Process of Work | Portfolio

Unit 1

Painting (The couple, rain)

This page shows the progress of my work, inspirations and plans. This painting is named, 'The couple, rain' and comes from a photo of a city park. The first plan for the painting is rooted in depression and loneliness, because my lifestyle has totally changed in the U.K., and the pandemic has accelerated these feelings. London has a lot of rainy days, which naturally compounded my anxiety. The pathetic fallacy is frequently used in my artworks, and the landscapes reflect the figures’ emotions.

I randomly take a lot of photos and choose one of them for a painting, and then I paint a small sketch with pencil and watercolours, mostly. If I like it, I go on to the next step, which is a drawing on the same scale as the final canvas. This phase is useful to concretize ideas and to think about a way to progress, it can make the final work more strong and can support a reality of the thought and the feeling, as well as finalizing a form or a shape for the piece. It's like a primer and allows me to work more intuitively after it has laid the groundwork. After transferring the sketch onto canvas, the composition or the subjects are often changed and the use of colour is always changed from the first plan, because I emphasize current or impulsive ideas. In this particular painting, the figure was changed at this juncture. Instead of floating on a pond as she did in the sketch, in the final work she just stands in front of the pond. I think I changed it from the previous figure location because it was too imaginative, and I thought itmight weaken the overall integrity of the work. As a whole, the piece focusses on the psychological state of pessimism.

↑An early phase of the painting.

←The drawing to a painting. (I can not take a photo of the actual drawing of it, so here is alternative one)

Prints (The evening, suffering)

This print is based on a past photo. I had some time to look back at my photos because of lockdown. During lockdown I have focused on making prints which tend to evoke an idealistic and dream-like space. I unconsciously have the desire to escape the suffocating situation and the print series naturally evolves from this desire. The prints combine an old photo with a fictional woman that comes from my memory, but she reminds me of Munch's drawing at the same time. My method is to start from a black area which decides the composition then to create color blocks which slide away from the black forms. I try to avoid overcomplicating the process. Sometimes my plan changes after making prototypes or pressing the black part, as it is very hard to anticipate the whole printing process beforehand. Finally, the prints are finished by hand-colouring in acrylic paint. This stage is important for me, as I can add to the ambiguity of the scene and the sway of feeling.