Pictoplasma Festival - Berlin 2014

This year, we flew out to Berlin from Edinburgh in order to attend the 2014 Pictoplasma Conference in Berlin! which was held at the Babylon Theatre just outside the centre of the city. Although I was utterly terrified of flying/being outside/away from home/around strange people I hardly knew, I was determined to be optimistic!


One of the first talks I went to was "Buff Monster"'s. Buff Monster is a well known American Painter and Street Artist, whose main influences come from the oxymoron-esque combination of bright colours, the "cute" Japanese culture and heavy metal. And he has used this style of work to create huge pieces of street art, murals, painting and merchandise including prints, stickers, vinyl toys and plushes. I really enjoyed listening to Buff Monster's workflow and some of the reasoning behind his work, which is relatively simple with no main reasoning other than it's what he likes, and emphasises on the colour pink to show confidence, individuality and happiness which is consistent throughout his works. His work has definitely inspired me to start emphasising on the more grotesque and obscene elements which rarely show up in my work, and use inspiration from darker sources to get a variety of different outcomes.

Another Artist I enjoyed viewing was Tim Biskup, his work was very experimental and had a rather edgy visual effects on anyone who viewed it, which made it stand out vastly against the rest of the artists, as well as bring in a whole load of detail that could keep us looking at it for hours. I think the reason that Biskup's work is so successful is to do with the fact that he works with playful and vibrant psychedelic imagery. He creates this work by using a rather diverse selection of media such as silk-screening, textile production and rotocast vinyl. I think looking at Biskup's work has definitely influenced me to experiment with materials more, as well as style, as I think using mixed media in pieces and working with methods that are foreign to me, will help enhance my current style and even create a new one.

On the next day of talks, I got to see an artist that I'd never heard of before. Kimiaki Yaegashi is a well known Illustrator based in Tokyo, Japan. His work is rather simplistic with thick lines and bold colours and shapes. Admittedly I wasn't sure on whether or not I would find his work as appealing as some of the other artists, but I appreciated it none the less. However, once Kimiaki began going through his pieces it was clear that his work was greatly inspired by his heratige, as it included representations of well know Japanese spirits and that is what I appreciated most about his work. He also included his love of western productions, such as pizza, which, as we discovered later at his art show, was very much a part of his shows and gallery work.

The last artist that I went to see, was Austrian street artist, Nychos. I had already been aware of Nychos' work through Instagram and was rather excited about seeing him explain in some detail about his work and why he does it. His work is heavily detailed and focuses, typically, on forms of bodies, and them being almost dissected in order to show all aspects of the figure. In this particular image, it shows a cartoon styled wolf getting his skin ripped off, then his bones split in two as well to show his insides. The images are always quite segmented and orderly which fits in well with the places they are usually sprayed upon, such as office or industrial buildings  and I think his work has inspired me to start trying out this style of art. Where I should concentrate on content and how I can make images such as this blend in well with their background.

Whilst in Berlin I also came across the work of Jeff Soto, who I had researched previously in my two years doing the Foundation Degree and for me it was rather surreal to see one of his pieces in real life. Although the image isn't really clear, you can see the amount of detail and effort that have gone into this piece, especially in the face and eyes where a huge amount of shading and highlights have been used, and it made me fully appreciate the time and effort it must take for street artists to create such heavily detailed work, in a short space of time and with the canvas being such a strange platform to work on.

Over all, the 6 day trip to Berlin was probably something I'm never going to get, and definitely worth the two hours of sweaty anxious hell that I endured on the plane there. I literally cannot wait for next year and I think with more confidence and research into a number of the artists, I'll be able to communicate to them better and possibly engage them in some sort of conversation. I also had so much fun exploring the city as well, because not only is it a rather easy city to get around, it is teeming full of culture and passionate people, and it's definitely somewhere I want to go back!

 Character "Selfie," gallery in an abandoned building!

Oh, and we also went to an aquarium where the entry required an awfully awkward family photo:

Jeff Soto; Telephone Poles – Abu Ghraib (2008.)

Another one of Soto’s works, that I feel inspire me, is “Telephone Poles – Abu Ghraib,” for a number of reasons.

The concept of this illustration, I feel, is to focus on a number of underlying messages that cause controversy around the world, and still manage to possibly associate itself with a well-known children’s story “Peter Pan.” I feel as though I could take this subject of children’s storied and relate them to problems around the world, related to religion, terrorism, money and social views on other cultures.

The style of the illustration is rather miss-matched in my opinion; a cluster of images all done rather differently to Soto’s other work. It gives off a strong feel of confusion, obviously related to both religious and political views which would explain some inner conflict between morals and duty. I feel as though this could give me insight into how to include and incorporate other images into my pieces of work, without simply placing them around or next to the main character or center piece. This would also allow me to fill up my pages of work rather than giving them a simple background, which would make my work look a lot more professional and effective.

 I also feel that I could be inspired by his work because of the way he lines his work: he almost does the exact opposite to what I normally do and has very sketchy and disjointed lines to outline his work. This gives off the feeling of anger or quickness, which can make the image look vastly more effective than having clean and flowing lines, especially for the subject that I think the image is meant to depict. It would also help the time scale and development of my ideas, as it would save me time on outlining my work and would give me a better chance to concentrate on my colour scale, as I have trouble deciding on a typical colour palette, while my drawings are lined in simple black.

Jeff Soto; Stormy Skies (2006.)

Another of Jeff Soto’s pieces, named “Stormy Skies,” is a piece that I would benefit from, and be inspired by for a number of reasons.

The concept of this illustration, I feel, is a mock up of children’s playtime images, hence the cute face and unusual body structure. However this image has a rather dark side to it, showing the old and rusted (possibly bloody) face of the character, showing maybe the weariness and depression by being forced to constantly be happy.

The style of this illustration is rather simple; the main focus of the picture is in the center of the image, with a dark and contrasting background, which only amplifies the focus on the main character.

This image, like “Winter Death,” would give the inspiration to avoid making all of my characters very aesthetically pleasing and always “cute and cuddly.” And if going straight to more organic and “ugly” subjects is too difficult, I would meet it half way and design something cute and good looking, but then manipulate it, the way that Soto does, to make it seem vulgar and ugly. I could also try and create more abstract backgrounds, instead of literal ones. Using mixed media and a number of patterns, I could create a much more effective scene, which is coherent to the topic, and still maintain the levels of care and timing that I would need.

The techniques used in this illustration are simple but very effective; the illustration has been created through the means of acrylic paint on plain paper. The consistency of the paint varies depending of the solidarity of the individual pieces of the illustration. The character in the centre of the piece is very thick, bold and opaque, so the paint is extremely thick. Where as the background of the image is trying to show rainy and murky conditions, so they are likely to be slightly translucent, blending out towards the edges of the page.

 This would inspire me to concentrate on one specific media, and use different methods of applying it to the image. This, in turn, would give the image a mixed media effect, but only use one or two media in reality. 

Jef Soto; Winter Death (2010.)

Jef

Jeff Soto’s piece, entitled “Winter Death,” is an illustration that I feel would inspire my future work I create for a number of reasons.

The purpose of this piece is to show the beauty of glorified death, and how something as scary as death and can be something delicate and pristine.

The style of this piece is pretty bold, the main figure being the message behind the theme of death. As well as using imagery from the same environment to give a very natural feel to the image.

This would inspire me to try and not make all of my works of art stereotypically beautiful and show a more natural, ugly side, which is still nice to look at. I also have trouble creating backgrounds for my artwork, as I am not comfortable making scenes, so using shapes colours and patterns is an idea that I will take to use on my own ideas.

The colour theme throughout this piece of artwork shows the icy tones of winter, with blues, greys and greens highlighting the fresh and crisp nature of winter. The antlers and tentacles may represent the variety of animals that this applies to, from forest wildlife to life under the sea and how everything can be in danger of death in winter.

 I would take this as inspiration to include more drawings of wildlife rather than humans alone, or incorporating body parts into human bodies to make them more mythical and interesting.

The swirls of colour around the skull could also signify the change in seasons such as spring (pink), summer (yellow), autumn (blue,) and winter (Purple.)

This piece of art was created using acrylic paint on paper, and I find this personally, to be a rather complicated way of creating art. The use of tone and light as rather apparent in this piece, using the colour scheme of grey/blue and the shades that come with it. I feel as though starting with simple images that do not have a lot of intricate detail and shapes would benefit me greatly.