Popart!

[Nyarlathotep]

So these are some of my Paintings i've completed recently. Popart is fun yay!
in order of apperance just incase your not sure who they are.
marylin monroe (intentionally very warholesque)
Tom waits
lady in red
betti page
emo hitler
and finaly tom waits again because he is that cool !

Let me know what you all think about em :)
also here is the link to my video on youtube, with a lil stop motion reveal of the tom waits and one i havent yet uploaded to my computer (didnt turn out as well as i had hoped it why.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njAXqEG4U6I

[Nyarlathotep]

sorry about the crummy image quality of the last one... these things sometimes slip past me and i dont catch them in time, butyou get the gist of it :)

[Shatterdome]

Not sure if you can consider art pop-art when it no longer deals with popular culture....only historically popular culture....maybe a new term needs to be developed for people paying homage to the likes of Warhol and such people of that era....

I suppose hitler is the exception as the "emo" shirt is an up-to-date phenominom...

[Elwell]

What is the purpose of these?

[Nyarlathotep]

historically popular culture is still popular. Or atleast i think so. but yea a new term for this style wouldnt be out of the question, just dont think i'd be the person to come up with one. The purpose of these is art. Just like any other style of art. I like the high contrast, striking effect. Just something i've been doing lately in acrylics. Just thought i'd post em.

[jdeegz]

why did you make all these infamous, old icons?

pop art isnt popular art, is it?

i think you need to wiki that, because this isnt pop art.

this is... painting boring 'illustrations' with two or three colors. i dunno, you can do alot more with contrast than what you have, i am sure you will find some type of satisfaction by exploring it some more. I mean, just look at comics. there it looks like you left out some other critical parts to making a successful illustration, composition, is the first one to come to mind.

sorry for the arse kicking.

[Nyarlathotep]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popart
I dont get why people are being so criticaly about it being popart. to me its more of a style name than being tied directly to the subject matter.
And just to clarify how i make these. Not that its going to change anyones mind about them being good or not. I use art masking fluid to mask out the areas i want white, then layer thin coats of acrylic paint first red, then blue then burnt umber to acheive the dark tones. its an optically mixed effect. As far as them being boring... its all in the way you see it, i dont find them boring. Granted they are not some gorgeously painted photorealistic image but that doesnt make them any less art. And the ideas behind the images are still very popular perhaps not mainstream so much. I dont want to seem like i have to defend myself, but i guess this isnt the kind of response i had expected from CA. If the composition is bad why? to much negative space? to centered on some, off center? While i can see some bad choices in the bettie page image as far as composition goes i'd like some constructive crits instead of focusing on the title of the thread and vague posts. sorry if this came out a little to defensive. just wanting to know why people arnt liking these.

[Grief]

i was looking at these in the FF section last night wondering how long they'd last there....

alright, the main gripe i have with them is that youre using pre-existing photographs of well known people. this means that a photographer is the one who did the compositional work, and youre recropping it into a watered down version. did you draw the figures?

the blue border around the images is very distracting. it looks like artist's tape that you left on the canvas. get rid of it.

dont use flash when photographing artwork. glare is only beneficial when you want light to glance off of intended texture of the surface of an object (such as a textured painting and you want to show in the image that there is a surface quality, or possibly for 3D art depending on the concept of the work)

if these are from photos as i sense they are: use higher resolution images when dealing with stark contrast. the contour of the lights and darks are not visually rewarding for the viewer to study up close. blurry and fuzzy line transitions really detract from the 'pop' aspect.

defending your work is fine, but don't get so defensive that you do not take into account the suggestions being offered. having a strong concept will help explain to the skeptical viewer of your intentions. and on the other side having no reason is also acceptable for the mere purpose of exploring and trying something new. what isn't good is when a concept is half-assed and not really sure where it lies. the contemporary context of historical and modern figures is interesting, its one direction. having just a straighforward homage to modern figures is another concept entirely. youre pairing an idea of mocking the past, while respcting it which is double edged and i don't feel has been explored enough to be convincingly done at this point.

i have nothing against the people you chose, you can choose anyone you desire, and you don't have to listen to anyone to do otherwise, but have a good reason for having interest in them.

i did a high contrast piece of Tom Waits (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/ninjau1/tom_waits3.jpg) recently, but i don't consider in in the vain of popart. popart is really a bad way to describe a style. theres so much to learn and explore about flatness of image through contrast and the iconography of subject that it seems counterproductive to label yourself into an already overplayed genre. labeling your work is really restrictive in where you can take it.

[Jasonwclark]

I don't mind the paintings, but I really dislike the blue matte jobs. Maybe its the blue you're working with, or because they're all being presented together at once with the same blue, but I find it distracting. I'd prefer something more neutral.

As for the qualification 'Pop Art', I'm not really sure what to say...
With exception of Tom Waits, all these icons are from American pop culture circa 50 years ago. They have a certain nostalgic appeal, but I'm not sure about the connection to contemporary popular culture. Maybe I'm missing something though.

Either way, if you want to run the fine arts gauntlet in the real world, you'll probably have to muddy the waters a little. When Elwell asks you “what is the purpose of these?” You should have a response in mind to lend the work some additonal support. Practice your obfuscation skills and give them really odd titles or something. From what I can gather, the fine arts milieu these days, is more about how you present the work - whether or not you can defend its intellectual merits, or situate it within a tradition- and the like.

edit: I see Grief beat me to the punch on a lot of this, but yeah, definitely ditch the blue

[Elwell]

just wanting to know why people arnt liking these.
Because on the surface they seem boring and unoriginal, and you're not giving us any reason to think there's anything going on below the surface.

[Nyarlathotep]

hmm i get the thing about the borders, they were all in a portoflio i made to show someone my work and wanted them to look like part of the same portfolio. thanks for the crits