Unit 3
How to express social impacts and crashes under contemporary era in urban area by using portraits of human and architecture?
Concluding Unit 2, I realised that my works needed to jump out of their original concept - I decided that my expression of Urban Depression would not only depend on the various emotive expressions I observed of people in the streets but also on their environment, the urban architecture and cityscape.
In Unit 2, some key developments were through my focus on endowing the works with feeling through their subjects. The Modernist concepts regarding a sense of alienation, that are pertinent in a contemporary society informed my work - During Covid, we witnessed a tremendous social upheaval: Retrogression in the global economy, homelessness rose in industrial communities, and unemployment rose in urban areas - I wanted to vividly portray the oppression of the human-architectural bond in contemporary urban life & felt that under Covid dehumanising social action had exaggerated the negative aspects of this relationship.
This new series was in two parts: Abstracted portraiture in painting and in sculpture, using acrylic paint and laser-cut wood - Delineating the human face, inscribing complex feelings and emotions. For the second part, I wanted to grow my practice by working from specific sights in London, to express the pressure on the people working in the gloom - All the bright surfaces hid dark feelings, and the emotions of the workers in the skyscrapers and streets lay strewn, reflected and all creatures struggling with the weight of depression. I was inspired by Benjamin Noys’ - ‘Malign Velocities: Accelerationism and Capitalism’ (2014). He mentioned that we are now not so much suffering from modernism as an accelerating doctrine that has brought unprecedented pain to people. In fact, accelerationism can be understood as the suffering and cost of people’s work and life in the capitalist environment.
In addition, my works consider some of the thinking of Meta-Modernism, and its people-oriented and (seemingly) romantic concepts. Following these lines of thought, I started to paint these structures and connect the emotions and characteristics of the people with the architectural features through the implementation of kind gently curving forms. And Meta-modernism could be seen as the intermediary between modernism and postmodernism. The emergence of Metamodernism is ambivalent yet combines the opposite social structure and features (Turner,2015). It has provided people tools to balance society’s darkness and empressement of society’s development and technology (Vermeulen &van den Akker,2010).
I felt that as a contemporary practitioner, I was in a unique position to combine Modernism, Post-Modernism and Meta-Modernism - I could utilise the aspect of social commentary on the tremendous damage of rapidly advancing technology and the expansion of the global economy and their effects on peoples’ emotions as many embraced the voracity and lust championed by contemporary society, whilst connecting my depictions of humanised entities with their humanity - Their capacity for health and happiness, despite their environment. My creation and momentum have been periodically influenced by Anthony Vidler (2001). He focuses on two forms of distorted space. One of them is psychological space - A repository of Neuroticism and phobia, including the forms of buildings and cities. At the same time, his research on the situation of displacement in contemporary society has played a positive role in my creations on urban depression. With this research in mind - I could actively use buildings in downtown London to reveal slight beauty within the darkness brought by the social pressure and distortion of human nature.
Chapter 1- "Portrait"
In my work ‘Romantic Architect’, I have used laser-cut wooden panels to express the emotions of human beings living in a big city. I call it “Romantic Architect” because of the strong desire for an ideal world and the wish to change social conditions. Grey tones and shadows cover the human face entirely in this sculptural painting, representing the feeling of struggling in the current frustrating social situation. The current anti-epidemic policies of some authoritarian countries inspired me to complete this work. I wanted to reflect on the sadness and hopelessness of people still witnessing endless isolation and so-called human rights violations. I used a collage of barbed wire to show people being locked up like prisoners. But I still want to embrace the development of a humane society. The bright yellow and pink colours still express my desire for an ideal world and embody the value that romanticism brings to hopeful people.
If the previous painting embodies postmodernism, the human quest for idealisation, freedom and comfort, this painting can express the disappointment of the modern mind through false happiness. I have made part of the head irregularly shaped and hollowed out the core, with a warm gold colour that looks like the surface of a beautiful, bustling city. But it is all grey and dark when viewed through the hollowed-out part. At the same time, the dark rectangular part of the horn shape represents the human vocal organs. I wanted to use this approach to show the fake side of human beings in today’s society.
Luke O'Sullivan's work combines realistic painting techniques with sculpture to create extraordinary urban scenes. He also creates architectural sculptures inspired by the themes of anti-utopian fiction. His early pieces are more game-like, a gorgeous cityscape. Later works use the urban underground to reflect the realities of the working class in the process of urbanisation. His recent work, 'Industry/Entropy', shows the bustling urban architecture and the painful stories behind the bustle (beneath the city). Although no human is present throughout the artwork, viewers can feel the silence of the big cities and the helplessness behind his creation. Some buildings are leaning, some are falling apart, and some are making old. The detailed portrayal of these demonstrates the storytelling of this work. He allows the viewer to spend more time looking at what is happening in the city. He has used screen printing on wood. The cutting of the wood better expresses the complexity and three-dimensionality of the city. Wood boards gave me more ideas for using materials in my work. I wanted to use the wood panels to provide the portrait with an urban feel, to express the psychological activities of people living in the city and the struggle against urbanisation. It has to be said that urbanisation has brought better living standards and conditions, but it has also brought stress and depression. The work 'black' is based on his other pieces and adds some other materials. I can feel the pain and helplessness of the labouring people underneath the city. Behind all the prosperity, many people from the lower classes struggle for it. I got a lot of inspiration from this kind of material using. In my work 'abandoned', I use rusted iron and wood pieces abandoned in the city to reflect urban life's oppressive and unheard feeling. I will continue to use the laser cut of wooden panels in my subsequent artworks. Moreover, the combination of wood panels and funding materials may greatly help me in my future artistic work.
Luke O'Sullivan, Industry/Entropy, screen print on wood with salvaged material, 10.2’ x 7’ x 1’, (2015)
Romantic Architect
Cockney
Abandoned
Francis Bacon, Portrait D’ Isabelle Rawsthrone 1966
Adrian Ghenie, Untitled, 2018，Oil on canvas, 50 x 30 x 3 cm
Mr. & Mrs R
Adrian Ghenie’s portrait of Trump in 2018 stands out. In this painting (compared to his other works), he restored the structure of the figure itself, dealing with the internal contents of the face in detail. The depiction of the bloody face fully shows the negative feedback brought by Protectionism during Trump’s presidency and people’s attitude to him. Their failure to support Trump’s performance in office - His violent policies towards Mexican immigrants also gave the painting a sinister and dark tone, especially considering the representation’s skin.
Francis Bacon often uses grotesque images or morbid tasks as his subject matter, creating portraits that reflect only his inner fantasies and pain. The images he depicts are distorted, deformed and blurred in a way that makes his work known for its brutal sharpness, intense violence, and nightmarish images. In his creative style, he used to use the human figure as the basis for his pictorial designs and to give the objects and scenes of the visible world in his paintings emotional rich. His work is subject to his personal experiences and extreme inner pain, a disillusioned, bestial horror of emotion that reflects the spiritual crisis of life at the time. As a modernist painter, he strives to tap into everyday human life's hard-to-find struggles. He sensitively captured these painful states and tried to visualise these emotions. Bacon often wanted to use these exaggerated and brutal paintings to show his inner 'loneliness' in an undisguised way. Francis Bacon’s Portrait D’ Isabelle Rawsthrone in 1966. By depicting the lady’s face, he showed the actual development of society and people’s life at that time. This abstract and distorted depiction can reflect more the appearance than the state through human modification.
In my portrait series, I also want to use human portraits to tell the idea of the human being affected by the city. In the Urban Depression series, the 'human' is the main subject I want to express, so I have chosen 'portraits' as the primary form of work. I have chosen 'portraits' as my main form of work. My work tends to express people's pain in the big city. This pain is invisible; it doesn't make people flesh and blood but affects many people's inner worlds. Because of the invisibility of pain, many people often ignore their suffering and the pain of others around them. People are gradually surrendering to capital, getting flattened by society and unable to express themselves without fear. This phenomenon is why some shapes are regular in my portrait paintings, some are distorted, and some are ready to erupt.
