exhibition text
This project is focused on representing the journey with my eating disorder and how much of an impact it has had on me and my identity. this piece is a still life made out of oil paintings on a 2' x 2' canvas inspired by Noah Verrier's still life more specifically his pb n j still life. In this piece i aim to utilize the strong brushstrokes that Noah Verier utilizes in his piece to identify the details of the still life. I wish to incorporate significance within my piece and make it personal. All the materials used for this piece were bought.
inspiration
Noah Verrier is known for his still life oil paintings. more specifically his still life's of food. He is able to combine a traditional and older style with a modern concept of food to depict the smallest details onto the canvas with intricate brushstrokes. The piece I was inspired by more specifically was his still life of a Pb n j. I appreciated the way in which he is able to apply his brushstrokes onto the canvas to reveal the smallest detail of the image he wishes to depict, I also really appreciate the way in which he is able to capture the movement of the piece through the jelly and peanut butter. You are also able to identify where the sense of light is coming from which allows for him to include more detail onto the piece as certain parts of the objects are able to be highlighted more clearly onto the canvas through the definition of light onto these objects. the way in which he maintains the rest of the piece clean is also able to emphasize the significance of the work he is focused on. by keeping the background dark and clean he is contradicting it from the focus of the work and therefore highlighting the significance of the objects. He then offers a very unique image regardless of how common his subjects might be through the way in which he highlights his work with his techniques.
planning
To give a brief background, I struggled with orthorexia which is essentially the obsession over a healthy lifestyle, and I would only consume a certain amount of calories every day, thus explaining the tittle of the piece, and I would have to "earn" those calories through exercising as well. there was not a single day for around 7 months in which I did not follow through those strict guides, and because of this I developed a strong obsession over being healthy because I felt motivated and I felt disciplined and overall content with how I was successful in what I was doing, I grew obsessed with the disciplined mind and the satisfaction I obtained from achieving these unhealthy goals every day to the point my entire mood and personality depended on how successful I was at achieving a healthy lifestyle. It started to impact my relationship with others and my mental health, it was all took up space in my mind and I was not happy with this life, then I began to seek for help, and seek for change. I began to recover from this eating disorder and I came to be pretty successful at it however because I had to distance myself from the discipline, I have come to the other extreme end of an unhealthy lifestyle where I am extremely lazy and do not care whatsoever for my health and well being and I am only focused on having fun essentially. I am still trying to find balance between both of these lifestyles where I can achieve my goals but not obsess over them and dread the failures, I want to look for a life where I can be happy while I strive for success.
One of the biggest fear foods I had where chips. It took me a long time before I could eat an entire bag of chips again. If I ever did have chips I would have to count them to make sure I did not exceed my calorie intake and the recommended amount and even then, the rest of my day would be ruined because I wasn't "healthy". Now I am able to thoroughly enjoy a bag of chips without any guilt which I think its a big achievement for me which is why I chose the bag of taxis to represent how far I have come. The protein bar is the only "snack" that I would allow myself to eat, and I loved it so much because it tasted so "normal" and I could enjoy it without growing afraid I was being unhealthy, so I wanted to show both ends of the lifestyles that I've grown to experience and how impactful they have been. |
To begin planning for this I knew I wanted focus on a personal struggle I hadn't spoken about before and this eating disorder has been so impactful and I haven't ever really spoken about it in depth with anybody other than myself so I wanted to depict this idea and experience through a subtle that would allow for people to view the work and wonder the underlying message behind it is because I believe in real life its often like this too where people can see someone else and assume something about them based on what they present but there's always an underlying message behind every person regardless of the exterior. When I was looking for inspiration to create my piece I knew I wanted something that was simple yet unique and would allow for others to begin to wonder basically. I think that the way Noah Verrier is able to highlight his still life through the significance that is placed onto because of the dark and moody background is something that I was very attracted to. He kind of creates the contrast between the moody and dark background to the modern and simple subjects that he depicts. I was focused on highlighting these objects from the background such as Noah Verrier does in his work. Knowing all of this I began to sketch out a plan for how the final piece would look.
process
to begin this piece i created a 2 ft by 2 ft canvas with the materials provided, i wanted this piece to be in a square canvas because it would be able to symbolize perfection as a square is all the same and strict. I kind of wanted to associate the characteristics of a square onto the idea of balance in my life. After completing this i took some reference images in which I had the light hit a side of the objects so I could be able to highlight their details. After taking various pictures and deciding upon one I had to proportionally make a grid that would correlate with the canvas. Before completing this however I had to edit out the background of the image making it only the subjects with a black background this way it would be easier to reciprocate the image onto the canvas since i wanted to have a blear background. I cropped the image to be a square and then went on to apply an 8 x 8 grid which would then make each square grid be 3 inches x 3 inches, which i then applied on the canvas. after applying the grid i began to sketch out the outline of the subjects onto the canvas, it was hard to really go in depth with the details because it would only be shown entirely once i began adding color so i just created more of an outline of where some shadows would lay and where some of the biggest shapes where placed. After this then i washed the canvas with a brown color since it highly resembled Noah Verriers style of color in his work for the ominous background.
