1.2 Art

 In art, we have been working on our portfolios. My Kaupapa is about Filipino Culture but it is mostly focused on the folk tale story of the Bakunawa(A sea serpent). 

 I have finished working on my first board and am now working on my second board which is almost done. 

I chose this theme because I wanted to do something with my culture and its traditions. Choosing this theme also made me research and learn more about the Philipines, like the use of the old writing system Baybayin, which was what the characters of our alphabet looked like before the Philippines was colonized. 

My artist models are Robyn Kahukiwa and several ukiyo-e artists like Hokusai. 

This first still life is a drawing of my brother's water bottle. I sketched this with a normal lead pencil in our living room in the afternoon. 

The second still life sketch is a Pop figure of the 

Pixar character Alberto, who is a sea monster. I drew him with a normal lead pencil in my room beside my window where there was light seeping through.  

This last still life is drawn using charcoal which was referenced from an image online. I have to admit that charcoal was a medium I have never used before so this was an experience but it was fun to work with. I liked how easy you can blend with it. ( this has nothing to do with my kaupapa but I thought I should put this here too) 

Reference

This is my first board. Which consists of different media. Painting, Digital art, and printmaking(the moons in the last panel). The whole thing about this board is about the Bakunawa eating the moons. I tried not to add too many details and keep everything flat to replicate the ukiyo-e style. 

Plan for Panel 2

 

AS 90913 v4 internal assessment 4 credits - Literacy blog post 5

 What connections can you make between the two Artists Kaupapa and the use of text and image?

Tracey Tawhiao and Robyn Kahukiwa have similar kaupapa as they both are Maori so they represent their culture in their artwork. They use text and images to further enhance and send a clearer message by adding words to images. Since Maori culture isn't represented so well in the media, these artists represent their culture

Robyn Kahukiwa's artworks are more focused on the past and mostly focusing on feminism while Tracey Tawhiao's artworks are focused on the present and use subversion to show how the media treats Maori and Pacifica, people.

An example of Robyn Kahukiwas artwork. Here she has painted 6 women and used a very monotoned colour palette with greens, yellows and reds.

This is Tracey Tawhiaos artwork where she uses different tones of red and used a lot of grids with symbols: fishes, korus, triangles and diamonds.

Robyn Kahukiwa AS 90913 v4 internal assessment Blog 4

Barbara Kruger 

https://www.nga.gov/education/teachers/lessons-activities/modern-art/text-art.html

 

Barbara Kruger made her own art in 1969 while writing poetry, film and television reviews. Later, she had developed her "picture practice" with photographs repurposed from vintage manuals and magazines, which she had overlaid with her own texts or commonplace phrases. 

She places her statements and questions over the images to confront the idea of representation. 

Describe the artwork:

This artwork shows a statue facing away from us with a black background. 

 The light symbolizes the word gaze hitting the statue's face. 

 The focal point is the face 

The words say "Your gaze hits the side of my face"

In my interpretation, Barbara Kruger used this image to show the male gaze. The statue is representing a woman and the light is the man gazing at the statues face. 

Barbara Kruger shows text and image working together through adding text on an image and making it a different meaning through adding text and gives us a unique perspective than what the actual object was meant to portray. She uses black and white images and provoking words in white and red. 

The art scene was male-dominated before and women artists were often rejected at exhibitions because of their gender which she thought had to be changed. Through her artwork, she can express her statements to gain equality. 

compared to Tracey Tawhiao's artworks, she shows the themes of feminism subtly as with words and symbols in her grids. Every panel has a meaning and is intentional. 

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 Tracey Tawhiao 

https://redartgallery.com/collections/tracey-tawhaio

Tracey Tawhiao is an artist with a wide range of artistic abilities: poetry, painting, performance and filmmaking. She is known for using newspapers as the base of her artworks. She layers on top blocks of colours and Maori symbols and separates them into grids. 

Text and Image are demonstrated in this artwork through the only word in the whole artwork "SPRING" and the blues and pinks that give off a very peaceful and positive vibe. Because of the word Spring, the entire image's meaning got clearer. She used two korus hanging of a stem symbolizing new life and new beginnings just as how spring is symbolized that way.

