Self PortraitAcrylic paint an canvas
3ft x 3ft March 2020 ExhibitionInspired by Chuck Close's grid method and Madame X by Sargent, my self portrait explores Identities and relationships. I wanted to take the idea of the Madame X scandal and apply it to my experience of to the reproachful looks I receive when wearing shorts. This piece explores part of my personal identity and how it relates to popular culture.
|
Inspiration
Title: Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau)
Artist: John Singer Sargent (American, Florence 1856–1925 London) Date:1883–84 Culture: American Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions:82 1/8 x 43 1/4in. (208.6 x 109.9cm) Framed: 95 3/4 x 56 5/8 x 5 in. (243.2 x 143.8 x 12.7 cm) |
Chuck Close, self-portrait, 2000.
|
Photo by MTA Arts & Design / Rob Wilson. Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York.
|
Madame X: When created, Madame X was a scandal. Sargent created Madame X with the purpose of trying demonstrate "money is sexy". But since clothing is highly valued in artwork, it wasn't well received. I wanted to apply this ideal in my portrait. In my personal experience, being tall limits your greatly limits your clothing choice. On the rare occasion where I would wear outfits on the shorter side, it would receive distasteful looks. In an attempt to defeat any stigmatism against tall people wearing short clothes, I depicted myself in a pair of length deficient spandex shorts.
Chuck Close: Chuck Close excelled in realistic art until tragedy struck, changing his art style. His use of the grid method allowed him to still create realistic looking artwork with a fun twist. Chuck Close's grid method is one of my favorite ways to create art. It allows one to have well proportioned, well spatially placed shapes without going through guess work. In his later works, he uses shapes of different colors instead of his more finer detailed images. This inspired me to have a cartoon look in my self portrait to mimic the colorful shapes.
Chuck Close: Chuck Close excelled in realistic art until tragedy struck, changing his art style. His use of the grid method allowed him to still create realistic looking artwork with a fun twist. Chuck Close's grid method is one of my favorite ways to create art. It allows one to have well proportioned, well spatially placed shapes without going through guess work. In his later works, he uses shapes of different colors instead of his more finer detailed images. This inspired me to have a cartoon look in my self portrait to mimic the colorful shapes.
Planning
when making this piece, I struggled with how to represent myself. It took multiple discussions with my teacher and hours look through my art history sketch book until I came across Madame X. I remembered the scandal and wanted to have fun recreating it in my piece. Then I struggled with choosing an outfit for the portrait. At first, I was thinking of wearing a dress with heals since the extra height would have emphasized the now short dress on my character. But after careful consideration, I decided to portray the article of clothing that most people dislike, my shorts. Afterwards I wanted to see how I would fit in the boundaries of my portrait. As expected, my body was cut from being completely in the frame. Since the focus were more on my outfit and face rather than legs, I decided to cut out my feet from the frame. The First drawing I have shows how my shorts and legs would look with the shapes. The second drawing shows how I would be portrayed without the feet. The Last drawing is a quick sketch to see how the drawing would appear with the grid method.
|
Process
First I had to make the canvas for the painting. I did this by connecting 4 3ft beams together. Afterwards, I cut a rather large piece of unfitted canvas to stretch over the frame.
|
I started by stapling the top down so the canvas wouldn't slip. I ten stretched it to the opposite side with some slack as to account for the gesso later. I proceeded to do the same with the sides.
|
After gessoing the canvas, I started posing for a reference photo. I decided to pull down the shorts in the photo to better depict the shorts as the "issue" in the portrait.
|
I proceeded to apply a 16 by 16 grid over the reference photo to mimic it on the canvas. After doing so, I traced in the basic shapes of the reference photo to account for colorful shapes.
|
Then I proceeded to paint a bases coat of the more widely used colors. I also created a skin tone using white, yellow, red, and blue paint. I normally use brown but I did not have access to it.
|
After applying the base coat, I added in the colorful shapes by hand, and the pineapples by a stencil. Then I cleaned up any edges and stray paint dots to finalize the piece.
|
Compare and Contrast
Similarities:
Madame X:
Chuck Close:
|
Differences:
Madame x:
Chuck Close:
|
ACT Response
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
- My inspiration is shown in my work through mimic of technique, color, and pose of the model.
- My overall approach in my process regarding my inspirations were more thematic and technique based than art principles based.
- I have had to make generalizations of societies view of how shorts are viewed on a tall person when creating this piece.
- The central idea around my painting is identities and relationships.
- I inferred That while many art movements progressed styles of art, the portrayal of clothes remained stagnant.
Bibliography
Jones, J. (2006, February 01). Why did Sargent's Madame X scandalise Paris society? Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2006/feb/01/3
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020). Chuck Close. Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chuck-Close
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2020). Chuck Close. Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chuck-Close