Contextual review

Before coming to CSM Foundation course, Lucian Freud and Egon Scheile were the two artists who influenced me the most. Lucian Freud's works fascinated me with portraits and the human body, and I realized from them that I needed to learn and explore more social and psychological knowledge. Egon Scheile's works let me feel the combination of science, accurate human body structure and his very interesting understanding and texture, which made me want to try different materials, methods and textures in the following courses.

In the study of Part1, I still can't adapt to the study here. Every time I research some artists, I just write some of my own opinions without thinking about what I can learn from them or understanding the background of these works. In the first part of the study, I did not try new materials to paint, but only used sketches and some simple colors. In part1, I did not think about the starting point of the project from multiple perspectives, nor did I plan for my own theme and the future development of the project. I did not often discuss projects with my classmates and share ideas. I summarized the bad experience in prat1, so I improved my shortcomings in part2.

During the study in Part2, I felt that the course gave me an opportunity to explore many problems that I had never thought about before. For example, in Part2 project1 Being Human, I discussed with my classmates the conditions of Being Human, some of them said time, food, relationship, imagination and so on. My idea is desire, and I think it's a word that goes with life, and I read a few words in Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams that I particularly like, "even Dreams with painful contents can be explained by The satisfaction of desire." I am also thinking about the different needs and states of human beings in different social environments. For example, Alberto Giacometti's sculpture perfectly expresses the sadness, fear, confusion and mental state of ordinary people during the war. His works make me think in today's society or in this era.

The teaching here makes me clear why I want to do this project, which reminds me of Sigmund Freud's saying "in the mind, nothing is accidental", which gives me more directions to seek and explore, which should be more comprehensive to improve myself. The course here also gives us a lot of opportunities to explore a lot of questions that we still don't know why.

During the part2, I gradually cultivated my way of thinking. For example, in the Christmas project: Painting as Decoy, I left a lot of problems for myself. When painting was used as decoy, my idea was to observe the artwork in the peephole, with a 'voyeur' mentality and make sure to see clearly. The voice of knock on the door is the decoy, just as it is not necessarily the work itself that lures us to art, sometimes it may be the sound of it. My understanding of decoy, is instinct, fish will swim to the bait, people will be attracted to many things, knock on the door is no exception, but see the peephole is a painting? Then I used photoshop to make the effect. Maybe in the future, I would use video to record the process when different strangers saw the painting in peephole, and I would ask them about their ideas or feedback about this to improve my work.

In this course let me try to a lot of new methods and materials, such as projector, video, in the form of the idea I was the movie "Loving" Vincent, director with 66000 hand-painted oil paintings constitute the salute the classic film, this form, I think it is beyond the painting but again return to the painting itself, give me a lot of inspiration.

In one of the lectures in the course, I learned about Andy Denzler and Denis Sarazhin. He has both received training in traditional oil painting techniques, and then integrating more modern and dynamic elements and ideas into his works, which is what I am very interested in. I don't want to quit traditional painting, but I want to integrating modern and traditional, as well as my own culture. I was also influenced by the BBC documentary "Everything is a remix". With the change of times, I integrated elements from different fields and tried to create some interesting things. However, I still hope to return to the painting itself at the end to show it

In my opinion, William Somerset Maugham's The Moon And Sixpence is a book that makes me hold a very important attitude towards painting And pursue my career as an artist. I hope I can keep chasing the‘ moon’ without eyes.

I hope I can think about the starting point, the process and the result with more critical thinking in the future study, and enjoy the process and enjoy the mistakes. I think I was influenced by Keith Haring who said "Don't look too heavy on the results."

Bibilography

Lucian Freud

YouTube. 2013. Lucian Freud on his last day of painting - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_J6Aql3aRw. [Accessed 10 May 2018].

Egon Schiele

YouTube. 2017. Egon Schiele (EN) - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iDr2netauc. [Accessed 27 February 2018].

Sigmund Freud‘s《The Interpretation of Dreams》

Freud Museum London. 2015. The Interpretation of Dreams | Freud Museum London. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.freud.org.uk/learn/discover-psychoanalysis/the-interpretation-of-dreams/. [Accessed 28 February 2019].

Keith Haring

Dazed. 1989. The story of Keith Haring, as told through his iconic art work | Dazed. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/44781/1/keith-haring-tate-liverpool-new-york-art-scene-artist-radiant-baby. [Accessed 13 June 2018].

Alberto Giacometti

Tate. 2016. Antony Gormley on Alberto Giacometti – Interview | Tate. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/alberto-giacometti-1159/interview/antony-gormley-on-alberto-giacometti. [Accessed 15 July 2018].

William Somerset Maugham‘s《The Moon And Sixpence》

GeYao's Blog. 2018. 《The Moon and Sixpence》| GeYao's Blog. [ONLINE] Available at: http://geyao1995.com/The_Moon_And_Sixpence/. [Accessed 20 February 2018].

BBC《Everything is a remix》

YouTube. 2016. Everything is a Remix Remastered (2015 HD) - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJPERZDfyWc&list=PLDQ6BYd73QHxgeNJPX8yZRcp8wF_B_tph. [Accessed 10 May 2019].

Directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman《loving Vincent》

HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media. 2017. HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/loving-vincent-interview-with-directors-dorota_b_59c98cebe4b0b7022a646d19. [Accessed 09 February 2019].

Andy Denzler

Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art. 2008. WM | whitehot magazine of contemporary art | January 2008, Trevor Guthrie Interviewing Andy Denzler. [ONLINE] Available at: https://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/trevor-guthrie-interviewing-andy-denzler/1129. [Accessed 09 October 2019].

Denis Sarazhin

Tumblr. 2016. Tumblr. [ONLINE] Available at: https://idea-seed.tumblr.com/post/148787293300/idea-seed-interview-denis-sarazhin. [Accessed 09 January 2020].

Contextual Practice

Confirm copying