These are the photos from the Walsall Museum in Birmingham. Since all the photos didn't upload for all the museums, I will put them in separate posts.
On the first floor of the building, there was a table decorated to celebrate Diwali, which is a significant festival in Hinduism. Diwali is the festival of lights, celebrating the victory of good over evil, light over darkness and knowledge over ignorance. There are various legends that go with the festival, the most notable one is where Krishna rescues Sita from the demons and the villagers put a lights across the road at night to help the Gods find their way.
The festival is also associated with Lakshmi, Goddess of wealth.
The decoration features two distinct rangolis, there are the two colour pattern at the side of the lit candle. The rangoli is made of beautiful patterns using bright colour powders. I think this will be helpful for my theme of Culture because this festival is very important to my family and friends, we have been celebrating this tradition for many years. Since my theme is about culture, I need to gather as much cultural objects and note significant events for my studies. I could try to recreate a small rangooli mixing the two designs above with chalk powder or colour powders. Since rangooli and Buddhist's mandala have similar forms, I could mix those two as well. I think collage would go well with it, using newspaper for the back ground and then coloured papers and crepe papers for the rangooli design.
Jacob Epstein's Self Portrait in a Storm Cap resembles iconic Roman figure busts. At first I thought it was a bust of Julius Caesar so I was excited to take a photo of it because of its cultural and historical significance until I found it was a self-portrait which was a bit disappointing. However after reading the work description further, I was intrigued by the fact that the work was inspired by his military service. From his description and the use of material it makes you think that he did not enjoy his military service, the use of bronze in a bright environment made the material look even more dark. The statue looks more depressing and using a dark material makes the face difficult to see as if the artist doesn't want people to see his expression and how he feels drained of any signs of life or how he doesn't want to remember that event so he tries to obscure himself. Just like Jacob Epstein, I could make a statue but out of clay of a iconic cultural figure and then painted it black or dark colours to obscure the figure. So it would make the viewers recognise the figure but at the same time unable to identify who it is, so it goes with the theme of fading memories where the significance of culture in society is overshadowed by modernisation.
Aaron Williamson's Spike Island shows a collection of items ranging from a dagger to obscure figures. They are valuable items with cultural significance, he displays them as if they are on a window stall and on sale or like a collection of items from a certain place or people. He tries to show that culture has become more of commercial subjects where they can be bought and sold easily and used for aesthetic values. This shows that modernisation has lowered the importance of culture to something to see rather than follow. The way the collection is placed; right in front of the audience but far at the same time, its sealed in and the audience cannot reach it, this represents how people are gradually moving away traditional values and embracing modern ideologies.
A cockerel from 4th Century BC Greece. This sculpture shows the parts of life in Ancient Greece. many cultural subjects of Ancient Greece survive in forms of art from Vases to paintings, it shows that art was an important part of the nation.
A statue of Goddess Parvati from 11-12th century India. Religion and culture have always been important in India, they have many statues dedicated to the Avatars of God. Lakshmi is another of the avatars/reincarnation of Parvati. The statue has lots of detail despite its small stature, this is because the artisan was a devoted religious person who was vastly interested in their culture. This shows that in the past, culture was an important part of people's lives and in India it still might be a highly significant part of them, they have the highest number of Hindus in their population.
Figure of a woman with a cloak from 4th Century Greece.
Figurine of a man from Northern Wei Dynasty (China). This figure shows a man in traditional attire, hanfu and a small hat.The Hanfu (deep robe) might not be the actual name because it is considered the dress of Han people. (Simplified Chinese: 汉服; Traditional Chinese: 漢服, both of them mean: "Han clothing").
Figurine of Buddha from 1750-1850 Siam (Thailand). A small statue made of gold and silver, using valuable metals shows that even during the 18th century religion/cultural had major role in people's lives. Buddhism had spread from Nepal/India to others countries like Thailand and Tibet/China, showing how influential culture was.
My first piece was done on A4 sized canvas. The piece was influenced by Gyatso Gonkar, the materials I used were pencils (H, HB and 2B), marker pens, technical drawing pens (0.3) and Acrylic paint. The artist's works often use variety of materials and most of his works are considered mixed media, so I decided to apply the same style for this piece.
I drew the lotus from a bird's eye view using HB and 3B on paper. This was a rough sketch of the lotus, it is going to be outlined and coloured later on.
The image on the left is the plan I made for this piece on Photoshop. The Buddha statue would be at the centre of the canvas and the gray-scale is image is the lotus in bird's eye view, I changed the lotus because both image had strong colour and I wanted the statue to stand out the most.
After outlining the lotus, I used acrylic paint again. I blended red, white and yellow together (red with little bit of yellow and white) in to create a light red/dark peach colour. I started off with translucent light red colour formed by mixing the paint with water for the base layer. After I finished the base, I applied the same shade of colour but with less dilution so the colour in areas where there is shadow are more opaque.
Start of the Buddha's silhouette part. I drew out the body of the statue and boxes where I will write down the scripture.
My original plan was to write the message up to the face of the Buddha as well but I changed this and painted the head in a darker tone to make the statue feel familiar yet foreign, create a distance for the audience and the artwork as if the well-known figure is being forgotten. For the corners of the canvas, I made four acetate lotus using the sellotape method, I used sellotape instead because with the sellotape I can scrub the print more and make the lotus look more faint and worn out to create an aging effect.