once i had applied a grid on the canvas, had my reference image, and washed the canvas i began painting onto the canvas. I started off by painting the plate, however I wasn't really feeling confident with it since it was such a new texture I was experimenting with here, so I decide to jump on with the takis bag since it was the largest object and the most clear object with a pretty easy texture. I started from one corner of the bag and painted my way around it ending up in the middle with the Taki chips. I started by adding a base color and then went on to add shadows and finishing with highlights to form the texture, once I would do this I would go in to add more of the details such as the labels on the bag and such. I would repeat the same process for the rest of the objects in the piece, after finish the bag I kind of wanted to see how the background would look so skipped to painting some of the background with acrylic paint creating a gradient in the background from lighter shade to darker shade right to left such as Noah verier often doe sin his own work. I had to come up with around where the table would be for the plate since I was basing the background off my own knowledge and not off what actually was on the image since I wanted to reciprocate the style Noah terrier maintained in his work. After playing around with the background slightly I went on paint the protein bar which I first had some difficulty recreating but after some trial and error fixed up a bit. After I had been done with these main elements of the work I went on to paint the plate which was very new texture as well for me, I tried my best to just replicate what I would see on the image onto the canvas, and once finished I worked on the background of the piece completing this project.
experimentation
One of the things I found myself more unfamiliar with at the beginning of the process was washing the canvas with a background acrylic color. I wasn't sure what the ratio of water to paint was when mixing both to add the wash so I found it difficult to figure this out at first and I the first time I tried it, it was still too thick so I realized instead trying to add water to paint I would add paint to the water in which I found worked out better because the wash was enough to stain the canvas but not enough to cover the rough sketch I had. after doing this wash and as I started painting on the canvas I began to realize how important a wash was in order to add depth into the colors of the piece, which I found I would begin to do in future projects.
when taking my reference image I had to play around a lot with the position and lighting. I really wanted my piece to have strong highlights and shadows so I tried using natural lighting to be able to show all of the details of my objects while still being able to emphasize highlights and shadows. after taking a couple of pictures I found one that was clear enough to show all of the details of the objects and emphasized a lot of the highlights and shadows. I played around with the depth and saturation of this image so I could sharpen those details of the piece. After adequately editing the image I decided I wanted to edit out he background so that I could make sure it resembled more verniers style where ominous and has a clean background, I went to photo-pea and edited eh background out and made the image a square so it could be proportionate to the canvas once I added the grid.
I found it difficult to paint the protein bar, the reason being because it was much smaller compared to the takis bag and it had much more intricate details, so when trying to make it resemble the image I found it difficult because the brush sizes I had where not small enough to replicate the smallest details such as the highlights in the wrapper, which in the end made it appear almost stiff and it did not have as much movement as it could have had, I let it dry out and then I began to essentially start over with that portion of the piece because there was a lot of errors. I was able to find more movement and it was better than the previous but it still was not as good as it could have been.
Due to the fact that both the plate and the background were heavily emphasizing black and white colors, I found it at first really difficult to differentiate the plate from the background so that it wouldn't get lost and apart form that it was really hard to replicate this portion fo the piece with oil paints simply because there were much harder lines so sometimes the paint would get blended an distort the image I was trying to replicate. In order to fix this first I started by utilizing acrylic paints instead of the oils and then I took the background and simply made it all black so then I could be able to truly highlight the lighter portions of the plate which would get lost between the lighter portions of the background.
when taking my reference image I had to play around a lot with the position and lighting. I really wanted my piece to have strong highlights and shadows so I tried using natural lighting to be able to show all of the details of my objects while still being able to emphasize highlights and shadows. after taking a couple of pictures I found one that was clear enough to show all of the details of the objects and emphasized a lot of the highlights and shadows. I played around with the depth and saturation of this image so I could sharpen those details of the piece. After adequately editing the image I decided I wanted to edit out he background so that I could make sure it resembled more verniers style where ominous and has a clean background, I went to photo-pea and edited eh background out and made the image a square so it could be proportionate to the canvas once I added the grid.
I found it difficult to paint the protein bar, the reason being because it was much smaller compared to the takis bag and it had much more intricate details, so when trying to make it resemble the image I found it difficult because the brush sizes I had where not small enough to replicate the smallest details such as the highlights in the wrapper, which in the end made it appear almost stiff and it did not have as much movement as it could have had, I let it dry out and then I began to essentially start over with that portion of the piece because there was a lot of errors. I was able to find more movement and it was better than the previous but it still was not as good as it could have been.
