Kara Walker


Kara Walker’s work is steeped in the subject of race. Her often exaggerated cut outs of facial features, body shapes, and costume use line to consciously identify the ethnicity of her subjects identity through assumption and comment on the way race is used to define us through visual stereotype. Walker's use of the silhouette is both an ironic and complex way to address these issues, since the paper Walker uses to cut out most of the images for her wall murals is black. This media eliminates the need for her to create skin tones and effectively renders all of her figures “black.” For these pieces the racial status assigned to her characters is visible through stereotype and caricature, more often than not exaggerated facial feature i.e big lips to inject humour and mock these stereotypical generalisations. For Walker, using the silhouette came from her thinking about what it means for groups of people to define themselves through images. This is a personal interest of the artist, who says that making artwork about race translates into intimate issues about identity and society. The


compositions scenes also convey mindsets about assumed racial behaviours, mainly explicit assumptions of black women being almost sole sucking and sexually crazed with a for gone substantial libido. walkers pieces are mostly intriguing due to the depth of contrast in her pieces and the message within the scenarios prevoking interpenetration. The focal point is based around role reversal and 1500's African american slavery, highlighting class and monopoly of power.


walker has inspired my personal work due to the fact that such simplicity brings to surface such complex politics and standings on race and society. Although personally I had not adopted the motive behind her work, neither had i put a message behind mine, i took on the technique of creating the silhouettes in an attempt to create a depth of colour in my final mural.

Martin Parr

This photo by Parr is a depiction of identity through iconic trademarks of society and era as a like are all of his pieces. The reason why I was drawn to this photo and chose to analyse it is because it has a strong message behind it. From the immediate offset u can identity that the image consists of a delicate china tea cup, tea inside it and a pattented surface mat. Clearly this image serves time capsule for 19..0's Britain and carries with it much character. Judging by the bold striking colours of the red, white and blue of the image it seems almost a strong decision for the composition of the items to be these colours as they reflect back on the colours of the union jack.

William Eggleston

This is a photo, from the looks of the lens in the 1970’s. It appears it is taken from inside a diner apparent from the coca-cola crate and the painted lettering made out on the window ‘shrimp’. This image drew my attention not because of its physical composition but instead what it does as an image. It works almost as a time capsule, capturing that era and way of life in subtle ways. Weather on not the photographer was aiming to convey this message or arouse this reaction it does so effectively .Highlighting the technique of type on the display, the American muscle car and the pre developed coca-cola logo and the architecture behind the parking lot.

SI Scott

Si Scott is a graphic designer from the Uk who is originally from Leeds but has moved around the country quite a bit. Si regularly exhibits and lectures around the world, places such as Tokyo, Sydney, Toronto, Norway and New York amongst others. He creates distinctively quite innovative type, with extended serifs which bring his illustrations to life. His unique style of award winning work is a blend of hand crafted and hand drawn artwork that has gained him a large and prestigious client list.

Focusing in on his typography, his use of distinct black flowing lines against a white backdrop consequently draws your attention to detail. The free flowing shapes contained with the ridged alpha numeric font create a sense of containment yet convey a freedom of expression which hasn’t boundaries. The motion of his letter forms in some sense creates illusion and conjures awe in reaction.

Brands such as Nike, Addidas and Orange have employed Si to create illustrations for campaigns as his pieces are very striking and although different brands his style of working convey its very own message.

Throughout my experimentation i have shown my pencil and graphical transcripts in the style of Scott. Manipulating the embodiment and type form in order for it to stand free flowing and convey natural contours and forms which speak to us on look the visuals. I draw much inspiration from Scott as an artist primarily due to the fact that the work carries such flamboyance and highlights the artist’s creativity.

Frank Gerhy

Paul Halley

Andy Warhol

Micheal Roberts

David Dowton

Stinkfish

Stinkfish is street artist from Colombia and produces Street Art London town. Today he was painting this fantastic doorway over in East London. Street Art London caught up with him to take some shots as you can see below…

I personally admire the work of stinkfish because of the way the pieces capture you. The innovative and innate use of colours in the work, vibrant, colourful, the free flowing strokes from the central image which captures main features in a deep black works well giving contrast. The art work to me depicts a sense of freedom and prosperity, culture and beauty. Most stinkfish street has a basis of a real life photographed portrait; from this he uses the harmonic brushstrokes to depict features emotion and life. The designs tell a story almost and highlight many things one of which is identity. The swirling psychedelic designs remind us that sometimes love is an altered state.

I've drawn inspiration from Sinkfish in sense that I understand how the use of colour impacts on the images overall ability to provoke analytic thought and spur emotion. Building on these techniques i hope to incorporate such colour in my work along the line.

Richard Hamilton

'Just what is it that makes today's homes, so appealing?'

This collage by English artist Richard Hamilton was made in 1956, being the first pop art to achieve iconic status it is a very influential piece in art history. Pop art emerged in the mid 1950's in the USA. Pop art Changed tradition by asserting position that an artist may use images of mass-produced visual commodities from popular culture to produce their art works. I feel Hamilton was able to assert this acceptance in the art world of using images from popular culture at this time as it created an interesting theme and although being just images, placing them together in this way speaks out a much bigger picture throughout every detail even the outward view of the window people may overlook, a billboard poster to what looks like a Broadway musical or music event which was highly popular in the 1950's western culture. Pop art is a movement is an art movement of the twentieth century characterized by themes which this piece highlights and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. Hamilton capsulate all of these conventions through the compositions, emphasising your over analysis on the piece that stirs controversy and popping up questions with new answers is the fact that the title is a question in itself.

During the first stages of my idea development plan for our first project we were set the task of investigating selective objects that have meaning to us and interests us, so in order to spur up ideas i decided to create a collage composition similar to Hamilton’s to create interesting visuals and build-up of ideas. It was effective as I ended up using a large section of my collage trace in my final piece and i was able to source popular interesting culture on a double page spread which was ultimately Hamilton’s aim when produce this piece.