The Concept
To create a series of drawings of human hands/arms, these limbs will be drawn without bodies, requiring the viewer to develop their own idea of what and why these arms are being presented. The concept behind by presenting these bodiless limbs is to determine if an emotional/physical connection can be made between the viewer and the artwork. As I outlined in the last entry:
"I've decided to return to this idea of an unknown human form and the concept/idea of an isolated human, maybe someone who is looking for recognition but who can not get it because they do not posses a full identity. I'm also playing with the idea of whether people can react to this unknown form despite not understanding fully who or what they may be doing."
I'm planning on having the arms being captured in the process of physical intimacy with other "bodies" or by themselves. I want the viewer to be like a I find with my life drawing that it has a voyeuristic quality about it, although there is a difference being naked and nude. When I'm drawing the model,I find I keep looking at them,for a first timer, it can be a daunting experience and you feel somewhat guilty for looking at them.
The concept behind these drawings does relate to sexual frustration and the sensation of touch. A singular person, for most people, always brings up associations of loneliness and longing. The main questions following are: Will people going to connect to it? Will the gestures lose their meaning because they are without their surroundings/bodies and if they do, will the gestures gain a different meaning.
Concept Development
Here are some development sketches, I originally just wanted to draw a picture and name it "Tiberus Rex". Don't ask why, I can't really explain but it was based on this image
Some sketches along the lines of the whole human bodies in postions of intimacy, trying to get something that would get a response but also carry the theme of longing, I don't know. Here you can see the body and hand was the most important thing.
I started planning this project sometime in the June/July holidays, I'm not quite sure what started it, though I think it may have been influenced by the previous life drawing class. In a life drawing class, you always have one model, so when you've finished drawing, there are a lot of isolated bodies. I think the last semester has given me enough confidence to decide to do this.
These are some drawings from the last semester done using charcoal and graphite on prepared paper. Even though there is more than one body, it's still a person/isolation in isolation.
Somewhere along the line, I started thinking about doing pictures of people in embrace, because that always get an emotive response. However it's quite in your face, people will get a connection but I thought, I'm likely going to get several kinds of reactions from my audience.
1. Awww (people who love romantic stuff)
2. Go for it (people who like a little action)
3. #@!! (people who aren't getting any)
4. Boring (people who are very honest)
The reaction of everyone except group 1 is very interesting, I get annoyed when people show me pictures of people kissing. I was thinking of closeups of hands touching faces and such. So I decided for a more subtle approach. It's a little like the Calvin Klein advertising, the kind of hidden desire in black and white. This also relates to a conversation I had with a friend who mentioned that in high school she learnt: The difference between art and porn is it's in black and white.
So it's a little like, the whole body compared to isolating the hands:
This came to my mind a few days ago, it comes from the webcomic Penny and Aggie by T. Campbell and Gisèle Lagacé. I think it's somewhat relevant.
Materials
So based on these:
Project Arms will be on prepared paper that has watered down ink sponged onto it. The arms will be drawn using charcoal and white conte, although I'd like to use pencil, I don't want the pencil lines to show.
These are some mockups I did on the computer, although they're not perfect, they do illustrate the style I want these pictures to be in. I'll have to collect photo reference for this project, it'd be much better if I had a model but I'm limited to using photos.
I'm still deciding on what style of drawing to do these in,so feel free to comment.
InfluencesI've been thinking about this but I'm having a little trouble so here's a few artists who's work is in a similar vein to this project or who's work I think shares some attributes or who's work I'd like this project to be close to.
- David Choe
- Audrey Kawasaki
- Ray Caesar
- John John Jesse
- James Jean
- Chris Worfold <<-- This project probably owes a lot to Messiah Complex
- Del Kathryn Barton
Project Arms2.0 - A discussion on changes in the project
Other Works" - Works that Project "Arms" references
Project "Arms" hybrids - variants on Project Arms
A Look - Retrospective on past drawings
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