Due to the fact that both the plate and the background were heavily emphasizing black and white colors, I found it at first really difficult to differentiate the plate from the background so that it wouldn't get lost and apart form that it was really hard to replicate this portion fo the piece with oil paints simply because there were much harder lines so sometimes the paint would get blended an distort the image I was trying to replicate. In order to fix this first I started by utilizing acrylic paints instead of the oils and then I took the background and simply made it all black so then I could be able to truly highlight the lighter portions of the plate which would get lost between the lighter portions of the background.
critique
similarities:
The major similarities between both pieces is the focus on the contrast between modern concepts with traditional artistic styles, along with the emphasis of detail in the objects through lighting. both pieces emphasize the shadows and highlights of the objects utilized. As seen in Verriers work the light is coming from the front which allows for the lighting to be evenly distributed throughout while still depicting some strong highlights coming from within such as the jelly's shine and the glass. In my own work there is natural lighting incorporated coming from the front as well of the work allowing fro the details of the piece to be modeled clearly while still depicting some of these strong highlight such as the foil of the bag and wrapper. the way in which the brushtrokes are placed in the canvas can also feel familiar between the two. As seen in verniers work his brushstroke style can be strong and consistent throughout the piece as he blends the colors just enough so that the individual details of the objects are not lost. IN my own piece this can be seen through the takes bag specifically as I was able to kind of incorporate his style into the work through the way in which I lay the colors beside each other on top of a layer of blended colors os that the stronger details can come through without looking too blocky. This was harder to replicate throughout the rest of the piece, such as the protein bar because it was much smaller compared to the takes bag making the thin highlights able to be portrayed as accurately as possible.
differences:
Although both pieces can share a similar concept of depicting food and modern styles, both pieces reflect on more specific concepts. For example verniers work heavily emphasizes the idea of traditional and modern style contrasting while my own work is more focused on emphasizing other concepts such as eating habits and lifestyles. I liked to add heavy symbolism into this piece making the objects heavily significant. Apart from the personal connection with the piece and heavy incorporation of symbolism, in terms of style both work can differentiate largely as well. Although I do try and replicate Verniers style into my own work we still differentiate. I am able to kind of replicate Verniers style into my work more into the Taki bag however I do not remain consistent with this and thus the rest of the piece does not replicate this entirely. the protein bar for example has larger brustrokes in areas which would require smaller and more detailed brustrokes, this was hard to do due to my lack of experience with the textures and style of the piece. I also utilized acrylic paint in the plate and background which is not something Verier does in his piece as he remains consistent with the medium, In verniers work he seems to utilize the background to create a gradient and idealize some form of light source while I maintain my piece plain, and although this was not originally planned it seemed to have worked out better for me. Apart from this I don't contrast the table to the background that much which makes the piece kind of lose an essence to it. And along with that verier donuts utilize anything specifically to place his object in ad just depicts hi still lives alone while I utilized a plate to present my objects.
The major similarities between both pieces is the focus on the contrast between modern concepts with traditional artistic styles, along with the emphasis of detail in the objects through lighting. both pieces emphasize the shadows and highlights of the objects utilized. As seen in Verriers work the light is coming from the front which allows for the lighting to be evenly distributed throughout while still depicting some strong highlights coming from within such as the jelly's shine and the glass. In my own work there is natural lighting incorporated coming from the front as well of the work allowing fro the details of the piece to be modeled clearly while still depicting some of these strong highlight such as the foil of the bag and wrapper. the way in which the brushtrokes are placed in the canvas can also feel familiar between the two. As seen in verniers work his brushstroke style can be strong and consistent throughout the piece as he blends the colors just enough so that the individual details of the objects are not lost. IN my own piece this can be seen through the takes bag specifically as I was able to kind of incorporate his style into the work through the way in which I lay the colors beside each other on top of a layer of blended colors os that the stronger details can come through without looking too blocky. This was harder to replicate throughout the rest of the piece, such as the protein bar because it was much smaller compared to the takes bag making the thin highlights able to be portrayed as accurately as possible.
differences:
Although both pieces can share a similar concept of depicting food and modern styles, both pieces reflect on more specific concepts. For example verniers work heavily emphasizes the idea of traditional and modern style contrasting while my own work is more focused on emphasizing other concepts such as eating habits and lifestyles. I liked to add heavy symbolism into this piece making the objects heavily significant. Apart from the personal connection with the piece and heavy incorporation of symbolism, in terms of style both work can differentiate largely as well. Although I do try and replicate Verniers style into my own work we still differentiate. I am able to kind of replicate Verniers style into my work more into the Taki bag however I do not remain consistent with this and thus the rest of the piece does not replicate this entirely. the protein bar for example has larger brustrokes in areas which would require smaller and more detailed brustrokes, this was hard to do due to my lack of experience with the textures and style of the piece. I also utilized acrylic paint in the plate and background which is not something Verier does in his piece as he remains consistent with the medium, In verniers work he seems to utilize the background to create a gradient and idealize some form of light source while I maintain my piece plain, and although this was not originally planned it seemed to have worked out better for me. Apart from this I don't contrast the table to the background that much which makes the piece kind of lose an essence to it. And along with that verier donuts utilize anything specifically to place his object in ad just depicts hi still lives alone while I utilized a plate to present my objects.