The text helped me understand the image more because, without the word "SPRING" in the image, I would've had a different perspective towards it and interpreted it in another way. Without the text, I would've interpreted it differently.

Tracey Tawhiao's artworks are separated into grids and mostly consists of unique patterns with mostly korus and fishes, while Robyn Kahukiwa's artworks consist of one image with one or multiple people 

Robyn Kahukiwa paints humans while Tracey Tawhiao doesn't

Tracey Tawhiao's paintings are flat while Robyn's aren't. 

Robyn's colour choices are very dark while Tracey's are a lot more vibrant.

AS 90913: Robyn Kahukiwa Text and Image - Blog Post 2

How does the arrangement help the story?

In this artwork, the color scheme she uses is dark green, yellow, brown, and dark red. These colors kind of give you an uncomfortable feeling along with the women with empty staring eyes and titled heads resembling a hei tiki. But one of them is facing away from the audience. She looks like she's resting or perhaps in pain of bearing the child. 

What does Robyn Kahukiwa have to say about being a woman and being Maori in her artwork?

As Robyn Kahukiwa was born in Australia, she lost her connection with her family and culture until she was 19 and returned to New Zealand. She then rediscovers her Maori heritage. She creates artwork that is mostly about Maori women's empowerment. As women in the media are misportrayed, She paints backgrounds of stormy skies, lava eruptions, and puddles that resemble blood behind Maori women who would usually wear feathers symbolizing leadership and standing up tall and staring straight at the audience. She also often paints women who are pregnant showing that women are the start of life.

The difference between realism and stylization of figures. How does Kahukiwas's style reflect this?

As I have mentioned before, Robyn Kahukiwa draws some women in her paintings head tilting resembling the hei tiki. Other New Zealand artists influenced her works like Colin McCahon, we can see his influence on Robyn Kahukiwa's work from the way she paints some of her backgrounds and Ralph Hotere, where we can see his influence through her color choice and how she conveys her messages through her paintings. Another artist which influenced her art from Mexico named Frida Kahlo. Frida Kahlo paints her portraits always staring at the audience without expressions and staying still with no dynamic movements. Through the influence of these artists, Robyn is able to stylize her works creating her own reality. If the art style used was realism, I personally think it would give more impact but you will get too lost in the details of the face instead of looking at the whole picture. The stylization helps with understanding the meaning of the image even though the figures don't have any expression, it still looks dynamic.

AS 90913: Robyn Kahukiwa Text and Image - Blog Post 1

  Text And Image Source

1.  "Throughout history, written words have been combined with visual images in a form which ranges from the explanatory to the enigmatic, from the constructive to the contradictory, from the iconic to the irreverent, and so on." -  Leslie Ross

" Medieval illustrated manuscripts, in all their variant forms, often exhibit extremely creative and close associations of words and pictures." - Leslie Ross

"texts and pictures and it becomes quite clear that the basic concepts and possibilities for text/image combinations really have a great deal of continuity even though many people might not immediately make these types of connections." - Leslie Ross

Text and image combined have been used for a very long time. 

Robyn Kahukiwa uses text in images to enhance her artwork. If the text wasn't there then the whole meaning of the image would change. Without the text, we would think that this is just another painting staring at you but the words make the image look more impactful especially that it is in Maori since it is her culture. 

The image shows a woman who is wearing a blue garment and a headpiece in the shape of a koru. She also has a baby in her stomach so this shows that this woman is a mother. The red background contrasts with the blue garments that the mother is wearing which make her pop out of the image. The focal point in the image is also the face since it has the most details in the artwork. 

According to google translate, "he tapu te tinana whahine o te whare na te mea tangata te" means "the female body of the house is sacred because it is human"

 Tangata Whenua meaning People of the land. This image demonstrates Text and Image well with the black background making the white text pop out. The text is also repeated a bunch of times " Tangata Whenua" translated to  "People of the Land" to remind us and to not forget.  At the centre of the image, there is an image of a Maori person and their hair surrounding items which represents their culture and text labelling them.