Evaluation of Component 1

For my personal investigation I intended on unravelling the mind of a Kafkaesque individual - an example of this type of person would be where someone gets consumed so much by becoming wealthy, that they end up not being able to enjoy their success and have no time to relax. This term evolves from Franz Kafka's writings in which he explores many characters that are similar to this example. A Kafkaesque mind upholds connotations of hopelessness and being oppressed, thus leading me to delve into the common disorder of depression. I wanted to portray the emotion and feelings surrounding these two ideas which find themselves intertwining due to their meaning. I have explored abstract expressionism to do this as this genre is soaked in emotive artwork. I began by experimenting with making marks after being inspired by Mark Tobey's work to reflect my response to this supressed mind set. I quickly learnt that using charcoal best exposes a dark mood as it is very malleable - being smudged, rubbed out and used on different edges to provide an array of different marks. As this medium is tonal, it rids of any joyous mood that could be present, as if there was to be colour and instead it smothers the surface in an enigmatic mood. The copious amounts on tonal representation within these developments allowed for a deep, aphotic mood of the individual to be divulged. To thicken this mood, I sought inspiration from Chila Burman - an artist that uses to collage - and began to use a multitude of surfaces like newspaper, Tyvek and photographs, whilst examining ways in which best to convey my concept. I discovered that newspaper condenses my theme of portraying a depressed mind as it adds more tonal variation, due to it being monochrome in nature. Newspaper also assists in adding context to my work as it parades how depression stems from events that have happened in an individual's life. Additionally, I discovered that when Tyvek is heated that it condenses into small bubbly textures which stiffen and contrive an overall rigid texture. This intense texture allows for a locked, negative mind set to be exhibited, as well as portraying the rough experiences had whilst suffering with Kafkaesque/depression.
I hit a rut in analysing a depressive mind in this way and so looked at taking an opposite approach and perspective. I stumbled across Helen Frankenthaler's artwork which flourishes with lucid, transparent colours, inspired my nature. The nature of these colours lead me to look at how a depressed individual uses techniques to escape their disorder. Frankenthaler introduced me to a new technique called soak-stain in which watered-down acrylic is poured onto a surface and manipulated with any sufficient item - in my case, string. After experimenting in my sketchbook, I worked onto acetate and learnt that this accentuates the lucid, free nature of the colour. This transparent appearance led me to explore how people uphold facades as a coping mechanism of dealing with depression and so I have used these developments to portray this idea.
For my final piece I wanted to create an environment in which the viewer finds themselves trapped within a depressed mind and so I researched installation artists that would help represent this idea. Creating an installation means that the viewer can place themselves inside my final outcome and experience the emotion that the disorder entails. Throughout planning and construction of my mock final piece I hit many obstacles, for example, my outcome not reflecting a finalised conclusion of my body of work. In my final piece I formed a triangular structure in which I attached Tyvek that I had worked into with charcoal and newspaper on the inside, and black acrylic paint on the outside. Following this, I heated the Tyvek with the heat gun and also burnt holes into it so that I could place my colourful acetate refinements behind them which represent façade. After applying the acetate I heated them from the outside so that the outer part of the installation looks distressed. Furthermore, I glued black thread on the outside to emphasise the erratic, irrational thought pattern of the individual. The structure of the installation is narrow and so encloses the viewer within the mind set of the individual, only allowing them to see through the façade. I believe that my final outcome is successful in reflecting my concept, however if I was to do this again I would change aspects of it. For example, I would make an installation piece that is a lot larger so that the impact of the artwork is more dramatic, perhaps using a structure of a building to enclose the viewer rather than forming a structure myself. I would do this so that the scale of the installation portrays how overwhelming depression is, as I don't think that my outcome quite captures this due to its small size.

Photographs of my final outcome: