Title: Get a Grip
Size: 36 x 36 in Medium: Acrylic painting on canvas Date: April 2023 Get a Grip is an acrylic painting meant to explore the idea of control and the unforeseen factors that affect one's life. Inspired by the street artist Banksy, the piece is based off of his Girl With Balloon with the figures instead replaced by the artist. The piece aims to invoke the feeling of helplessly watching something beyond one's control.
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Inspiration
This piece is inspired by the British graffiti/street artist Banksy and his Girl With Balloon series. Banksy is infamous for his anonymity and his heavy focus on activism and anti-authoritarianism. His art is often characterized by simple color pallets and is often accompanied by dramatic public stunts such as releasing live rats as he did during a show of his in 2005. Banksy uses the simplistic style of graffiti art to convey deep meaning in his work, often on subjects of injustice and authoritarianism. He has also often criticized the workings of modern art institutions and pushed the limits of what many deem acceptable for art. One such stunt was him decorating a live elephant for an exhibition in 2006. These factors make Banksy stand out as a truly unique artist who attempts to break current expectations of art.
PlanningWhen planning this piece, I was limited to creating an acrylic painting on a 3x3 canvas. With a wide range of options for what kind of piece I could create I decided to branch out from my normal spheres of inspiration and base my piece off of a currently working artist. I decided to create a piece inspired by Banksy after watching several online videos detailing his various stunts and public exhibitions. Upon viewing his Girl With Balloon series, I immediately thought of the concept of control and connected the piece to the way life sometimes remains out of one's control. I decided to create a self-portrait portraying myself instead of the girl pictured in Girl with Balloon and rather than letting the balloon float away, as she seems to be doing in Banky's works, I would instead portray myself desperately trying to catch it. This would give new meaning to the piece while still imitating Banksy's work in terms of stylistic qualities and general composition. My piece would break way from Banksy's work in the sense that he doesn't often use canvas and instead opts for painting on outdoor surfaces much of the time. I created several planning sketches mapping out what I was going to do, and took several pictures in order to have a good reference of myself to work from.
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Girl With Balloon (London South Bank), 2003, by Banksy.
Flower Thrower by Banksy
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Process
I began by assembling my canvas by putting together a pre-cut wooden stretcher and then cutting a large piece of canvas that was about 4 inches larger on each side than my necessary proportions. I played the canvas over the stretcher and pulled it tightly, but not so much that the canvas would warp. I then stapled the canvas to the stretcher and began cutting off the excess, making sure to cut the corners cleanly and precisely. I then layered my entire canvas in white gesso to provide a nice surface for the paints to adhere to during the painting process. Putting gesso on the board only took around three layers as I wanted it to fully and evenly coat the canvas while also not causing it to crack under stress. The white gesso on the canvas would provide a good clean white background for my painting, similar to the way many in Banksy's Girl with Balloon series are displayed.
I then began the process of actually painting the image. I used the pictures I took of myself to sketch a rough yet light outline of my composition onto the canvas with a graphite pencil. I made several adjustments as I initially had trouble getting the proportions right with the large scale I was working on. These sketches had to be very light so that they would not appear on the final piece, as dark graphite would contrast greatly to the white background and cause the canvas to look dirty and ruin its presentation. Once I had fully outline myself and some of the details I began painting, I made sure to only paint the shadows of my features as Banksy does in many of his works. This took some time as I needed to get clean edges on many of my strokes. I also ran into issues with some of the paint being too opaque compared to other sections, requiring me to return with more layers. I then began work on the balloon, I used a base red color for this part as I had a red that similarly matched that in the original series of Girl With Balloon. The balloon also needed several coats as the red paint I had was incredibly thin and needed to fully dry and be repainted in order to have a uniform consistency throughout its shape. |
Experimentation
I mainly experimented with composition and expression when creating this piece. I took several reference photos in the beginning in order to accurately depict myself in a realistic and proportional manner. While doing this I experimented with different angles and expressions in an effort to best convey the themes of the work. Many of the reference pictures I took did not look distressed enough to properly to convey the desperation felt when something is out of one's control. I also experimented with things such as brush type, this was important as I am still relatively new to painting on canvas, especially at such a large scale and wanted to better my understanding of the different brushes while working on this piece.
Critique
Similarities
-Both my work and Banksy's are similar in terms of material and medium. They are both paintings although they differ in the types of paint they use.
