Marching to Mars

‘Marching to Mars’

As an artist I have always been interested in human observation and behavior.
Last year, I found myself capturing drawings of everyday people that I came into contact with. I was searching my environment for people lost in their own personal here and now, capturing those small intricate moments, which we might not normally take notice of, moments which we would normally pass by.

I am currently working on the idea of taking these people from their everyday setting and experimenting with the space around them, creating an imaginative world, a place where the observer may step into and relate a place of tranquility and personal escapism. I feel it is important to push the boundaries of my thinking, by experimenting with my initial ideas.

‘Marching to Mars’ was an idea, which was originally a drawing of four Salvation Army figures marching across Cemetery Road, Sheffield. My idea to place the figures in a mysterious, dreamlike space, was inspired by several factors: a BBC Documentary about space (which contained computer generated imagery of planets across our solar system); and a song called ‘Moving to Mars’, by Coldplay. These two factors then linked to the ideas around Philosophy. One of Greek philosopher Plato’s most famous theories was that, “The objects we perceive are not the ultimate reality, but more like a shadow of reality”. He believed that it was possible that everything we see and touch is just a creation of the mind, and that we may be in a dreamlike world. These interesting ideologies all sparked the creation of my idea ‘Marching to Mars’.

To push my idea further I decided to create a sculpture, which will be cast in Bronze, of the ‘Marching to Mars’ figures, this is the object which I will be showing for my assessment. My rational around this was to create a three-dimensional object, to not only experiment with a completely different process, but to bring my work to life further.

Research - Carl Warner - Foodscapes

Carl Warner, is a unique landscape artist, who constructs landscape's from everyday food, and produces mesmerising photographs of the scenes he creates. ‘Foodscapes’ are created in Carl’s London studio where they are built on top of a large purpose built triangular table top. The scenes are photographed in layers from foreground to background and sky as the process is very time consuming and so the food quickly wilts under the lights. Each element is then put together in post production to achieve the final image.

I was fascinated by Warner's Photographs, the incredible skill and model making, in order to produce the images is incredible.

“I tend to draw a very conventional landscape using classic compositional techniques as I need to fool the viewer into thinking it is a real scene at first glance, it is the realisation that the scene is in fact made of food that brings a smile that brings a smile to the viewer, and for me that’s the best part”

Carl Warner's use of lighting is extremely affective, the realistic natural light brings the landscape's to life. I feel this is a really important technique in producing any piece of art work, from Painting, too film, and Photography. Warner's photograph's allow the observer to scrutinise each detail of the landscape, to question the way it was constructed using food. The images below a selection of Warner's recent works.