After the design I made before Christmas for the band Ider, i’ve been thinking more about using photography and digital collage in my work. Usually I would spend time drawing whatever visual element I needed for a composition like this, but in some cases, a photo is just more immediate and communicative, so it feels like a waste to not use them in certain opportunities. I do think that the photos I’ve used work quite well here, as I’m not really sure how hand drawn elements of these visuals would have worked.
Water is something I’ve always stayed away from illustrating, because looking at art that contains water sort of bends my mind and I can't visualise how it would work in the context of images I make. So using textures and images of water (and the lack of) was helpful in saying what I wanted to with this image.
The song uses the metaphor of water and swimming pools to represent emotion and relationship. “Headfirst into shallow pools” suggests to me that the speaker is throwing themselves into a situation that could potentially be harmful, but is carelessly diving in headfirst anyway. I wanted to use the image of an empty swimming pool as it appears as sort of a liminal space, because normally (being full of water) you would float in it and be able to move in any direction. So stood at the bottom of one without water in it is a disconcerting experience, and hopefully that comes across in this design.
I enjoy working like this, it feels like I don't have to depend on certain ways of working to make things I’m happy with, and the message of the work is largely more important than the components that it's made up of.
Recommended Listening - Gil Scott Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
As COP has started to wrap up I’ve been trying to think again about making a book for part of extended practice, as it's something I don't feel like I’ve done as well as I could have so far in my practice. Linking to COP, my project focused on why people tell stories, and why similar characters and narratives reappear throughout history. I feel like there must be a subconscious link in the human mind that appears regardless of when or where we engage with a story. The same stories that appear in Star Wars can be identified in Flash Gordon, radio serials in the 1940s and books and stories way older than that, such as Lord of the Rings and even works of Shakespeare. Stories and characters are ways for us to see who we are and who we want to be, so it makes sense that so many people connect with the same characters and stories time and time again.
Characters that I have always found recurring in my life and work are the X-Men. I was never really sure why they seem to be so prevalent, I don’t much care for the films on the whole, I never really saw the cartoons when I was young. But I did read a lot of the comics when I was a teenager. The characters are stranger (and less marketable in general) than those present in the Avengers, who have become very much part of the public consciousness. But I realised recently that the point of the X-men is that they’re the underdogs.
They aren’t beloved in their own stories, they aren’t appreciated for their heroism, they are largely dismissed and hated for being freaks and monsters. I suppose the reason they have held a sway over my subconscious is because they were made to represent minorities in the world. They each deal with different facets of society, and how the public reacts to them. So I’ve always felt a connection to these characters because they were created to be reassurance to those who might be minorities or under-represented.
