to show the atmosphere, the scene of my school I went to. The different languages(English and German) that I couldn’t understand. The doorway, the lockers, the books, the alps, these objects reminds me of school and Switzerland. Things weren’t organized in my mind, and I got really scared when there was a whole school meeting in the beginning. I felt lost and I couldn’t understand the situation I was in. This day wasn’t a good day for me, but after all I am happy that I went to this school and was able to experience this day.
In this assignment, the most challenging thing was that there should be relation to my childhood memory. I don’t remember well about this day and I had to sit and think back to it. It was hard to show and express the feeling I had in a collage. But I challenged myself to do some techniques that the artists have done, and I am happy with what I’ve got in the end.
