First Triptych Essay

Artist Statement – First Triptych¬¬ Piece

The theme of my triptych is about illustrating how ambiguous the perception of one’s appearance can have about an individual’s moral standpoint of being either a good or bad person as ultimately, there is no definite answer as they coexist in each person regardless of appearance.

The first part of my triptych depicts an individual that takes on a human form created with different lines and brushstrokes. This piece shows the appearance of the “bad” figure. In particular, there is no distinct human characteristics within this piece as I wanted this figure to be a generic human figure that can relate to the viewers. In relation to the overall triptych, this piece represents the “bad” of the piece. The human figure is distorted and blurred due to the violent strokes involved in the piece. These strokes can evoke emotions of fear and anxiety that are associated with unpleasant events, allowing to viewer to perceive that this individual is the “bad” one.

The key elements and principles of this first piece is lines and contrast. The lines created throughout the painting are placed everywhere from

diagonal, horizontal to vertical. This creates an emotional effect of anxiety within the piece. Furthermore, with different coloured line directions created contrast in the piece as it depicted warm colours against cool colours. Furthermore, contrast was created in the piece by the different textures created by the lines as they made certain areas of the individual more distinct than others.
The medium used throughout this piece is acrylic paint of reds, blues, purples and white.

These colours were chosen as they are analogous colours on the colour wheel. In addition, I used some modelling paste towards the sides of the paintings to give a rough texture finish on the painting. While executing this composition, I used the technique of sgraffito on the canvas. I scratched away paint to create the fine lines with a palette knife and butter knife. I also used a squeegee and paint brush to help fill up space in the painting. In this composition, the style that I wanted to recreate was Gerhard Richter’s abstract expressionist paintings that used the squeegee as a key tool to apply paint and drag it across the canvas. His style often depicted his subjects very blurred, which is what I wanted to recreate in my

composition.
Throughout the process of creating this piece, the difficulties occurred with the tools being used. Initially, in my proposal for my first piece, I wanted to use a squeegee to recreate Richter’s style; however, while using the squeegee, it rarely captured the effect of having many lines in my painting. It only filled in white space quickly. As a result, I added a butter knife to my use of tools for this piece because it helped me create many lines in a painting. Moreover, initially, I wanted to use the modelling paste to help thicken the paint, but I have come to realize how long it takes for modelling paste to dry and how difficult it was to use the butter knife around this medium. To resolve this difficulty, I took the modelling paste medium out of my idea entirely and applied to the edges of my canvas.
Overall, I am content with the way the lines came out with the butter knife. It was a new experience with tools that are out of the ordinary, and I hope to use butter knives for the future pieces to come. Despite the fact that modelling paste was not the medium used majorly, I believe the overall piece was executed well as texture was still created with the acrylic paint itself,