Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts

Tuesday, 19 March 2013

Kent Monkman

 Kent Monkman is a multidisciplinary artist who works in a variety of media, including  film/video, performance, painting and installation. Monkman has exhibited widely within Canada, and is well represented in numerous private and public collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. 
His paintings have a lot of focus on the view, always seeming to have big skies and clouds, filled with nature and a rather peaceful setting. They are rather relaxing to to look at, showing a lot of bright primative colours, and with such a big and open piece of scenery it all connotes freedom and peace.
 
 
 
 
His installation art is in some ways like his paintings, they are one again filled with nature and big open views, only they tend to focus more on the character within the piece. The sculpture created in this has the opposite effect to the paintings, it has an expressionless face, and with it being all white it once again shows how lacks emotion, reflecting a negative feeling without any peacful colours.
Still from Group of Seven Inches "Group of Seven Inches is a naughty and playful musing on the relationship between artist and model"
    The films Monkman creates are a little like his paintings, and partially like his installation pieces. They show the same peace and focus, but with a figure involved at the same time. The film has been made sepia to state it's old fashioned style, and with it including a Native American it suggests freedom and peace once again, quite the opposite to the figure in the installation art. I think it is a very appealing piece, it makes me feel positive to look at it, it's a powerful image that expresses freedom, power and peace, a lot like the painting.
    The disciplines that Monkman works with seem to flow into each other, they all have similaries that roll off into the next piece he creates, some however are represented diffrently, they can show either a negative or positive effect but they still have something that connects each of them together.

Sunday, 3 March 2013

Ken Adam

 Ken Adam, a well known production designer was most famous for working for Motion Picture and creating the set designs for the James Bond films of the 1960's and 1970's. Adam first entered the film industry as a draughtsman for This was a Woman in 1948, since then, Ken has created many more stage productions including Ben Hurr and Around the world in 80 Days. With his artistic passion ahead of him, this enabled  Adam to make his name with his innovative, semi-futuristic sets for the James Bond films. The Supertanker set for The Spy Who Loved Me which was created in 1977, was the largest sound stage in the world at the time it was built. He also designed the sets for: 
 Dr. No (1962)Goldfinger (1964)Thunderball (1965)You Only LiveTwice (1967)Diamonds are Forever (1971)Moonraker (1979)



















Adam Designed all of the interior sets for this''tongue-in-cheek  spectacular'', Dr No, including the casino in the opening scene, Bond's apartments, M's office and the sprawling, futuristic lair of the villainous doctor himself. Adam designed the sets based on his life experiences and unique visual sense. He doesn't believe you can get a sense of reality by copying, and everything that is designed or created must have a reason to it. I think these designs perfectly capture a futuristic view for the Bond films, using big high-tech models like the rocket in scenes, subconsciously expressing wealth, power and the future. the design above looks rather simplistic and minimal with features, but the big open spaces allows you to focus on what is there and being shown, defying it's beauty and detail, and again expressing the wealth and power which is what the Bond movies capture brilliantly.