ARTIST RESEARCH:
Zaria Forman is a 38-year-old New York based American Artist. She travels to remote locations of the world to document the effects of climate change through her realistic and powerful pastel pieces. Her artwork and message have grown in popularity and is now exhibited worldwide, which has given her the opportunity to fly with NASA on several Operation Iceberg missions over Antarctica, Greenland, and Artic Canada.
Zaria Forman’s inspiration comes from her mother, Rena Bass Forman, who spent much of her life taking photographs of the most remote and often desolate locations in the world, having been consumed in interest from the Arctic’s cold and isolated landscapes for over ten years. Zaria would travel with her family as her mother worked, and it is there that she developed an appreciation for the beauty of planet earth and took it upon herself to use her artistic talents as her own way to vocalize the importance and severity of climate change.
While her artwork primarily focuses on the melting icebergs of northern regions, Forman also travels to regions where the water levels are rising at alarming rates as a direct effect of climate change and in September 2013 Forman followed the meltwater to the lowest and flattest country in the world- the Maldives. Her, alongside two other artists documented the nation that could be entirely underwater within this century. Zaria Forman said she hopes her drawings raise awareness and invite viewers to share the urgency of the Maldivians predicament in a productive and hopeful way. She also stated that it is her belief that art can facilitate a deeper understanding of crises, helping us find meaning and optimism amidst shifting landscapes.
The piece that I chose for my own study was one within this Maldives collection- Maldives No 15. This piece was done in 2015 and is a 40 x 65 inch piece using soft pastel on paper. The drawing is a close-up image of the Maldives waves crashing, having the ocean white caps taking up almost the entire paper, with a small skyline above and a slim portion along the bottom of the waters stillness to make for a breathtaking and tense composition.
What I found most unique about Zaria Forman was that she does not use any drawing tools to create her work. Her hands alone create pieces so realistic they could easily be mistaken for photographs; she smudges the pastel into the paper with the palms of her hands and fingertips. Her art portrays movement and is a beautiful representation of the problems we face in terms of water conservation, melting polar ice, and rising sea levels. She is able to impact the viewer with these deep messages and ability to replicate natures natural scenery.
The second artist I chose to research is Renee French, a 56-year-old American comics writer and illustrator who creates unique and slightly unsettling characters. One look at her creations will leave you wondering what the inspiration behind them is, which is why I myself was so drawn to her.
I chose to highlight her painting Ivey No 106, a small 6×6 inch acrylic painting on board created in 2018. After almost 25 years of using strictly graphite and black pencil to create her pieces, she has progressed into painting these moody characters over the last two years and it is within that time frame that Ivey no 106 was brought to life.
‘Creatures the Colour of Steve McQueen’s Hair in The Great Escape’ is an exhibition of miniature paintings done by Renee French, which includes the featured piece I chose. All the paintings were created using acrylic on 6 x 6 inch gessoed hardboards or smaller. French says she creates “creatures who aren’t in the mood”, she also admitted that after her 5th or 6th piece in this collection she needed a stronger prescription in her glasses- which attests to the detail each character has. Every piece is an extremely unique painting of a character inspired by a real-life animal that has a pop surrealism twist and moody feel. Ivey No 106 is based on a chihuahua, although you might not realize at first glance given the characters extremely tiny arms in relation to her large head and cartoon eyes.
In each of her paintings French uses a single character as the sole focus of her art- they are placed over a simple background of a contrasting colour. For instance, Ivey no 106 is a white creature, with grey eyes and blue undertones and she is surrounded by a dark background. This painting, and the entire collection uses very little colour, and it is the pure creativity of the piece that makes it stand out so much despite the neutral and unsaturated color palette used. Somehow, French can create an eerie character that still makes you awe when looking at it.
The two artists I chose are extremely different, while Zaria Forman works at a large scale using pastels with her hands to create vibrant landscapes that display realistic artwork- Renee French uses muted tones to create small acrylic paintings of make belief creatures. What made me drawn to each of them, is that at a first look they both had me wanting to know more which I believe is the real beauty of art and is why I love it so much. Art has the ability to tell a story without words, it shows who you are, and is a visual display of our thoughts. What I will take away from both my researched artists to inspire my own work is that I want my viewer to feel some sort of emotion when they see my piece that leaves them asking themselves “I wonder why she chose this?”.
originally my idea was to do a portrait with the trees in a womans tears to show my story of losing my father to a falling accident, however I decided that the mood I wanted the viewer to feel was not sadness.
After I decided it wasnt sadness I wanted to create, I played around with a few different concepts that would still tell a story but weren’t based on crying, and more so something beautiful. The trees were what I wanted to do for my father, however I also considered making it for my grandmother in which case it would have been butterflies as that is the symbol we use for her since her passing.
I explored the ideas more, and tried to see what a few different ideas and composition I could do and how much of a story I wanted to have or if I should just focus on making it a pretty piece.
I then was worried that the pieces I took out of a woman, didnt match the composition with the trees and started to doubt myself. I thought “what if I made it mountains instead?” but ultimately decided the story was more important.
Once I was set on trees, it was time to see if it should have trees out of her shoulders or just the head. I compared the two and took notes. The bottom thumbnail was just to use my pencil to see how sharp it was and to decide whether I was going to do it using hatching or not.
I lightly outlined her, measured my distances, and marked areas to make sure my scaling was as good as I could get it (I know this isnt how its supposed to be done, but it was how I had to to make it make sense in my head because I havent learned the proper way to portrait)
I took this picture when I was (almost) done the lips, of course they got added to throughout but this was the starting piece to my picture.
this photo make it look like there is white between her lips, there isnt. I was really struggling at this point having never done a portrait shading the face felt incredibly hard.
She was complete! Or, as complete as I could make her with it being midterm week and having no eraser. I called it “natures child” and it represents the pieces I am missing from losing my dad, but that he still fills them just in a different way now. He is symbolized through the trees and I decided to weave them through the girl (although not a self portrait, it is supposed to tell my own story) and showcase them as if they hold her up like pillars.