"Mr. & Mrs R" specifies the gender attributes of the work through its name. This approach is my first attempt to make the abstract figure more concrete. This approach is more prescriptive regarding what the viewer thinks about when viewing the work. In the exhibition, I asked many people how they felt when they saw the paintings, and I got many different answers depending on each person's diverse experiences. For example, in the piece on the left, some people thought it was a woman doing housework because of the pink cleaning gloves with the yellow grease stains. Some thought it looked like a hen, while others thought she looked more like a matcha ice cream. Some thought the portrait on the right to be a civil servant in China, a rooster, or a rusty patch of blood. I find that when a range is given to these portraits by name, it is easier to provoke the viewer to make a detailed observation and reflection.
To sum up, in Abstracted Portraiture, we can draw comparisons between the methodology of Modernism and Post-Modernism’s reaction to social realities. My flexible application of tonal changes in colour (temperature) and laser cutting technique, along with my sense of and feeling towards the subject matter and belief that the image can depict the inner feelings of the artist, subject and create space to reflect the audience’s inner emotions, at the same time, describing how that relates to peoples’ experience of broader society, whilst considering the combination of laser cut. I drew on the feelings and emotions I imagined in observing the skyscrapers to achieve this medley. Portrait Collections are more like an overlap between different dimensions, such as the cyber world and the virtual world, or perhaps a sense of romanticism to the actual reality of society. The biomorphic form symbolises human activity, which contrasts with the geometric city without warmth. Using biomorphic shapes does not refer to any particular person or activity, and it does not matter what it is. It is an artistic element that belongs to me. I hope to use my symbols to attract universal attention.
Chapter 2- "Urban Spaces"
Before I began to depict the urban architectural fabric of London, I realised that different cities have completely different cultures and perspectives. For example, the representation of London and New York appears differently in some past paintings. For instance, in past paintings, London and New York were represented differently, and this content and detail emerged according to the social systems and conditions of the time.
Ben Will, Urban Spaces II, Gouache on Canvas
“The Urban Spaces Series are imaginative or real urban developments and architecture. I am exploring the perceptions of urban development and social interaction.”
- Ben Will
Ben Will's urban space painting has given me a lot of inspiration for depicting the structure of social space. In this painting, he describes the bustling streets of New York City. The work shows the daily life of citizens in Brooklyn living in a slightly darker tone city. He explores people's perceptions of urban development and social interaction. Suppose we continue to dig deeper into the meaning behind this painting. The use of bright red and green paint makes me think that the artist wishes to show that the life of ordinary people in New York has not been affected too much by the background of modernism through social and economic development. The social structure has not become intolerable due to the distortion of human nature.
Similarly, in the Victorian Era, the British government implement multiple legislation towards housing issues. Before the 1890s, the social conflict caused by the class of housing raised attention worldwide since the working class always had unfair treatment from their perspective (Whelan,2011). In the late 19th century, the Victorian government began to actively intervene in the housing of workers, mainly by strengthening the legislation of housing management power of local institutions in London and launching supervision. In addition to rehabilitating slums, public housing has been built, sanitation improved, and facilities improved in the workers' quarters (Morris, 2002).
Site of the model lodging-house, erecting by the General Society for the Improving the Dwelling of the working classes. (http://www.londonancestor.com/local/working-class-houses.htm)
Therefore, in this regard, I want to call the content above the manifestation of Metamodernism. The government could launch the humanised policy positively under the complicated society and market imperfection. It is necessary to ulteriorly discover the relative process of balancing the situation, just like what the Victorian Era did for the workers.
The architecture in Brunswick, Germany, illustrates the emergence of metamodernism. It has been called the Happy Rizzi, representing its original thoughts of creation. I am not saying that the creation originated from social contradiction or class conflict. The unique design is enough compared with other houses in the area. Indirectly, the design has reflected the combination of the balance of the social situation. From my perspective, happiness should be the media for all the people from Brunswick to be optimistic and avoid either social pressure or mediocrity. It has increased the human happiness index and possibly solved the threat of committing suicide or other extreme behaviour.
