Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Eugenia Loli is a California based artist. She infuses vintage photos while also creating fantasies out of them. Interestingly enough, Loli wasn’t always an artist, she originaly set out to be involved with technology which makes sense on how she is able to infused the vintage photos to create her art. The way she uses the shape, size, and direction creates something that is extremely unique. She sets out with a base photo and goes from there while trying to get a message across through them.

Eugenia Loli Collage

I think for Loli’s time she was creating a new world of pop art. Her work somewhat reminds me of Andy Warhol’s vibrant photos of ordinary items, like one of his most famous Campbell’s Tomato Soup pictures. Along the pop culture line, she sometimes doodles on her photos leaving it up to the audience to create their own interpretation. Majority of her creations have people smiling looking at the abstract backgrounds she has created, like birds, astronauts, and more. She also does an incredible job of creating different textures in her photos. In the photo I selected, there is a woman kneeling on a rock while that reminds of the beach but right across from her is the moon, rocks that are drastically different from a beachy scene, and a statue that looks to be made out of metal.

Loli’s collage is an interesting piece that always gives the audience something new to look at because overall, it doesn’t make sense. She gave this woman in the bottom left corner so much to look at and be appreciative of because it’s so unusual. Her work is considered to be forming vivid dreams, and as the audience I can grasp on to that idea perfectly.

In the article Collage by Lewis Kachur we see that Collage art has a long history chronologically as well as a long history in content. The very start of its roots coming to the public eye in 1912 with then painter Van Gogh as the spark of the movement (Kuchur,1). From there were an assortment of interpretations within Collage art with many different mediums being used and many different results being brought to life.

Within the Collage article we see a piece by Kurt Schwitters named “Opened by Customs” this particular piece was first revealed in 1937. It is in many ways depicted by the piece’s title as it includes many different styles and colors of paper that allude to postage

Opened by Customs By John Schwitters 1937–8 (London, Tate); © 2007 Artists Rights Society

services.This possibly is a habit of the time as there were not necessarily digital technologies that could mimic the effects of pasting different textiles and images together outside of the physical action of doing so. With bits and pieces being visually sewn together the way I interact with compositions like this changes from looking at one larger piece to a piece that has many segments that can or cannot be interpreted individually.The artist made a conscious decision to place the small chunks of material together and then it is the job of the viewer to decide what that means for them. In this particular piece we see many different ideas from the Elements of Design reading come to life. The idea of balance I feel is very important especially in a Collage piece where sometimes it seems to be just a pile of stuff glued together.There are, on top of using pieces of postage paper and pages of books- brush strokes at the bottom that give it a sort of messy vibe that coexists perfectly with the paper layered over and around it. Schwitters does a really good job of finding that balance just when the eye starts to carry off in one direction other elements of the piece are able to pop up and bring the attention evenly throughout the piece.

In our day and age some of these elements can be replicated through digital mediums . Although it may no longer look like paper being cut up, the original elements of pasting different images together to create a more complex piece of artwork is still ever apparent.

Pink Peonies – Texture

Texture: Pink Peonies are some of my favorite flowers. I love these flowers, because they have so much depth, layers and texture to them. Within each peddle they have so many unique and different layers to them. I chose this photo, because there is so much contrast between each flower. Although texture can be seen in a virtual and physical way, this particular photo displays a real life, physical display of texture. The photo also displays the soft and smooth texture that the peonies in the picture would portray.

Water Inspiration – Transparency

Transparency: The Lake is one of my favorite places. Lucky for me, my cabin is on Priest Lake, Idaho. The water is extremely clear, where you can see the bottom perfectly. This photo that I chose reminds me of my lake,  because of its rocky clarity. I thought that this represents transparency in a more unique way. Where there is a barrier between the item and yourself, but it is still clear and attainable. Just like texture, transparency can be seen in the virtual and physical world. This can also be seen in the virtual world, just like the physical world, through various movies and typography seen in everyday life.

Texture is seen in the two different ways, physical and virtual.  In our digital world, we only have the option of presenting texture in the virtual form.  This is where skill and creativity comes into play.  Designers can create new patterns that create texture, or photographers can shoot from different angles to enhance the physical texture they are capturing digitally. It is important that texture is presented clear enough so the mood the creator is bringing to us is seen.

Photographed by Eilish Rising

This first image is taken in a plane above California.  This photo immediately catches your attention because of the clouds. They create a vivid texture that becomes the focal point in the photo.  Even though you would not be able to grab it, you can feel the clouds in your hand.  This is caused from the elevation of each point along the clouds.  It goes up and down in certain spots, which is what the structure of texture is based around.  The light coming from the right side of the photo gives us more texture on the clouds than without.  This is why sunsets are so vivid, because the light creates intense contrast that creates texture to the eye.

Photographed by Eilish Rising

This is an image of a scarf photoshopped using certain techniques to make it look like it is sitting on a blank surface.  A basic image of a scarf was taken, and was cut out and white balanced in photoshop to be put with a white background.  The biggest part about this image is the shadowing that gives the elements of the scarf depth, creating texture on the surface.  This technique is used in magazines to market apparel and beauty items.  It makes the item look like it is actually there in from of us, especially with this scarf because of the satin weave.  It is a familiar material for most, allowing the viewer to feel it in their hands without even touching it.

