Movement, Collage, and an Experiment
My screen print was inspired by Art Nouveau artist Alfonse Mucha and the French artist Patrick Blanc. Both artists deal in very organic and fluid shapes. Mucha is famous for his poster prints and panels of female figures with decorative detail framing the figure. The clothing and hair flow freely and almost seem to meld with the detailing. Patrick Blanc combines different species of plants on vertical surfaces to create beautifully lush plantings that almost look like an impressionistic painting. The goal of my design was to meld these two styles to create depth and texture that forms a unified organic canvas.
The background pattern of my image is very fluid and organic. The varying colors and widths of the brush strokes create small focal points in areas where abstract shapes begin to appear, such as near the top of the image in the dark area where a female figure begins to appear. This style of this background image is relatively contemporary and minimalist. The white spaces become almost as important as the colored areas. The flowers create a rich texture in the image. The two large flowers are reminiscent of art nouveau or the arts and crafts movement. They are not completely realistic, but are not abstract. The image has a feeling of movement that seems to pulse towards the large top flower. The two largest flowers almost seem to be reaching towards one another as all of the other elements in the image dance around the periphery.
I am not good at describing artwork. This was a hard exercise to do because I didn’t have a definite plan before I started. It was more of an exercise in experimentation and layering because I don’t typically work in black and white. Shapes and white space become more important than subtle colors.