User:LucaRamaekers

Luca Ramaekers 0926223 Lifestyle and Transformation Design

Autonomous Practice Digital Craft

RESEARCH

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ABOUT ANTONI TAPIES

Antoni Tàpies

Antoni Tàpies, born in Barcelona in 1923, is one of the most important European abstract artists of the twentieth century. The oeuvre of the self-taught artist consists of drawings, paintings, installations, collages, lithographs and other graphic work. Throughout his life, Tàpies has worked in different styles: from figurative and surreal to abstract. Tàpies has become known with his expressive material painting. In his work the research and experiment with materials is central. It is not the outcome, but the process - the investigation of matter - that matters. Tàpies applied varnish to a cloth and covered it with non-usual materials, such as marble, plaster, wood, iron wire, dust or sand. He did this to bring the artwork as close as possible to reality - the earth. Although the works are abstract, the spectator can always find something concrete in the art of Tàpies. The artist considered it important that there is something in the work that is directly related to life, an image, idea or suggestion.

Key words that summarize the meaning of Antoni Tàpies work:

• Experimental

• Layers

• Extraordinary

Textual quotations from Antoni Tàpies that I found interesting:

"If I can’t change the world, at least I want to change the way people look at it."

"Painting quickly is a calculated act to block out rational thought."

"An image means nothing. It is just a door, leading to the next door. It will never happen that we will find the truth we are looking for just in an image; it will happen behind the last door that the spectator discovers the truth."

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MY CHOSEN ARTWORK

Artwork: Noir aux deux arcs beiges (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, room 25)

Artist: Antoni Tàpies

Year: 1961

After several years of making some surrealist paintings, Antoni Tapie’s work completely disappears from figuration in 1953. He uses paint as matter and applies it in thick layers, sometimes mixed with sand and cement. The result is large, almost monochrome surfaces in black, gray and ocher colors, evoking the beauty of old weathered walls behind which a mysterious world is hidden.

Material use: Oil Paint, black, grey and shades of ochre. Cement Sand

When I saw the artwork for the first time, the dark color immediately had an impact on me. It has something mysterious, and the little bit of yellow ocher you are going to think more. What story is behind this artwork? How many layers have been used? And why do you see that little bit of color? I also find the shapes that are made with the sand interesting, they are a sort of framework. What interests me about the work is why Tapies made the choice to make the artwork total black and what was his story or thoughts behind it?

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MY COPY

I choosed to steal/copy the art work of Antoni Tàpies because I am intrigued by the creative process of the artist. What happens when an artist like Tàpies stands in front of a white canvas?

After some research about the artist I found out that, Antoni Tàpies always gives a strong value to material in his work. Gypsum, glue, sand and numerous other materials are spread on the canvas with a broom, thus forming a sort of colored and thick plaster, also made of cuts and splits.

The painter moreover, cuts and removes pieces of this surface, blows the background and adds new layers. The arwork does not represent things, but it is a thing in itself; it does not tell a story and does not imitate obects of everyday reality: it is already completed and sufficient for itself as a colored and tangible matter. Tapies uses materials extraneous to the vocabulary of painting such as woords, papers, fabrics, sheets, and straw, or imprints casts or real object in the thick dough of color. The result is an extraordinary tactile and narrative charm of the surfaces and the pictorial materials, which are loaded with intense existenial values and political symbols. The imprints left by the artist is the crust of color, which appear random, gradually reveal themselves as creative citeria. They are elements that "inhabit" the material, helping to shape the image. The exact thing I want to steal from the artwork is the materials Tàpies used. I decide to recreate the right top of the work, I think that is the most interessting part because every element Tàpies has used appears in it, sand, cement, black paint and of course the little part of ocher yellow color.By going through process of making the copy it made me think about why Tàpies would make such a dark painting but yet with a little bit of colour? What was he saying with it. Maybe it has the same meaning as the yin and yan? Or maybe also the aim that something softness must stand against rough.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeNPxlGvdQQ&t=96s ]

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RESEARCH QUESTION

My research question before getting to my transformation of the artwork will be: