Meeting Mr. Frog

Meeting Mr. Frog
Salamanca, Spain

During Beever’s days as an art student ad the Leeds Polytechnic, he was already intrigued by the theme of water surfaces as this allowed him to getaway from the college environment and explore the natural outdoor environments such as ponds, riverbanks and the seaside. Though he was drawn by the subject of water, at the same time he also found the theme of water one of the most challenging to draw.This eventually became one of his most regularly used elements in his paintings. This may be due to the fact that water has no certain form, hence Beever can have the freedom to shape it in the way to suit his paintings. This opposes to many objects with geometrical precision which requires the artist to make exact calculations leaving no margin for errors. The theme of water mayalso reflect Beever’s inner unconscious desire to explore the world outside theUK. Water travels and exists in nearly all parts of the world, and it is also these paintings with elements of water which enabled Beever to finance his trips around the globe.

Beever’s art is timeless, a suspension between  the ripple effects on the environment andwhat exists in his mind. Some of my favourite pieces include “A slight accident in a railway station”, “Sony Computer”, Pepsi I can”, and “Little and Large”. However,I will look into “Meeting Mr. Frog”  which is drawn in the streets of Salamanca (Spain)in more depth by exploring the process and techniques of creating this piece, the themes this piece brings out as well as my personal interpretations and the ideas this piece expresses.

The sidewalks are Beever’s canvas for his art work and he would use multi-coloured chalk to draw his works onto the pavements. Before drawing on the site, he would have made various detailed sketches of thepainting in his sketchbook. The first thing he does when he arrives at the site is to set up his camera on a tripod, and focus it onto the pavement. The chosen viewpoint of the painting will be the view through the lens of the camera. To start off this artwork he uses some cotton thread to measure out an outline ofa grid of dimensions. He then uses white chalk (as white chalk is easier to erase if he makes a mistake) and a meter ruler to draw out fundamental lines of the piece. After that, Beever starts to map out his sketch in a larger portion(as compared to that in his sketchbook) by starting with core parts of the painting which were drawn with black chalk (to give more definite lines) then moving to the details with multi-coloured pastels. When painting larger areas, Beever sprinkles powdered pigment onto the sidewalk, lies on his “stomach hammock” and bends over towards the pavement and then carefully smudge and blend the chalk by using blocks of polystyrene foam to create contrasting colour effects and shadowing of the piece. Once the piece is completed he takes a photograph of the painting with a child (who is in fact his daughter) in it as if sitting on a water lotus leaf. The painting itself as well as the picture of the artwork is his completed work.

One of the reasons why I chose this painting out of all Beever’s other works is because I think that the theme of water and the natural environment in his paintings which are drawn on city pavements seems to integrate two very different and opposing sceneries into one. It is very difficult to find greenery in the city which is often described as a concrete jungle, therefore by bringing in a scenery of green, Beever brings colour to the dull and boring metropolis. In addition, the urban is always a fast paced and noisy area to live in. This contrasts to the countryside where the area is relatively quiet and slow paced,and by using his anamorphisis technique of drawing, Beever effectively draws the attention of passersby to slow down or even halt and admire him creating his piece as well as the finished product itself. This is just like removing them from the fast paced world of the city bringing them into the scenery of the painting itself-blending drawing with reality.

Another reason why I chose this painting is because it seems to be a snapshot of one part of his story (the other parts being his other works Meeting Mr. Newt and Feeding the Fish). This story is one where Beever brings his daughter to the countryside where in Meeting Mr. Newt, she is concentrated on fishing in a pond, and in Meeting Mr. Frog she is not only unafraid of the gigantic frog, she also wishes to feed it (which of course if we look closely, we would realize that in fact she is merely holding Beever’s pastelsbut not real food). This shows the element of care which is an essential part surrounding the idea of family and also something that people living in the cities may lack due to the limitation of time. Moreover, the heart shaped water lotus leaves the frog and the child is sitting on seems to further depict the message of the spirit of love and care.

