Chaos in Interpretation, and a reflection on the semester

Visual Analysis of Final Art Project -


My art project, which I have named "Chaos in Interpretation", is an artistic response to Mark Rothko and his color field paintings.
The two visual elements that I feel most contribute to my piece are Composition and Technique. In terms of composition, there is an asymmetrical composition, with an eye path that starts from the center and moves in a counter-clockwise rotation. The piece is composed of painted circles of varying sizes put onto a larger backdrop of ink. In terms of technique, in order to make the center circle I first painted a color field in the style of Rothko (although much smaller than he would usually paint) and then cut it into a circular form. Afterwards, I cut more asymmetrical circles and on each put one of the colors used to create the original circle, all of this glued to a backdrop of ink on paper. The ink was applied by mixing ink with water and pouring it onto the paper, then using a bamboo brush to move the ink around before tilting the paper back and forth to spread it haphazardly.
I wanted my piece to be representative of how Rothko felt about people trying to define him and his paintings, and how he believed something was lost when people appreciated a painting not for its own sake, but as a monetary investment. The center painting, done in the style of Rothko's color fields, is cut from its original rectangular shape into a circle, and the other circles of the component colors represent critics attempt to analyze his work and find meaning. It represents the meaning that gets lost when people try to take something apart. When viewed outside of the painting as a whole, the colors take on a different shade even though the same paint was used, because when they aren't viewed in context you can't see how they blend, and when viewed alone they look different. Also, the technique I used in creating the piece, the asymmetrical orientation of the smaller paintings on the larger backdrop, helps to show disorganization and chaos, which is representative of the lost meaning when people try to assign meaning to an art piece out of context.



Reflection on the semester
I had a lot of fun in this class, and the one thing that I think I can most use from this class is my new knowledge of ink and its various uses. Ink is my new favorite medium for art, specifically splattering ink, I find it works well with my disorganized art style. The only thing I would say could make the class better would be perhaps a chance to use more mediums. I had fun with acrylics and ink, but I would love to learn about more mediums.