23 March, 2009

etsy:
“Rooted” by Jen McCleary, etsy seller JenMcCleary

This is a print of a digital collage by Jen McCleary. Stylistically, it is an abstract landscape. The visual cues of color planes in the work suggest the dichotomy of a ground (the green portion at the bottom) and a sky (the bluish-white portion at the top). Those two primary planes of color juxtaposed with the electrical tower, organic objects, and the suggested visual of sedentary rock or brick further the indication of a landscape. The electrical tower, brick / rock, and organic matter are all things naturally found outside. That the electrical tower and the shape created by the rock / brick are the darkest components of the piece. In that they contrast against the other visual elements and present in such a linear fashion, they work to direct the eye of the viewer to the point of the composition on which they intersect. The organic matter is what exists at that point; where the electrical tower permeates the ground, as though it were a cross-section, and morphs into organic matter which moves through the rock / brick. An apt visual, in that the title of the work is “Rooted.”
available at:
JenMcCleary: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=95241

song:
“The Hissing of Summer Lawns” by Joni Mitchell, from the album “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”

artist: Raoul Hausmann
Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) born in Vienna, Austria, was a founding member of the Berlin Dada movement. He was a poet, painter, photomonteur, pampleteer, and partner to fellow Dada artist Hannah Hoch. He claims to have invented photomontage, and is possibly best known for his ‘poster poems.’ Examples of such being: “ABCD” (collage, 1923-4) and “The Art Critc” ( photomontage, 1919-20)
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16 February 2009

etsy:
“calla lilies & tree swallows” by Sarah Knight, etsy seller sarahkdesigns

This piece is a print of a digital collage. The composition consists of a combination of birds, flowers, trees, and a background which varies in color to suggest the elements of sky and ground. The composition is an abstract landscape. It is a landscape based on the use of it’s canonical images: flowers, trees, ground, sky. However, it is abstract in it’s presentation. It is a collage, and it’s trees are not of the same media and therefore visual presentation as either the birds, the flowers, or the sky and ground. The separate parts retain their separate identities as things and as parts created in a medium. And yet the image is cohesive. The image also has an active composition based on the juxtaposition of its separate parts. The composition of the image is primarily dictated by the trees, they are the visual element that contrasts dominantly against everything else in the image in terms of color contrast and in terms of linear structure. But they are not rendered to create a single focal point; nor are they juxtaposed with any of the other visual elements for the creation of a single focal point. They meander throughout the composition, and therefore create activity throughout the composition. Where as the birds are all present in the top half of the image and the flowers are all present in the bottom half of the image; this dictates a traditional landscape totem. In both cases, the tree swallows and calla lilies are present horizontally across the entire plane of the image; in other words they are active across the entire scope of the composition. The plane of varying colors that represents the background also varies in a from top to bottom. The color differentiates between reds and purples, to a light pink which blends into a sage green; lending the impression of a dawn or dusk sky over a green ground. This vertical compositional technique works in concert with the birds and flowers, from a point of color contrast and variance in shade: the top half of the picture is darker and more saturated in color than the bottom half of the picture.
available at:
sarahkdesigns: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5531130

song:
“It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)” by the Rolling Stones from the album It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

artist: Hannah Höch
Johanne Höch (November 1, 1889 – May 31, 1978) was a German artist, best known as a Dadaist for her works of collage. She studied at the College of Arts and Crafts in Berlin. For a brief period she worked for Ullstein Verlang. She joined the Berlin Dada movement in 1919 through her relationship with Rauol Hausmann. Höch was known to be bisexual and a feminist, the latter of which was often expressed in her photo collages, for which she is best known. But as a Dadaist she was not simply a feminist, she was an iconoclast opposed to propaganda of all scales; from Nazism to advertising campaigns targeted at women. She is probably best known for her work “Cut With the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany.”

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