-My piece and Banksy's are also similar in their composition, mine is directly based off of his in terms of layout of the actual figure and balloon. -Both of the pieces are not realistic, instead providing the viewer with some sort of meaning or takeway associated with it. Banksy's work was paired with the phrase "There is always hope." |
Differences
-My piece is restricted to being on a canvas while Banky's series which consists of both paintings on canvas and murals on a variety of outdoor surfaces.
-My piece is a self portrait while Banksy's is not, it instead is less personal and carries a different meaning than my piece. -There is also a difference in meaning found within the depiction af a balloon in both of our pieces. In Banksy's the balloon is heart shaped, this differs from mine which is round and builds a different meaning between the two pieces. |
ACT Connections
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
My piece Get a Grip is directly inspired by the composition and color usage of Banksy's Girl With Balloon series. The artistic choices he made in terms of layout, composition, and color directly caused the way I created my piece.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Banksy often uses his work as a social commentary or parody often criticizing the treatment and attitudes of modern art institutions. He uses the often-downplayed platform of street art to express his ideas and opinions of current restrictive art standards.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I discovered and learned more about both street art and artists like Banksy who use their art for activism and similar purposes. This is a side of art I haven't really explored before but it is an incredibly important part of art history and I need to continue learning more about it in the future.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
What I focused on in my research was finding a composition in Banksy's style that I could re purpose to create my own symbolism and meaning in the work. I was lucky in the sense that much of Banksy's work is quite simplistic and vague allowing me to much easier put my own meaning to it and edit it to my needs while still remaining true to the original.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Banksy isn't often clear with what his work actually means, he is known for being mysterious and unique when it comes to his art. It's often difficult to understand his artistic intention and the way it is reflected through his creation choices. I had to make inferences on what exactly he was trying to convey with his work as I did my inspirational research.
My piece Get a Grip is directly inspired by the composition and color usage of Banksy's Girl With Balloon series. The artistic choices he made in terms of layout, composition, and color directly caused the way I created my piece.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Banksy often uses his work as a social commentary or parody often criticizing the treatment and attitudes of modern art institutions. He uses the often-downplayed platform of street art to express his ideas and opinions of current restrictive art standards.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I discovered and learned more about both street art and artists like Banksy who use their art for activism and similar purposes. This is a side of art I haven't really explored before but it is an incredibly important part of art history and I need to continue learning more about it in the future.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
What I focused on in my research was finding a composition in Banksy's style that I could re purpose to create my own symbolism and meaning in the work. I was lucky in the sense that much of Banksy's work is quite simplistic and vague allowing me to much easier put my own meaning to it and edit it to my needs while still remaining true to the original.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Banksy isn't often clear with what his work actually means, he is known for being mysterious and unique when it comes to his art. It's often difficult to understand his artistic intention and the way it is reflected through his creation choices. I had to make inferences on what exactly he was trying to convey with his work as I did my inspirational research.
Reflections
This piece was really interesting to work on, it was my first time really exploring Banksy and his style of mixing street art and fine art for the sake of social commentary or satire. I can conclude that throughout this process I have found an artist that I am interested in following as his work seems very non-traditional and unique. In terms of actual painting I am quite happy with the way this turned out. I don't really consider painting, especially at a large scale, as one of my strengths in art. It was good to have the piece turn out similarly to the original despite me creating it on a canvas rather than some outdoor surface. To most familiar with Bansky it is instantly recognizable that my piece was inspired by his work. I had a lot of successes throughout this process including my initial sketching of the piece. I was worried that without creating a grid or making exact measurements, the proportions of my figure would be inaccurate, however, it took minimal work and redrawing to make the figure almost identically proportional to my reference photos. A struggle I faced during the painting process was utilization of my given paints and tools. The paint was differing variations of opacity and the red ended up being very thin, requiring multiple layers and taking a good amount of time. The black was also slightly opaque creating inconsistencies in the darkness of the paint throughout the piece. This too required me to touch up certain sections multiple times in order for it to look presentable.
Citations
“Banksy.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 3 Dec. 2022, www.britannica.com/biography/Banksy.
Banksy, www.banksy.co.uk/out.html. Accessed 11 May 2023.
Laboureau, Sebastien. “Girl with Balloon, 2004.” Banksy Explained, 14 Mar. 2023, banksyexplained.com/girl-with-balloon-2004/.
Banksy, www.banksy.co.uk/out.html. Accessed 11 May 2023.
Laboureau, Sebastien. “Girl with Balloon, 2004.” Banksy Explained, 14 Mar. 2023, banksyexplained.com/girl-with-balloon-2004/.