Appropriation: Final Images

I realise I didn't show my final work I produced for my Appropriation Project that I really enjoyed and wanted to share 3 as I found it a very exciting project. 

The concept of my work is to express myself through my images, approaching the subject of religion from a feminist point of view. I want my images to be successful in context, aesthetics and my own judgment on these subjects (religion and feminism).  
To create my images, I used the medium of digital editing, through Photoshop. I chose this particular method as I am very confident and skilled at working with Photoshop, and for what I wanted to create, I felt there was no other method that would have furthered or enhanced my images.

Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger is a conceptual artist that addresses cultural constructions of power, identity, and sexuality. Her works that question the roles of women in society are what inspire me most of all, especially for my project. Her use of text and relation to the imagery is a quality I’d like my own works to include. I think this relationship is a very difficult one to get right, but when it is can be very powerful. Her clever use of text overlapping he imagery to further her point is incredibly inventive. 

Guerrilla Girls

Guerrilla Girls are an anonymous group of feminist, female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world. They hide their identities with gorilla masks as they believe that their identities aren't important, more their work is important. 

Here are some previous posts on this project showing more of my inspirations for this project:

Julien Pacaud
Victoria Van Dyke
Hannah Hoch, Marcel Duchamp, John Heartfield 

Appropriation: Victoria Van Dyke

Her work focuses on ideas of cannibalism, snakes, guns, religion, sexuality and censorship. During 2006 Van Dyke started creating digital collages using vintage erotica, old postcards, pornography, photos of guns, flags, etc to create a new series called "Guns, Sex and Jesus".

I’m very interested in her religious centered work. What I found with this image titled ‘Virgin Mary, is the interesting use of placement and imagery. The naked woman being ‘watched’ by a male as she is holding onto the plant, seeming to look as if she were on a platform is very interesting. I immediately interpreted this as a symbol for pole dancers/strippers. Which I found fascinating considering the piece is tiled ‘Virgin Mary’. I think the arrangement of the pattern of crosses is very symbolic, very much reminding me of the British Flag and referencing Christianity and how it is the religion of this country. Or maybe Victoria wanted the viewers to question this particular religion. 

Appropriation: Julien Pacaud

What I love about Julien Pacaud’s work is his use of scale, textures and the surreal dream-like quality his work holds. I am a lover of vintage/retro styling, and so I was instantly captivated by his work. His images come from various areas of old-time movies and television. I feel like this gives the images the cinematic, photographic ambiance that draws in attention. Even though these images have an appealing aesthetic about them, I personally think they have some kind of denotation behind them all. Whether it be political, social or personal.

This image for instance reminds me of some sort of anxiety, such as a personal fear or nightmare. The figures represent to emotion being felt in this situation. On the other hand, it could be an expression of the fish as it is titled ‘Aquarium’. I think the use of human figures is well done in showing human emotion to express the feelings the fish have, being stuck in a glass cage

Appropriation

My next project is based on the title of Appropriation. Appropriation art is the use of pre-existing objects or images with little or no transformation applied to them. To begin my project, I began to research different areas of Appropriation art and found what other artists class as Appropriation. I found a lot of collage pieces, such as Hannah Hoch, and very subtle Appropriation such as Marcel Duchamp. Collage varied from being slightly changed from the original, to using bits and pieces from other to create a completely new work of art. Then some works were as simple as putting a mustache on the Mona Lisa, or printing someone else’s work in a new order. 

Hannah Hoch 

Marcel Duchamp

John Heartfield

Related posts to this project
Julien Pacaud
Victoria Van Dyke 
Final Images