Critical Analysis of Sandra M. Williams and Agustin Portillo
Introduction
Agustin Portillo is a native Mexican artist. One characteristic of Portillo’s work is timeless certainty about human circumstances with a daring and communicative frankness that only a few artists currently gain the courage required to explore. He was well expressed by a German Expressionist – Max Beckmann-who on the contrary describes the love of human being, possessed by portillo, as actually stupid. The other artist with work under description is Sandra M Williams’ painting by the name of “waiting for clemency” (a girl walks into a bar…..).
Sandra Williams is an artist and printmaker who use safer printmaking techniques together with monotype and photopolymer in all her paintings. She is currently an assistant professor in the University of Nebraska Lincoln. In most of her work, Sandra investigates paradox as found in everyday life and personal nostalgia through the use of low relief, and mixed media works. Her work is visually characterized by characters symbols and icons. The purpose of this paper is to explore the two kinds of artworks as represented in the two artists while comparing and contrasting the two.
Agustin Portillo’s Paintings
From Agustin Portillo’s painting, America Series: Z.31, the media is oil on canvas and the dimensions are 60 x 48. The location for the painting is Koenline museum of Art: Permanent collection: Agustin Portillo (Oakton community college 2011).The work by Portillo is representational as it depicts something that is so easily recognizable in the real life and society today; social life and entertainment. The reason for selecting this work is because I feel the artist as being in the need to connect to life outside work, family, and the stresses and worries that comes with it.
To begin with, the work by Portillo is more on the modern life. All his works are based on the modern lavish lifestyles of entertainment and fun just as is currently observed in the world especially amongst teenagers and young adults as well as older adults. What is clear is that, most of the characters in the painting are having fun and relaxing themselves in all manner and form. This is the contemporary world, and it must have taken him much time and thought on how he can portray what happens to people during entertainment. In the first place, the painting has an element of modern dressing codes, like ladies in scanty tops, fancy hairstyles for both ladies and gentlemen as well as modern dancing styles like hands up.
In addition, the painting is characterized by gestures like facial expressions among the visible persons (William A 2011). One can therefore discover that the people in the painting are happy and enjoying themselves. The main depiction of Portillo’s work is ordinary human life; both socially and emotionally maybe in a seedy bar, or an upper class party. Some of the visible characters can be seen to sing to the lyrics whilst they dance. Furthermore, the people seem to have no worries about life at all. This is a good element brought about by Portillo to show that all work without play makes Jack a dull boy. In the real world people should embrace time out of their ordinary selves and take time to just celebrate and forget about their worries and stresses in life. On the other hand, care should be taken while exercising pleasure as this could also result to irresponsible behaviors and immorality as is the perception by most people concerning entertainment.
Sandra Williams’ Paintings
The work from Sandra Williams’s collection is named “Waiting for Clemency” (a girl walks into a bar). Like most of her works, the media is mixed, there is wood, stone, and pencil ink among others but the mostly used is polymer. The location for this work is in Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, United States of America.
The main characteristic of her work is irony, the girl in the painting is seems worried about the nature of life in her home. To begin with, her father is an alcoholic who drinks to the last bit. The mother is a housewife who despite his husbands conduct is busy with her house chores and family care. From the picture, the father can be seen to dress very poorly and is not concerned about the life of his family. This is the ironical part of the painting as the girl hopes that one day, his irresponsible father will change his conduct, and that maybe her mother, who always remains busy with her work, will be happy having a responsible husband (Nebraska 2005).
This kind of work is abstract as the images seem to exist with a degree of independence from what is visually in the world (Jacobus 2011). The artist is seen to paint on rocks and they are very simple and linear forms which have more of a decorative purpose. Even though one may seem not to understand the concepts in the painting, one can enjoy its beauty. Williams’ work is characterized by a steady animation-like resemblance. In order to create form and planes within the painting, the artist uses brightly colored resin to fill the recessed areas on the wood. In this painting, William utilizes her well-known dynamic color but introduces natural tones like brown, amber and red.
Paper II
Introduction
One form of art, among the many already existing, is abstract art. In this form of artwork, the painter is uses visual language of form color and line to generate a composition which has the qualities of independence from visual references in the surroundings. Visual language is a practice in which the visual elements are used to convey a message or communicate. In this form of communication, lines and forms are organized in such a way that they bring significant shapes and constitution or signs.
In abstract art, the meaning can be conveyed straightaway even without the use of words or pictorial pictures. All what is required is the explanation of the qualities of lines and shapes, as well as proportion and color. Abstract art has been in use since time immemorial to predetermine meaning. In abstract work, perception is more of a continuous judgment on the association between color and scale and it encompasses the act of creating classes of forms to assist in the classification of the images and the shapes as can be viewed in the universe. The purpose of this paper is to describe the attached image below as a form of abstract art and the features that qualifies it as so.
Description
My reaosons for selecting this picture is the way by which the artist repressents the use of space. First and foremost, the images can be seen overlap, as only the picture in the first row can be seen fully while all others seem to be behind each other (Jansen 2011) painting is calm. From the facial expression portrayed by the different people, one can only see anticipation as all of them seem to have no central point of interest. In addition, the use of space is seen with the gentleman behind everyone else he seems to be at the furthest part of the picture. In front of the woman in the first row is a hand. This can portray congestion.
The people in the painting portray some form of independence and everyone or two seem to have a common interest and this is a quality of abstract art. There is use of color and scale as well. For instance, the furthest part of the painting uses dark color to portray its distance from the central point (Jacobus 2003). The people in the front as well can be seen to have full brightness. As is for abstract art, the use of line in the painting is conspicuous. To begin with, the artist has used lines to show the outline of each person. Though the images aren’t detailed, it is quit easy for one to figure out what is represented in the picture. To represent the hair, the artist has combined both texture and lines to bring out its length and quality. Some women are bear headed and lines are clearly used to outline the shape of their heads. In addition, shading and texture has been used to demonstrate the either the body or the clothing that each person in the picture wears (Jansen 2011).
The subject matter of the painting may be women and the society. Why is say so is because, despite the role of women in the house, the picture portrays women from a perspective that represents immorality. Some them in this painting are holding each other suspiciously and again, they are all dressed up to attract either another or a man. In addition, the gentleman behind seems to be in search of a suitor.After research, I feel that the picture may represent the sufferings in the society, women are most often undermined and as a way of earning income some engage in prostitution. This can represent the society’s view of women; objects of use. The artist was successful. He conveys his subject right.
Reference
Jacobus D (2011). Humanities through the Arts. McGraw Hill. London: UK
Jansen M (2011). How to Paint Abstract Art. From:
http://paintings.name/how-to-paint-abstract-art.php.
Nebraska (2011). In-depth Arts.Museum of Nebraska Art. Kearney: USA.
OaktonCollege (2011). Exhibitions: Agustin Portillo. From: http://www.oakton.edu/museum/permanent.htm
William A (2011). America. From: http://web.mac.com/dianethodos/iWeb//Site/Agustin%20Portillo%20essay.html
Is this your assignment or some part of it?
We can do it for you! Click to Order!
