Art

Medusa

In Greek mythology, Medusa is a female monster that possesses venomous snakes on her head instead of hair. One look on her eyes will instantly turn the victim into a stone. This character is the subject of Audrey’s Flack two—dimensional artwork. The details and techniques employed by the artist created one of the most realistic image of Medusa.

The artwork, Medusa, is a monoprint etched in a white paper. The artist used monochromatic colors of orange to depict the image. She uses a wide array of short strokes and thin lines to create a rough and sketch-like texture of the subject. The shapes she used were mostly natural, and were achieved through short lines. Visibly, she achieved the most natural image of the character.

Line and color, being the most prominent feature of the piece, allowed the artist to convey the image itself. Through the chaotic design she used, it was seen that the character itself is hideous and daunting. The lines were laid down not in a most systematic way, yet it was able to emerge as a single image of a female face, with natural and longer lines used to depict the snakes on the head.

Shadows and contrast were also one of the techniques that are well played in the art work. Flack created depth through etching the whole image to create shadows along the hollow parts of the images. This created a better and more realistic dimension of the image.

In conclusion, the artist, through employment of various techniques, was successful in delivering a realistic image of Medusa.The visual impact of the artwork is remarkable. It was one of the most accurate portrayal of Medusa, as far as the description in the book goes. It was not only able to capture the physical characteristics, but also the character itself through the emotions radiated by the image.

Blink

Michael Gruden is the artist behind the two-dimensional image entitled Blink. Unlike its title, the artwork is nothing near a simple blink, but instead it was filled with black and white monochromatic images of what appears to be very similar to street art drawings. Through playing on variations of lines, shapes and texture, Gruden was able to depict his own image of reality in the urban space with a single blink of an eye.

Blink is a two-dimensional artwork, definitely hand-drawn rather than digitally rendered. Though the art gallery does not mentioned the medium used, it can be deduced the Gruden used oil pastel in canvas. There were only two dominant colors used in the artwork, these are the colors white and black. By employing only two, he was able to create a far greater impact in terms of color emphasis and contrast.

Another strength of the artwork is the variation of the weight of the lines used, and textures he created. There were visibly thicker lines in the artwork, especially those that are used to mark an outline, thinner lines can be recognized within those thick and heavy outlines. Thin lines were also used to create texture in the image. In addition to colors, lines and texture, the artist also used varied shapes. Majority of the image were rendered in geometric shapes. These were then used to create characters in the art work.

The elements mentioned were then used by the artist to create a visual piece that has an impact of a street art. It is like a graffiti that encompasses the life in the urban space –varied, can be heavy or light, has various textures yet monochromatic.

In conclusion, the techniques used by Gruden were successful in capturing the vibe of the city. It was not a typical image to see in a gallery, hence it was really eye-catching. Despite the lack of colors, Gruden was able to play on other elements that made her work more interesting and engaging.