Grade 12 - 2011 Estelle

 I have taken a long time to work out what I am interested in. I was at first interested in the visual qualities of extraordinary perspective looked at from below. An inspirational artist was Kozyndan.  Kozyndan’s illustration shows a different way to view a painting.  He uses a rich mix of illustration with objects and interesting images in it that may be viewed from a number of angles. I realized that it was the illustrative qualities of imagery of all kinds focusing on small areas of them and getting lost.  That is how I respond to artworks. Organic lines and Japanese designs, batik and Indian patterns, delicate laces and typography. All of them draw me in. One of my favorite typographers is Marc Johns. March Johns does drawings with words that sometimes have no relation to the drawing. This interests me because I like figuring out why he put those words and mix it with the images.  The presence of a human being is usually visible, through the body or gestures.  I am more interested in the lingering presence of a human, and the impression, or marks they leave behind, such as fingerprints and lip prints left on glasses. I wonder about the people who left them.  The idea of presence has been looked at by artists that are relevant to my theme, such as the Indonesian Artist Sunaryo. The media I have chosen to use are acrylics, and oils. Through painting macro images of patterns and impressions I love, such as batik and fingerprints, and up scaling the images into larger works I hope to draw people into what I feel. The original lines and colors were produced by the hand of a person at some time and because of their tiny size forgotten or not even noticed. To me they represent so much.