Meeting Mr. Newt
Cologne, Germany

Feeding the Fish
Lisbon, Portugal

Microwave International New Media Festival 2012@ Cityhall Hong Kong

Today I visited the Microwave International New Media Festival 2012 which was held in the Hong Kong City Hall. There were six main exhibits namely:

1. David Link: Love-letters 1.0 MUC= Resurrection, A Memorial (2009)
2. Ebru Kurbak, Mahir M. Yavuz: News Knitter (2007)
3. Ernesto Klar: Convergenze Parallele (2006)
4. Haru Ji, Graham Wakefield: Time of Doubles: Flux (2011)
5. UCLA Arts Software Studio: Works of UCLA Arts Software Studio (2012)
6. Helen Pritchard, Winnie Soon: If I wrote you a love letter would you write back? (And Thousands     of Other Questions) (2012)

This exhibition is able to successfully show the contemporary use of new media to create artworks as the exhibits are from various countries ranging from Germany to Turkey, Korea, UK, U.S., and even Hong Kong. Some pieces (2,3 and 6) are even collaborated between two artists from two different countries.

Most of these exhibits incorporates the audience into the piece by allowing us to actively take part. This means that the audience must physically visit the exhibit in order to enjoy the aesthetic impacts of the piece. Also, for many of these pieces, simply looking at snapshots of the artwork is insufficient to give the audience an understanding of the piece as its content is either in constant motion, involves sound or even involves other external factors. This interactive element makes the exhibition as a whole and each exhibit more interesting. My favourite art-pieces in this exhibition were exhibits 1 and 3. The reason why I chose exhibit 1 is due to the fact that I was intrigued by story and history behind this piece, and I chose exhibit 3 because Klar was able to truly manipulate modern technology and incorporate audiences into creating the aesthetic and auditory effects of the piece.

To conclude, through the several gallery visits, it is apparent that contemporary artists are deviating from traditional painting or sculptural artworks where the audiences' physical presence in the exhibition will not affect their enjoyment of the art-piece. Instead they are using technology efficiently and also as an element of their works in order to allow audiences to actively participate and hence draw more people to visit art exhibitions.

Julian Beever

Artists are always seeking for innovative ways of crafting and capturing their visual audience. One such person is Julian Beever who brings pleasure and awe through his astonishing pavement chalk drawings. Beever, a British artist who is now based in Belgium has been making his transient and unique masterworks around the world since the mid-‘90s.

An immersing writer, Beever started his career on the streets as a puppeteer and juggler, and only eventually became a pavement artist as “they could move from place to place with only a box of chalk”. At the start of career as a pavement artist, he created the more conventional two-dimensional portraits on shopping streets in London and Europe, before eventually developing his anamorphosis technique to create three-dimensional street art. This enabled him to develop the skills to better use pastels before endeavoring the more ambitious and innovative three-dimensional illusions that were to follow.

Beever’s ‘trompe l’oeil’ (which is French for trick or deceive of the eye) pavement pieces are prodigious. The effect is so convincing that passersby will swerve to avoid potholes he drew on the sidewalk. However this effect is only achieved only by viewing from a particular viewpoint, if the viewer deviates from this point the art piece loses its illusion effect and the drawing becomes an incongruous distortion. The enigma Beever uses is to set up a camera on a tripod (which is kept on one spot) as his third eye and check to give the precise perspective as he fleshes out the color drawing on the pavement. the full effect of his art is only truly appreciated when the viewer beholds through the wide angle lens on his camera.

This is one reason why Beever photographs his paintings after completion. The photographs of his immense art pieces leap off the page, creating a whimsical wonderland of gaping chasms, superheroes, giant insects and animals. Each of his paintings grants passersby an opportunity to step into the worlds of these artworks- one can sit on top of a massive pint of bear, raft down a stream or even balance on the headstock of a giant guitar. Beever’s unbridled humor and mastery are fully exhibited in these dazzling paintings that transmute sidewalks into fabulous three-dimensional public-space panoramas. He apprehends the psychology of incongruent strangers and gathers them into a collective audience by presenting humourous and mind-blowing art. In addition to the performance aspect of his works, Beever often elevates his astute work by placing himself as a prop-becoming an active constituent in the photographs of many of his final pieces, for example lending a hand to a man falling off an edge. This element of fun differentiates Beever from other ‘trompe l’oeil’ artists and enables him to gain tremendous browse appeal hence attracting a wide audience.

Want to know more about Beever and how its done? Take a look at this video!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lifHsry-Wws