zine

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Chiho Aoshima

Chiho Aoshima is a Japanese artist who, with no formal training, became a member of Takashi Murakami’s influential Kaikai Kiki art group. Her work, constructed all in digital art programs, reflects a sort of visionary environment, heavily influenced by Japanese pop cultural media, such as manga, anime, and video games, while not lampooning the media itself, as Murakami and other members of Kaikai Kiki have done in their work. Instead, what is depicted is a sort of bright landscape where a wide variety of elements combine, such as flowers born in skulls, amoebic sky-scrapers, and bright-eyed fairies. I am very much attracted to the sort of “Tokyo” aesthetic in art, while not trying to be fetishistic of a culture. For me, this aesthetic is conveyed through overwhelmingly bright and colorful scenes given a Warholesque bullet-proof sheen of graphic design and advertising, while at the same time representing the various facets, either positive or negative, of a culture really built on this hybrid of tradition and extreme modernism. Plus, I am attracted to figures I see as being on the “outside” of things, and I find her story, coming not from an art-related field and into a prominent position, quite interesting. Regardless, I think the work of Aoshima is significant for that former reason; even though she might not be as adamant in the deconstruction of Japanese popular culture as her mentor, Murakami, her work revolves around the creation of worlds that almost can enter into, one of the fundamentals of artistic creation. Even though this may be a personal bias, the artists that I think are best aren’t necessarily the ones that question everything all the time, or show off a immense technical skill, but create work that describes a sort of internal condition and world view, and Aoshima’s work definitely creates that personal, mental landscape for the viewer to enter into, only blown up to room size using Bezier curves.

triptych

Very long due.

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basic sketch

nothing really too special planned right now, which may change. The basic idea is that of a narrative, of the life and death of a classic mythological figure, so a basic format would be conducive to this concept. This relates to my theme, because the goal is to contrast this permanent sort of archetype with temporal and contemporary images, something that I attempted to do with the triptych but didn't really succeed at. As well, a classic story of heroism and mortality also sort of embodies this theme as well.

theme ideas

for this zine project, my ideas about what opposites to portray are:
1. decadence vs. restraint
2. banality or disposability vs. permanence
3.  fragility vs. brutality (actually not opposites, and not really mutually exclusive, but I think they are sort of antagonistic, yes?)

out of them all, I liked the second one the best.

out of context themes...

For the Out of Context project, I think I would like to do a very classical religious triptych, like the Last Judgement, only in a twisted, subverted, modern, pop-cultural context. However, this is rather tentative... I might have some other ideas, but this one is creating the most images in my mind of what I could do.

Final Patterns

Progress part 2

Alright, obviously, the patterns have yet to be applied to fully deconstruct the 3-D, 2-D plane, but I post this in hopes that you can see where I am going with this project. obviously, there are quite a few things to adjust, but they will be dealt with.... Hopefully ASAP.

progress

Piece is progressing...... Pretty nicely (?) Design decision: what to do about my friend's passed out body. Her face is mostly obscured; it will be difficult to convey it well. My first idea is to source her head from another photo. Another idea is to just leave off her head and keep her body as a headless corpse... I could combine option one and two and create a decapitated head for her. I am currently interested in chopping this girl to bits. I do like a touch of the grotesque.

The more I work on this project, the more I feel a constant mental reference to the English artist Duggie Fields. While Fields primarily works in compositions consisting of incredibly jagged, flat planes of color, I feel his influence in surreal imagery, an almost computerized pop look,  reminiscent of the first days of computer art, and a flattening of 3/D planes. Of course, the last factor is the one most essential for this assignment, even though the flattening doesn't create a tension between the third and second dimensions as much as it places figures and objects in an ambiguous space. Again, it's like a computer simulation, but I don't think I want to break down such distinctions in such a manner. However, I do suggest his website, http://www.duggiefields.com/ for possible influence. Plus, he walked for Comme Des Garcons Homme, and one of his buttons were featured in the video for American Boy. So that's something too.

Patterns/Underdrawings

I'm still quite puzzled over what patterns and underdrawings would both look good for this project and would be something that I would be willing to work with. Thus, I made six patterns. As for the underdrawings, things will definitely be added, subtracted, manipulated, eroded, and ect. when dealing with the actual assignment, but I still am deciding on which one will do...

 

Pattern choices

 

Underdrawing option 1

 

Underdrawing option 2.