I love this piece by David Walker, whilst it has no specified meaning  I find it to be a celebration of the human face, adding colour and flair to an infinitely recognised image. ‘The truth claim of a resemblance to the person portrayed simultaneously coexists with a claim to the repression of interiority or spirituality.’  (Soussloff, 2006) The scale of his work is also very impressive, I am a fan of working on a large scale, and these images decorate an area, rather than being stuck on one wall in one gallery. It opens his art up to a much wider audience. He makes his pieces in spray paint, which is a fun medium to use, that I want to use more in my own work, and in doing so he is deconstructing the idea that spray paint is a “vandal’s medium”.

The ‘Raft of The Medusa’ by Theodore Gericault is one of my favourite paintings. Being a Romantic painting with has such bold colours and such a striking image. But Gericault went to extreme lengths to make his painting as true to the story as possible. Again, I really like the scale of the piece, the difference here being that Gericault painted in a lot more information, so you see more by looking about the image rather than being impressed by the sheer size of it, but the level of detail across such a large area add to its effect. I did my own version of this piece based on the Paris terror attacks, and I think it came out macabre, I think an artwork is a nice way of creating a memoriam, as well as to capture their story.

I enjoy the work of Mike Giant who makes little black and white graphic pieces.Being a tattoo and graffiti artist aswell he has quite a ‘tattoo’ aesthetic, but rather than just draw the tattoo design itself he is able to put them in place, as if he got to to tattoo them on an actual body. This also allows him to group together different tattoos and things to create an aesthetic for the piece. I think this is a nice touch and find it funny that these designs could easily become tattoos themselves.

Soussloff, C. (2006). The subject in art. Durham: Duke University Press.