reflection
Overall I enjoyed the process of creating this piece. It was different than what I would normally do and I explored different textures which is what I aimed to do. I was also to reflect upon myself through this piece which was interesting to realize. There were definitely struggles which I came across with as I went though the process of making this piece however I think I was able to experiment with a lot of different textures and was able to practice utilizing different techniques to depict these textures. I think I was successful in certain aspects of th piece and I do think the I could have don enter in others. One for example is the plate which I think could have been more detailed, I did decide to use a very detailed plate which required a lot of shades of gray and I don't think I was able o replicate that easily especially because it looks such a large portion of the piece and it was so detailed, I think I became overwhelmed by the detail and just went on to draw an outline of where the detail could have been with acrylic paint. It wasn't necessarily the worst but it definitely lacked in various areas of the piece. Apart from that I think I could have differentiated the background with the table a lot better. I was trying to go for a dark look but at the end I kept loosing parts of the image not the canvas, and the shaped around the protein bar as well, because there was so much detail included and so many highlights and different colors and different texture I became overwhelmed and didn't know what I was doing anymore and at the end it wasn't as accurate as I wish it could have been however I also believe this has to do with the size of the image because it was such smaller than the takis bag which I replicated much better, I found I was much better at replicating certain textures form others. I was finding it easier to replicate colorful objects with different layers while replicating objects which were more limited to color and layers was more difficult. Overall I would say I proud of being able to complete this piece, I think there's more work to be done in oder to achieve a style such as verriers but for it being my first time I believe I did accomplish a better understanding of his style and technique along with a reflection of myself.
ACT questions
1)Clearly explain and describe how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
you are able to identify the cause-effect relationship between my inspiration and its effect upon my artwork through its contrast between a modern subject with a traditional choice of style along with intricate brushstrokes highlighting the details of its subjects
2)what is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration
there is not much that would allow for me to understand the point of view that Noah Verrier has on eating disorders, he is very known for his food paintings however these don't necessarily relate to eating habits and they are more focused on the contrast and connection between modernism and traditional styles.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration.
i have discovered that people express their struggles differently and that it is important to express these struggles in whatever way that it is in order to acknowledge these issues and therefore find solutions that can resolve the problems. a lot of people deal with the same issues and i think everyone has a unique story with those certain issues so essentially we could say that people who deal with the same issues become a community and every individual is unique from that community, so its important to express these emotions.
4)What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
the central idea was to connect with my personal struggles and reflect upon them more specifically the journey with my eating disorder and find balance in my lifestyle.
5)What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
i have come to conclusion as I reflected through this project that it is important acknowledge our issues and is important to reflect upon them and find solutions, often times we runaway from them and disregard their importance in fear of being wrong and having to seek for change because change is scary but in order for growth there must be change and nothing will be perfect neither the journey nor the final outcome will be perfect but its about continuing to grow day by day little by little in order to fully find a stable and happy life.
you are able to identify the cause-effect relationship between my inspiration and its effect upon my artwork through its contrast between a modern subject with a traditional choice of style along with intricate brushstrokes highlighting the details of its subjects
2)what is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration
there is not much that would allow for me to understand the point of view that Noah Verrier has on eating disorders, he is very known for his food paintings however these don't necessarily relate to eating habits and they are more focused on the contrast and connection between modernism and traditional styles.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration.
i have discovered that people express their struggles differently and that it is important to express these struggles in whatever way that it is in order to acknowledge these issues and therefore find solutions that can resolve the problems. a lot of people deal with the same issues and i think everyone has a unique story with those certain issues so essentially we could say that people who deal with the same issues become a community and every individual is unique from that community, so its important to express these emotions.
4)What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
the central idea was to connect with my personal struggles and reflect upon them more specifically the journey with my eating disorder and find balance in my lifestyle.
5)What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
i have come to conclusion as I reflected through this project that it is important acknowledge our issues and is important to reflect upon them and find solutions, often times we runaway from them and disregard their importance in fear of being wrong and having to seek for change because change is scary but in order for growth there must be change and nothing will be perfect neither the journey nor the final outcome will be perfect but its about continuing to grow day by day little by little in order to fully find a stable and happy life.
bibliography
Verrier, Noah. “Noah Verrier MFA - Artist.” Noah Verrier MFA - Artist, https://www.noahverrier.com/.