Throughout the writing and research of the blog posts and their topics, I’ve broadened my knowledge in the world of design about areas that I wouldn’t usually look in to, and discovered that I actually find many of them fascinating. I discovered new artists that I am fond of and can learn form that goes outside of my usual style, allowing me to experiment more, such as Gilles Beloeil who uses traditional medium and painting styles for his conceptual illustrations. Before discovering this artist, I’ve always separated fine art and digital concept art, especially for such a commercial instance like video games, as two separate things, but now I see how they could be overlapped and combined to create something beautiful and meaningful.

Learning about famous art movements such as Avant Garde and Postmodernism has given me the ability to criticise art from a new perspective beyond aesthetics, and to be able to add deeper meanings into my own pieces of work instead of deciding based on visual appeal and cleverness in the design. It has also given me a deeper appreciation to art and design, knowing that it has the potential and capability to alter the course of social establishment; to create and destroy, which is absolutely astonishing. I’ve never been one to appreciate art that is on the abstract side, due to they’re presumed “pretentiousness” and lack of traditional use of skills and methods, but caring to look beyond the superficial (which is something that I learned from the Modernism movement), I’ve learned the importance of art that ventures outside the convention and mainstream appeal, which is key to the evolution of the art industry as a whole. Prejudice in perception of art is hard to overcome, but I see this as a start to pulling down the inhibitions one naturally has when approaching something unfamiliar.

Exploring new topics in depth also inspire new ideas which has aided my practises to becoming more experimental and wide ranged. It also allows more possible combination of methods and style instead of sticking to traditional formulas. I have also been able to improve some of my transferable research and critical skills, which will be very helpful to my future projects, regardless of the topic. When I needed to find references, image sources and just generally more information about the thing I’ve chose to analyse, I had to make use of every method, especially for works that are obscure with engines such as google reverse searches and google scholar and the library’s resources to obtain the bit of facts that I needed. I realised that on the way I am also exposed to new inspirations that aren’t actually relevant at this time but could be in the future, such as new artists, and blogs like Widewalls that I could go back to in the future.

In conclusion, this project not only exposed me to new ideas, it has also expanded my way of thinking and understanding of the world of art and design, and I can’t wait to see how my works in the future will change and the new directions it can take.

Image Source: [The Visitor by Shaun Tan – Tales from Outer Suburbia ]

This Illustration is for his award winning of-the-walls story book, and I think this shows exactly why. The unusual combination of familiar elements, ie an astronaut and a suburban environment creates a sense of heightened reality to suggest that this is a metaphor as opposed to literal. He uses almost a childlike and storybook style to tell more mature tales, in which I interpret as a sense of solitude and not belonging. He uses a range of colours in a ashy discoloured way that suggests a passing of time, which resembles a 1950’s futurism poster, or perhaps an old children’s novel with the former child owner now grown up, with their former creative mind tarnished?

Image Source: Gilles Beloeil [Assassin’s Creed II artbook]

This is a concept art for the game franchise Assassin’s Creed, however unlike other concept art, this is painted in a traditional medium: oil, and the composition resembles that of a Romantic Era painting of an occurring scene. The artist create a sense of realism by choosing to go with a realistic style, but at the same time creating a sense of mystery and wonder by using a singular ashy colour scheme and the play with light and dark. The painting style is reflective of the time setting of the actual scene which allows the viewer to be drawn in to the alternate reality. The plotting of character’s location and position creates a narrative and serves it’s purpose of potential story telling.

Image Source: Re-imagination of The Martian movie poster by ChungKong Art

I like this poster design because it is a minimalist depiction of The Martian poster. It doesn’t require much graphics to reveal the main plot of the movie. The use of the bright circle both represent the colour and shape of Mars and the lens of a telescope, also the emotional struggle the protagonist is going through. The abundance of space in the frame and the character’s position suggests a sense of solitude and sadness, which is a perfect depiction of the theme of the movie. I really like how the artist use one aspect of the poster to convey multiple ideas and messages instead of making a complex image. This method also adds focus and to the main subject of the film, at the same time still being aesthetically pleasing; this required intricate planning of the poster’s layout.

Ugolino’s Room, 1990-1991
acrylic and oil on canvas

Image references; David Salle [Ugolino’s Room]