A Psychedelic and Cartoons Painted Building in Germany
(https://www.fubiz.net/2016/02/24/a-psychedelic-and-cartoons-painted-building-in-germany/)
Looking back at my work：
Peckham
Isle of Dogs
I show the emotional interaction between humans and buildings through oil painting in the above two pictures. As for the first picture, I reveal the scene of heavy traffic in Peckham, which is located in the South of London, and the portrait of the head in the picture represents the mental changes of ordinary working people living in the city. The painting can see that I processed the parts that people can walk around with sound colours and attached warm colours to the outline of the building and the car’s appearance. I mainly want to give the core ideas of postmodernism to buildings and traffic tools through this form. Although people struggling in the city are constantly receiving the suffering caused by development, they attempt to see a long-lost light through the window, and the traffic outside the window is their only sustenance. This light can also support them in the hustle and bustle of society to continue to survive.
Based on the second work, I ultimately emerge the sadness of the human under the global economic development and rapid growth of modern technology. In the figure, I combined the tall buildings on Lombard street with the portrait of human beings. I used all the cool colours to highlight the drawbacks of social development and the negative impact of rapid economic growth on human nature. I am eager to unfold the social phenomenon when millions of people sacrificed most of their lifetime and social value for the capitalists worldwide with constant satisfaction towards useless achievements. Their sadness and hopelessness are more likely to be described as damage to the balance of human nature. In this regard, to escape from the cold reality, people need to be more romantic when they embrace the changes and development of modern society.
Meanwhile, I have concentrated on classical architecture’s more rational and utilitarian character by depicting a combination of classical and modern buildings in central London. On the other hand, contemporary architecture is more radical. In the first and second works, modern architecture shows the great value social change and technological development have brought to the country. There is a tendency to express the prosperity of the local economy through the grandeur of the buildings.
In the first work, I depict a building under repair in the Peckham area. The abstract biomorphic shapes represent human activities. The work is more romanticised due to the vibrancy of the biomorphic forms. Although the area gives the impression of darkness, without sunlight and so much as a contrast between light and dark relationships on the building, human activities can be positive.
The second piece is from a photograph I took on my way to school. I depict a relatively old building in central London with a group of skyscrapers behind it. The abstracted life forms (biomorphic shapes) move between the two buildings, showing the people’s different attitudes and social experiences. The people who live and work in the skyscrapers appear to the outside world to have a more affluent standard of living, with resources and financial support that ordinary people do not have. However, I use shades of grey to show their struggle and pain with the reality of life. This phenomenon is also true in real life, keeping with the core philosophy of modernism. Rapid economic development has led to a growing desire for power and wealth. In the struggle for resources and the pursuit of wealth, they are not above taking anti-human steps. We can also often see the madness and abuse of capitalism in television dramas and the news. In other words, much pressure in the city comes from the oppression of capitalism and the distortion of humanity by modernism. Some people living in skyscrapers are still trying to escape their miserable lives, those ‘biomorphic shapes’ trying to escape the pressures of the city. At the same time, some others have not thought of an effective way to face the mental and physical torture of the capitalist world and have become lost. The workers working day and night to ‘decorate’ the skyscrapers are victims of modernist and capitalist oppression. I have given these contemporary high-rise buildings a dark, cold tone of emotion, which also ironically reflects the unchanging oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie.
London City Scape
London City Scape
London City Scape
In Chapter 2, Andreas Gursky's vast Stock Exchange photographs made my attack on capitalism and modernism smoother. In my opinion, Andreas Gursky's photos not only reveal the reality of people's pursuit of wealth in the capitalist society, but also attack the dark side of human nature disguisedly. The attraction of capital to human beings leads to more sacrifice and single pursuit, people can give up any resources for wealth.
Andreas Gursky's vast Stock Exchange
Andreas Gursky's vast Stock Exchang
At the same time, the works of Jock McFadyen and Richard Diebenkorn also inspired me to complete my art creation towards the portrayal of Buildings. Jock McFadyen created the view of Roman Road in 1950, providing me with my work’s art style. In Roman, he portrayed an old British apartment near a building with graffiti on it, and the person in the scene was calmly enjoying the beautiful moon sight. The overall tonality was dark and grim. It reflected the reality of the temporal situation, and people lived in a relatively hopeless society when Britain and the world were fixing the damage after the World War. Social instability and economic revival have led to people’s uncertainty about the future, and the social problems reflected in this painting complement the cold tone.
