Theme: Gender

Frida Kahlo 

Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist born in 1907, known for her defiant attitude towards social norms. Kahlo painted her reality, she represented both femininity and masculinity in her self portraits, she depicted herself, her gender not constrained by the bounds of society. ‘Self portrait with cropped hair’ symbolizes Kahlo’s independence from her ex-husband and her sense of self. Frida is seen in a suit and cut hair representing her cut ties from her husband and how she is disconnected from gender roles, her gender is her own, her identity is her own and can not be dictated by society. 

Frida Kahlo, self portrait with cropped hair, 1940

References

https://www.ripostemagazine.com/frida-kahlo_1 

https://ruthmillington.co.uk/gender-in-art-history/ 

https://www.soundoflife.com/blogs/people/how-frida-kahlo-broke-all-conventions-and-shaped-feminism#:~:text=Frida%20Kahlo%20was%20a%20woman,become%20valuable%20inspiration%20for%20many. 

Eadweard Muybridge 

Eadweard Muybridge was a photographer who studied the motion of humans and animals. Muybridge’s work is said to be an innovation in photography and the science of movement. His innovation led to the development of cinema. Muybridge’s image projection movies were the first of its kind. This animal locomotion is The galloping horse. To be able to capture the individual frames of the action, Muybridge Created wooden mechanical shutters, rubber springs and a trigger able to snap within one-thousand of a second. His images proved that a horse galloping lifted all legs of the ground at one point. 

Eadweard Muybridge, The galloping horse, 1878

References

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/new-way-thinking-about-motion-movement-eadweard-muybridge

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/570646/animated-gif-forefather-eadweard-muybridge 

https://artsandculture.google.com/story/muybridge-s-pioneering-motion-pictures-kingston-museum/FQXx3gfsddhTLg?hl=en-GB 

Francesca Bernardini  

Francesca Bernardini is an Italian sculpture. She began creating the series nest, cocoons and Crysalis in 2000, the sculptures in this series are enclosed forms that ‘evoke protected and intimate places’. The series represents the home and family and protective envelopes that represent safety and protection. This series was born for Bernardini’s desire to protect her family and home. The sculpture ‘Safe place’ is smooth with a rounded form which reflects the safe place she envisions, Bernardini summarises her work in the following quote “my work emphasises particular details and distorts dimensions, my forms becoming containers of past life or of inner or emotional metamorphoses.”

Francesca Bernardi, Safe Place, 2019

References

https://artistics.com/en/safe-place

Theme: Aesthetics

Richard Hambleton  

Aesthetics is the appreciation of beauty and taste. Richard Hambleton is street artist said to pioneer New York’s downtown art. His series ‘Shadowmen’ displays the concept aesthetic. This collection uses the same main technique throughout and presents to us the same subject, the shadow of a man. The paintings are messy as he uses paint splatters to create movement and a signature element, the paintings are predominantly black and white with a singular colour occasionally present, the repetition of all these techniques and elements create an aesthetic throughout the collection. It is dark, bleak, mysterious and even threatening, this atmosphere is carried through every single one of his paintings in this collection. He has a background in street art with some of his earlier works replicating crime scenes and the chalk outlines, I found it very interesting how his roots and initial interests in art are still present in his most famous works.

Richard Hambleton, Shadow man, 1982-1984

References

https://www.castlefineart.com/blog/shop-the-richard-hambleton-shadowman-limited-edition-collection

https://www.artsy.net/artist/richard-hambleton

https://hypebeast.com/2016/11/woodbury-house-dark-circle-richard-hambleton-capsule-collection 

Theme: Identity

Michael Reeders

Michael Reeders is a mural artist based in Los Angeles. His work represents the concept of identity- his work prompts the viewer to question their sense of self, It is clear he wishes to make his viewers debate the themes of being ‘lost’ and being an ‘outsider’. He combines his techniques, thoughts and ideals in his art to achieve this. The resulting artwork is this modern surrealist artwork with a graphic quality because of his choice of colour palette, normally being bright vibrant colours, similar to pop art. ‘Primal Chant’ combines graffiti, fine art and graphic design techniques. It displays the bright colour palette and the influence of pop art seen in the repeating patterns. This artwork calls out to the loss of identity and mortality of human beings, Reeders combines a graphic style background and realism to emphasise his message.

Michael Reeders, Primal Chant, 2018

References

https://www.forbes.com/sites/felicitycarter/2018/08/14/artist-michael-reeder-explores-identity-and-sense-of-self/?sh=387a0b475903

[Accessed date 14 February 2023]

https://artvee.com/dl/primal-chant/

[Accessed date 14 February 2023]

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