Photographed by Eilish Rising

This is a close up image of a sweater.  The knit is obviously very textured because of the fluffy yarns popping out from between the structured knit of the tighter yarns.  In fashion, texture is a very important element because of the role it plays on a body form.  If this apparel item was not knitted with fluffy yarns contrasting structured yarns, it would be very hard to debate that it has a lot of texture.  Texture makes certain pieces unique or even recognizable to create nostalgia.

Photographed by Eilish Rising

I wanted to add this photo I took of California Adventure in Disneyland.  This is an image of CarsLand in the evening with all of the neon lights on.  I thought it was a good representation of the role light plays with texture.  You can see the neon lights on the asphalt make it even more texturized than it would be with just daylight.  The certain colors and type of light show us the divots and imperfections on the black asphalt.  Looking at it, you can feel in your hands the way the asphalt would feel.  It also makes you feel like you are actually in the movie this land is trying to portray.  Personally, it makes me imagine times when I was a kid and would be playing out in the cul-de-sac. I believe texture is meant to help bring out memories and experiences to help us understand the meaning behind these images or designs.

The primary use of texture in a digital setting is to help the viewer feel things in their hand that they physically cannot feel at the moment.  Most of the time, common or recognizable textures are used so that people have previous knowledge of it, also bringing their own experiences into it to give it a different meaning to everyone.  Because we cannot actually understand texture in a physical sense digitally, these creative ways make it possible for us to come as close as we can to feeling it.

This is Sophie Standing’s contemporary collage portrait of a rhino done with fabric. (Artwork by: Sophie Standing, Black Rhino, image sourced from Gorgeous Black Rhino Recreated with Intricate Fabric Collage, 2014)

I chose an artist based in Kenya, Sophie Standing as my artist to write about. Standing is a contemporary collage artist who specializes in portraits of animals. She uses a variety of fabrics and threads to create her masterpieces; she sketches out the general shape of her subject and then painstakingly layers fabric and sews it into place with her sewing machine. As she stitches the layers of fabric into her piece, she uses darker colored threads to indicate the presence of wrinkles and shadows giving the piece a realistic appearance and the illusion of a rough and wrinkly texture, in the case of her black rhino portrait. The technology she used was a sewing machine to sew fabric into place for her piece and even though Standing used fabric for it, it never truly looks like fabric, but has the illusion of a painting. It is extremely impressive that she chose to use a medium that has been around since the nineteenth century and that is usually designed to make clothes and used it to create a new and beautiful art style.               

This a photo of Sophie Standing’s process with fabric and a sewing machine. (Photo by: Sophie Standing, Black Rhino, image sourced from Gorgeous Black Rhino Recreated with Intricate Fabric Collage, 2014)

Standing’s style is visually striking, yet it also keeps with the reality of her subject. Looking at her black rhino picture, one can see that it is indeed a rhino, and it holds the attention of the viewer better by the addition of widely different colors and patterns, that are separate from reality. I found the choice of a floral pattern for this piece interesting, because most people do not associate delicate and colorful flowers with such a powerful and dangerous beast. The use of the floral pattern makes the rhino more regal and gentle to look at. The piece is dominated by the black rhino, and it draws most of the viewers focus to it. The background is simple and only suggests outlines of foliage which if created in more detail would draw the eyes away from the main subject, the rhino. The background has more muted and simple pastel colors which contrast drastically with the vibrant colors the rhino possesses. In my opinion, the main focus is intended to be the rhino, and the choice of floral patterns and bright colors is used to soften the animal’s image and nature.

The photo that I chose for Blog post #2 was a collage in the reading Exploring the Cutting-Edge History and Evolution of Collage Art by John Turck. The artist John Turck seems to create unique collages by hand while creating this continuous and smoothly blend of elements mixing of architecture, nature, and pop culture. He mentions that he likes to collect a bunch of photo collage materials from books or magazines and stores them for later use. I could imagine that it takes some time for his creative juices to flow so by storing future masterpieces, seems like a smart thing to do. Just seeing Turck’s work, I get this feeling that his artwork is inspired by the era that he grew up in, especially since magazines and books were truly considered entertainment before technology started booming. The fact that each design he creates, seems to have very little hard lines, except in

One of John Turck;’s collages taken from Exploring the Cutting-Edge History and Evolution of Collage Art in July 2017. https://mymodernmet.com/collage-art-collage/2/

the photo that he used, the line looks more like a creative puzzle piece.

John Turck’s main goal as an artist is to design pieces of artwork through his books and magazines and try to make them look as if they were made digitally. And by digitally, we mean a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop. Because of this old-school process that Turck’s uses on his slightly-vintage look art, each collage helps various worlds come together creating no sense of time. This helps viewers of all ages feel a part of the surreal world with pop culture, unusual symbols, making users want to digest the artworks representation and hidden wonders. The whole collage itself reminds me of a mix of the past and the future, like a hidden gem. From the space and what appears to be a planet, to the comets shooting across, to the fisherman fishing in a man-made lake, gives us this level of thinking outside the box with creativity. If someone said that this photo was going to turn out this way, I wouldn’t believe it unless on digital software (Photoshop). But the fact that it is built upon images and images, that is crazy yet very artistic.