Kylie Dekin 2

ART-revised

When I went to the Syn Art Gallery, I began to wonder. I started to think about what art really is. I did not know. I always thought art as big elaborate pieces created by really famous artist such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Vincent Van Gogh. I only thought paintings were considered pieces of art. Looking at all of the pieces showcased at the Syn Art Show at Woods Hall, I started to change my mind. Two pieces from this gallery helped me to find the real definition of art.

The first painting that caught my eye gave me the creeps. It was a smaller canvas painted with watercolors and black oil pastels. The watercolor was used to paint the background. It started a dark red and faded into a light pink, going from left to right. The fading reminded me of a sideways sunset. A girl’s face and her tall hair were drawn with black oil pastels and watercolor. The face was drawn all the way to the right of the canvas. This alignment caught me off guard because it was not centered which seems to be how things are in most cases. The artist, Lauren Strain, made the background color smudgy and had oil pastel drips down the canvas. The pointed face has two big dark eyes that stare right at you full of emotion and mixed feelings. What is so unusual about the eyes is that one eye is rounder and lighter and the other eye is darker and narrower. The rounder and lighter eye seems to look more innocent while the narrow darker eye looks more evil. The artist is telling her audience that the girl has two sides of her when you look into her and get to know her. But if people just go by looks, they would assume that she is an angry and sad looking girl. There is yellow watercolor blob that runs down the side of her face to her lips. Yellow symbolizes happiness, sunshine, and warmth. This yellow shows that this girl does have some happiness on the outside it just may not be a lot. The most unusual part of this painting is the round smudge on the bottom left of her face. There is a big circle of red and maroon smeared all on the side of her face to the bottom part of her eye. Part of her left side of her face seems missing as if people were missing a big part of her. Everything is very smudged and streaked. The face, the hair, the eyes, the nose, and the lips all had this smudging effect. The smudging of the black oil pastel looks like wet mascara running down a girl’s face after she has been crying. The girl was crying because people were judging her only by her outside appearance and not the inside. She wants people to know that she does have a happy and joyful part to her as well, even though it does not look like it on the outside.

The second piece of art that I chose is called Night Terror. This piece was made of many different materials. All the materials that were used made the piece look old and spooky. The artist, Daisy Winfrey, glued old pieces of newspaper and tea stained notebook paper to a medium square wooden box to create an old dilapidated house or room. The angles that she used also emphasized the aged affect. There is an old wooden floor lying at a slant. The floor is made of brown newspaper. The newspaper symbolizes the history and secrets that this room holds. The floor has very defined, precise, and detailed work done with acrylic ink. Each piece of wood is crooked and appears decayed. It looks as if somebody could fall through the floor. An old looking twin bed is placed on top of the slanted floor. A woman is laying under a detailed pattern quilt with her eyes wide-open waiting for something to happen. Her face is covered with many lines and shapes. The artist used the lines to prove that this woman is very old and has many memories, stories, and events that could have happened to her in her life or in this room. There are three brown bats flying randomly around. The bats were drawn on pieces of faded brown paper then cut out and glued on to the box. Each of the bats has a different face and a different pattern drawn all over its body. These patterns are all similar to the patterns on the woman’s face. It seems that the bats and the woman share some kind of memoires or experience. A light brown paper is paper mached on top of a solid black paint. This technique created an old looking texture. There were many tears, wrinkles, light spots, and dark spots, which gave it an old effect. Random clumps of skinny pieces of notebook paper are glued sporadically around. Torn pieces of royal purple paper with gold designs are glued about looking like old torn down wallpaper. The colors remind me of royalty and wealth. This old woman could have once been a wealthy person. There are two splintery white windows in this room. A boy is peeping through the window farthest away from the bed. His eyes are looking up and looked scared, possibly scared of the bats. I think he is scared of the old woman. The boy, wearing a backwards baseball hat, was spying on this old lady as if was a Friday night dare by his buddies. There could be rumors that this lady is crazy and people are scared of her. The lady looks tired and worn out of people always spying on her. The boy is the night terror.

Both of these pieces have many differences that can be easily pointed out. The painting is simpler than the box art piece. The artist who painted the girl used a more simple technique of using watercolors, oil pastels, and colors to create her piece of work. She got her point across by making parts of the face and background lighter and darker. The audience knows that there is something wrong with this girl by looking at the detail in her eyes and lips. The other piece of work used many different materials to collage a story together for an audience to feel and interpret the right atmosphere. She used materials that would help pull the theme together. She used old looking items such as the square wooden box, old newspaper, and tea stained notebook paper, and combined it with different techniques to create an old haunted look.

Color played a big role in Lauren Strain’s untitled piece of work. Reds, pinks, black, and yellow set the mood. When somebody sees red, he or she might think of anger or danger. Pink is thought as love and black is known as dark, evil, and mysterious. Yellow shows happiness and comfort. When we look at this piece, we can automatically get an idea of the mood and atmosphere. Daisy Winfrey, did not use color to set the mood. She once again used textures, detail, and techniques to create an old and haunting look. The old newspaper, tea stained notebook paper, cutouts of bats, and a wrinkled paper masche technique created the aged look.

I believe that both of these pieces have similar messages. The girl looks dark and angry on the outside but she really does have a softer side. I think she is a dark person but she also wants them to realize there also exists a soft and happy side; as well, it just may not be at that moment. In the other piece, it seems like the boy is spying on the old lady like she is crazy because she sleeps with bats and lives in an old and dilapidated house. I believe that there is a mixed message in this artwork. When we read the title Night Terrors and see the bats, it just automatically pops in the viewer’s head that the bats are the terror. That is not the case. The boy seems to be the night terror because he is always spying on this innocent old lady. This painting reminded me of how in, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the three kids, Scout, Jim, and Dill, were always spying on Boo Radley because of the horrible rumors that were gossiped and spread by the town’s people. Boo Radley ended up being a good person. This lady lives the same life. She probably is nice if people would, get pass the rumors. Both of these women want a fair chance to live a happy life but cannot get it with everybody judging them on their looks, attitudes, and rumors.

These two wonderful pieces showed me that anything could be art. A painting, a sketch, a wooden box with paper glued on it, a piece of poetry, a song, or even a photograph. I believe that art is created as long as it sends some type of message to the audience. Art does not have to have one message though it can have multiple. I realized that is the coolest thing about art. So many different messages can be deciphered from one simple piece. At the Syn Art Show room, there were so many different and great pieces. There were photos, sketches, paintings, sculptures, and musical instruments. Each and every piece was art because they all had some type of meaning or message depending on how you looked upon it. This art gallery was time well spent.