In April 2022, Jock McFadyen held his solo exhibition 'Tourist without a Guidebook' at the Royal Academy. The collection gathered over 20 of his works and presented a wide range of London's urban landscape. In particular, East London is in a constant state of flux. Here, landscapes and buildings interchange. The graffiti, litter, peeling posters and shop signs allude to the city's inhabitants, whose presence is still felt by the viewer despite their absence from the frame. In the silence and darkness of the paintings, the viewer can feel the presence of the human being. In these works, he allows the buildings to take on human characteristics, such as broken glass, closed doors, graffiti-like scars and a sense of faded grandeur, all showing the lives and occupants in these scenes.
In my work, I also want to use a palette of grey tones to reflect the oppressive and alienating nature of the city while using 'biomorphic shapes' to show human activities.
JockMcfadyen,Roman,1950
On the contrary, INGLESIDE II of Richard Diebenkorn has brought brimming with vigour and vitality for the audience and created a warm and harmonious scene of the town. Here we do not see the coldness and sadness of society; the surrounding green vegetation and quiet houses give freedom and vitality to the painting. I wanted to create something new, which meant that I could combine these two forms of painted expression. In the third unit, I tried to mix my paintings’ human activity and architecture with the two emotions of repression and vibrancy. I was giving a romantic dimension to the depressing city.
However, I wanted to debate the core concept of metamodernism through the use of colour. In the image above, I gave bright colours to humans (biomorphic shapes) against a grey background. It represents that although people live in a dark environment, they can still enjoy the benefits and welfare of economic and social development. Indeed, for us as humans, access to profit is the most powerful tool we have for maximising our human values. We can fill our human pursuits by acquiring benefits to buy what we need and enjoy a luxurious life. In this context, we cannot completely deny that social development can cause people trouble and suffering, but a more humane and less radical approach to development is needed.
Accordingly, in Unit 3, I initially prefer to debate the concept of Modernism and Post-modernism to critically satirise the harm and tragedy that Capitalism and social development brought to human beings. Fortunately, Metamodernism's emergence authentically inspired me to jump out of the unitary and subjective argumentation. In conclusion, we live in a social system with endless desire and gluttony, and it is unnecessary to blame the irresistible external elements. Just like what we have seen from the work of "Happy Rizzi", happiness and endless wealth should be owned by human beings, not the product of Modernism and Post-modernism.
References:
Bacon,F. Portrait D 'Isabelle Rawsthrone(1966)
Diebenkorn, R. INGLESIDE II (1963)
Ghenie, A. Untitled (2018), Oil on canvas
Gursky, A. New York Stock Exchange (1991), chromogenic color-print laminated with Plexiglas
Mcfadyen,J. Roman(1950)
Morris, S. (2002). Organizational innovation in Victorian social housing. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 31(2), 186-206.
Noys, B. (2014). Malign velocities: Accelerationism and capitalism. John Hunt Publishing.
O’Sullivan, L. (2015) “Industry/Entropy .” Available at: http://www.lukeosullivan.com/industryentropy (Accessed: November 15, 2022).
Turner, L. (2015). Metamodernism: A brief introduction. Notes on metamodernism, 12.
Vidler, A. (2002). Warped space: art, architecture, and anxiety in modern culture. MIT press.
Vermeulen, T., & Van Den Akker, R. (2010). Notes on metamodernism. Journal of aesthetics & culture, 2(1), 5677.
Whelan, L. B. (2011). Class, culture and suburban anxieties in the Victorian era. Routledge.
Will,B.Urban Spaces II(2019), Gouache on Canvas
Will, B. (2022) Urban Spaces, BenWill Studio. Available at: https://benwill.com/collections/urban-spaces
RICHARD DIEBENKORN, INGLESIDE II, 1963
