Jorge Aldrich Bechara

Japanese Architecture

For this exhibition, I decided to focus on architecture as making works that focused mainly on buildings and had large amounts of architectural techniques. I chose this topic as I am looking to be an architecture student and practicing common techniques within architecture will help me for my future goals. Moreover, I planned to explore as many techniques as possible to make sure and add variation to my exhibition and also so I myself can test each technique and see which I prefer and can use well. Some artists that influenced me are Rob Wilson with his intricate watercolor techniques and Andy Burgess, Kyle Henderson, and Luna Prysiazhniuk who each use different techniques within their works. This combination of different ideas and media allowed me to make an intricate and diverse art exhibition.  

The artworks that I selected for this exhibition focus mainly on the architecture within Japanese society and this exhibition can serve as an insight into the main aspects of Japanese architecture. The exhibition has multiple media such as watercolor, graphite, acrylic, and ceramic which all serve to diversify the exhibition. The main media within this exhibition is watercolor as I found I really enjoyed using watercolor and was able to create good works with watercolor for the exhibition. Moreover, watercolor is a very common and traditional media within Japan as it allows the user to easily show bright colors within their paintings and it works well for landscapes. Hence I chose to have four watercolor paintings within this exhibition to showcase that media. However, I did not only want to focus on Japanese architecture so I made works that focus on areas outside of Japan in order to show the contrast between Japanese architecture and European architecture. 

For the arrangement of the works, I placed them so that they would go from right to left as the Japanese read from right to left. I placed a banner which says Japanese Architecture in Japanese and separated the exhibition into two parts. The first part I linked five pieces directly as the featured artworks which I called Japan from five perspectives, as it shows three different locations within Japan and two homes from a one-point perspective, two-point perspective, three-point perspective, and two three-dimensional works. Each of these works has its own respective medium and it is intended to show Japanese architecture in different parts of Japan through different mediums and techniques. The rest of the works are watercolor paintings which have one work based in Japan and the rest are from Europe to not only focus on Japan but expand the reach of the exhibition. This separation into two groups helps the viewer understand the message behind the works and it also helps them by dividing it into understandable portions instead of simply showcasing the works. Moreover, it allows the viewer to experience each perspective and its respective medium and then move on to the watercolor works which have a consistent construction of color which gives the exhibition seem more connected.

Furthermore, in order to have the exhibition be as intriguing to the viewer as possible, I wanted the five main works to serve almost as a journey through Japan. This is because the artworks begin with the one-point perspective which only gives information about a small part of japan and with each work the perspective increases and the viewer receives more information. This allows them to piece together the current drawing with the previous ones and develop their knowledge of architecture within Japan. Hence the space was used in a way that intends to guide the viewer through each of the artworks in a designated order so once they finish viewing the exhibition they would have acquired a substantial understanding of architecture within Japan.