Surrealism Collage

Artist Statement

This is a piece of a man with an arrow through his head and a stunned look on his hollow face. I used Acorn to create my reference (which I hated with pretty much everything in me) and I then sketched and painted it with acrylic paint. I had had the idea for this piece for an independant project originally, but then I thought it would be appropriate for this assignment.

The compositional rules I used were color and texture. I used color because I had a very specific idea of what I wanted this pice to look like, and therefore the colors had to be very vivid and creepy. Also texture was used because I made some areas look smooth, such as the skin on the chest of the character, but then I made it rough in some areas, like the blood-spattered areas of the head. It evolved because at first I planned to have an apple on the side of the arrow, like maybe it had aimed at it, but then also hit the head, but I decided against adding one because I realized that I would have to make the person much smaller the have room for that or cut it out all together, and i didn't want to make the person smaller.

The meaning behind this work is inspired by the story of William Tell. I took the tale, where the man is forced to shoot an arrow at his son's head to prove that he is a good archer, and I made it so he ended up hitting the child. It relates to my life because it is a creepier style of work, and thats to work I like to do best. I prefer scary, slightly eery art than happy landscapes or something, so I enjoyed planning out this piece, and am much happier with the concept of it than I am with most of the work we've done this year. If I could change one thing, I would shade better and with more depth. I am not very familiar with painting, and I don't have any knowledge on how to shade with paint or anything, so i ended up dry-brushing most of the shading, which isn't really the look I was hoping for originally.