Art Critical Study Essay Research Paper Critical

Art Critical Study Essay, Research Paper

Critical Study

When I began thinking about the critical study I was not sure what movement or particular variety of Art to study. I decided a good starting point would be what types of art interest me and what pieces attract me when visiting an art gallery. The first thing that came to mind was four works that I had seen at

the Sensations exhibition. This led me to reflect on my experience of A-level Art as a whole. Particularly on how differently I looked at pieces through my physical and mental development in Art methods and styles. My approach has changed gradually. My method is to simply react to the subject I am drawing, giving it meaning through my own personal reaction to the subject. A-level Art has enabled me to look at art on a deeper level. From my own experience as a student and observing younger students I have noticed how they as I did, judge a piece of work merely on how good a likeness it is, no attention would be paid to the scale or composition. They tend to take things as face value and not read into the work. Throughout all the things that I have learnt as an art students I now cannot help looking

at a piece without finding things that give information on the meaning and point of the piece and sometimes the mood or politics of the artist. I feel in the change from GCSE to Alevel my work has developed and so has my attitude. My work now involves reasoning and thinking behind it. I see my work as an extension of my identity. It is maybe my interpretation or reflection on the way in which I see things. My past experience of art as forced me to look at art in a different way. It has to make me react just as I react when creating a piece. I tend to look at the reasoning behind an artists work and I always ask myself why. Why certain images are included, why the images are structured and placed in the way in which they are, why the colours have been used in the way that they have and ultimately how all these factor accumulate to give the piece mood, message, tone and emotion. At first before visiting the exhibition I thought I would encounter a collection of superficial and pretentious pieces of art work. This alone shows how basic my attitude was. I found my mind was broadened into this area of art and the way in which the artist wanted the observer to think about and also

react to the pieces. What is interesting and has valid consideration for thought is the actual title of the exhibition . It give some sort of clue to what to expect and perhaps what is to be gained. Outlined in the gallery guide are the two interpretations of sensation: “stirring of the emotions- we can either turn away or look more closely at what the artist is saying” To do either is an instant reaction to the piece therefore the description of the exhibition describes what I personally believe every good piece of art should do. “Does he or she want us to reconsider an issue or merely seek to move us and influence our emotions” This definitely applied to a lot of pieces that I saw and was not really impressed with. Such as the sheep which was cut into half and the shark which is also cut. They invoked a reaction as they were visually very stimulating. However I didn’t find there was much to read into, other than they were made simply to be noticed. “consciousness of ones body or sensation or emotion. We respond to the works with our senses mainly with our sight but we are aware of texture and how it would feel to touch objects” A perfect piece to apply to this quote I feel to be

Marcus Harvey’s Myra . The piece made through the method of using children’s hands containing texture touching the canvas to create the image of the infamous child killer. This has a chain reaction effect on many “sensory reactions”. Due to the horrific reality of the subject matter many mixed emotions are thrown into battle. It got a huge reaction, both from the public and the media. It itself caused a sensation. This proved it has the ability to move emotions and certainly cause a response. What is the main interest in this piece and the factor that caused so much argument. Why did Harvey choose to use this particular image of Myra Hindley and create it in the way in which he did. Was the child abusers image simply used to upset the general public or it is reasonable to think Harvey had some actual logic behind the work. My reasoning or reaction is to the piece technically it is structured well. It was I considered the link that Myras image to the public and the way that she is seen by them is solely connected to children through her crimes. Harvey may have been displaying her as incased by or covered in her past (children). However I do believe his main intention in

displaying this particular painting was to cause public opposition and therefore media attention. This I believe was to raise awareness to the exhibition. This can be further justified by the collector of the art Charles Saatchi. An advertising genius a person well use to manipulating the use of media. In terms of sensations the Myra image has many issues surrounding it, e.g.: child abuser, murder etc., therefore it is this to blame, and not the actual painting. I would be doubtful that the same public reaction would be provoked if it was just a painting of a normal person. Harveys work is a cleverly put together I considered another possibility of what Harvey