Artist Statement

For this project, we were required to create a collage inspired by the dada art movement which began in the first world war. Dada images focused mainly on the war, however really anything the artist wished to protest. They are typically satirical and abstract in nature.

My dada collage focuses on the most current global issue, the coronavirus. At first, I honestly had no idea what to do, and was getting no inspiration from flipping through magazines and newspapers. I finally found a black and white image of a women baking, and an idea started to form. To add a dramatic effect, I used some bright red and blue to emphasize parts of the collage. Although it is not very busy and only consists of a few simple images, a story and connection is evident. I started off with the woman baking, which I figured would work well with my aim in this collage, as she was doing both something quote ordinary and the image clearly showed her hands. I then printed out an image of a hand and glued it beside the first image. By adding another "real" thing, as the rest of the collage is various shapes and color, I connected the seemingly unrelated image by focusing again on hands. This hand connects to the words I glued on. Instead of writing out the whole thing, 'wash your hands', I chose to only write 'wash' and 'ur', making the viewer make the connection to the hand. To emphasize the washing bit, I cut out some blue paper and made it flow behind the other subjects. This made the piece less boring overall and tied the images back together again. Finally, to draw back to the issue of the coronavirus, I cut out some textured green paper in the shape of the virus and stuck it under the hand as if the hand was reaching for it. There is juxtaposition throughout my college, which do tell somewhat of a story. The first is a red stripe across the womens eyes. I felt like this was necessary to add as it draw your attention to her right away. It also balances out nicely with the red triangle around the hand. This symbolizes a similar meaning to the various traffic signs of the same shape and color, meaning as much as caution or alertness. To compliment the red and emphasize the washing part, I added a pretty blue as water. Lastly, the virus itself may not be green, however I felt it was another complimenting color, and as there was no other green on the page, it catches your eye.

Collage Reproduction

After completing our inspired collage, we were required to re-create it using a different medium. I chose to recreate my collage with acrylic paint because I figured the colors would be easier to match and hopefully come out more saturated than colored pencils, for instance. I started off by sketching an outline of the different elements of my collage, comparing it to the actual collage every few minutes. After I had a scale representation, I began mixing a few shades of gray, black, and white. I started off with the black and white image of a woman in a kitchen. I tried matching the colors the best I could, however I noticed that the image from my collage had a brown tint to it, which made it difficult to get the exact color. Overall I think I did a pretty good job with the background, however I noticed after that the door frame of my recreation is much darker than it should be. I had a hard time drawing the woman in the photo, for one because I'm not very good at drawing people, but also because I was really tired of painting detailed things in the monotone shades of black and white. For the blue 'water' in my collage, I had a difficult time once more matching the color. I added a bit of lighter blue in some places to match the texture of the image. For the germs, I originally cut out the leaves from trees, so recreting this texture was a bit challenging. I used a small paintbrush and painted a dark green base. Then, I dotted a bit randomly using a lighter green, to resemble the texture. I believe I could have probably made it a bit more yellow, because the image from my collage definitely shows more of a contrast in green shades. Next, I painted the hand, which doesn't look to good in my opinion. I just started off with a light gray base and then tried to add darker value. The letters were pretty easy to do, I simply used a white base and then a fine tipped paint brush to do the black lettering. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I probably could have done better, however I was pretty fed up with painting. The part I'm most proud of is in the top left corner of the image of the woman. I think I did a pretty good job making the curtains look realistic.