Guerra de la Paz – Follow the Leader

This piece was made from second hand clothes which is effective as these clothes carry history from past eras and the existence of humans who lived through those eras, bringing the piece to life. It is made to look like there are a line of people following one another, hence the title. It seems to be a commentary perhaps about humans tendencies to follow trends particularly in fashion. The colours are bright and bold which are eye catching and pleasing to the viewer which make a great impact in a plain white gallery space.

I am also inspired by Cuban artists and duo Guerra de la Paz (Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz). They make complex sculptures out of materials and find inspiration in “the familiarity of the ready-made”. They started out by sourcing their materials from the waste bins of second-hand goods shipping companies in Miami, they have a great interest in recycled goods and turning them into something beautiful. They work with the fabric appropriately, manipulating the fabrics stiffness/looseness to create beautiful draped pieces that dangle delicately to more structures geometric pieces. Their work is also mostly bright and colourful, it is eye catching and makes a big statement as the pieces also tend to be quite big and create quite a presence that can’t be ignored by the viewer.

https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/guerra_paz.htm

Guerra de la Paz

Sophie Cave – Floating Heads

I am inspired by Sophie Cave’s ‘The Floating Heads’ installation at the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow. I like how her work is very creepy, almost as if you are being watched or in a room full of strangers, making you feel a sense of anxiety as you are surrounded.

Cave created over 50 of the heads, each displaying different emotions including laughter and sadness. The heads are all white, but lighting is used effectively so that their expressions are accentuated with different colours like blue, warm orange, pink etc. which shows that she is aware of colour theory to match her ‘heads’ expressions as well which makes this more effective and interesting.

Plan

Instead of obvious expressions like on Cave’s work, I plan on making a similar installation but instead with different coloured fabric faces to represent the emotions instead of outright expressions. This will make my work look more haunting but also more personal as I love my work to be colourful. I will try and use material in an effective way like Guerra de la Paz do, folding and sewing so that the material can hang and look interesting to the viewer. I want to use lighting effectively like Cave has done to accentuate my faces and perhaps cast some creepy shadows.

I want to use colour theory in my pieces to show the range of emotions that we have represented through colours. This adds another dimension to my work which is more complex and thought out.

https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/emotion-wheel/

I’m very interested in the way that material can hang and plan on suspending my ‘faces’ from the ceiling; experimenting with light and shadow. My ‘faces’ will not look realistic as I find it interesting that we humans are able to see faces in many things so even though my ‘faces’ will only have slits for eyes, mouth, nose etc. they will still be recognised as faces.