My own Assemblage

Our next project is making self-portrait using assemblage technique. I made two project:

1.

The first one, which I decide to choose, was made using old box, rice, Rubik's cube, ends of darts, deck of playing cards and half of the small ball. It was designed to present human (mine) face made of things which influence my personality - my hobbies, passions etc.

2. 

The second one was made out of lamp, cowboy hat, cards, CD's, belt.

My final product looks better than I expected:

The main idea of my project was to make face of man out of objects that will represent my passions, hobbies and me. I used CD as lips, they represent my possion towards music. Cards were used to show my hobby - playing cards. Half  of the ball stands for sport, which I like, shoestring ties everything up and pasta represents food. I changed some things when creating my project. Instead of using rice I used pasta. I also change Rubik's cube to clock and added shoestring. Nevertheless I think my product is better then I could have expected. I could make this assemblage bigger and I could have then add more things to my product.

Assemblage

Assemblage is simply creating 3D or 2D art work from any objects. The idea of assemblage is to change the meaning of used object, for example sword can be used as cross. Every object and its arrangement is symbolic which gives sybolical meaning to the whole piece of art. One of the artist who used this technique was Władysław Hasior. His date of birth is on 14th of May 1928 in Poland. He finished two great art schools in Poland and then received a scholarship from French Minister of Culture. He is considered as a person who introduced assemblage to Poland.

Czarny Kraj - Władysław Hasior

Golgota - Władysław Hasior

Ogniste ptaki - Władysław Hasior

Culture inspired mask - evaluation

In my opinion whole mask doesn't look so badly, but of course it has some flaws. The first and most catching eye are the eye holes. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make them the same shape,  the next flaw is that green cross doesn't go perpendicularly to the the axis of eyes. The good thing, which I like in my mask is that the colours of it are well chosen and whole mask doesn't look terrible. The thing that differ product from project is the feather. I recalled the fact that I needed feather in December and I wasn't able to find one.

Culture inspired mask

On our last lessons of Visual Arts, we were creating masks inspired by some culture. During my research I found two cultures that inspired me. These were Indian and Vikings one. I made three projects of masks two of Vikings and one Indian. Unfortunately the Vikings one looked very badly so I decided to make the Indian one. You can see my project and final product of mask:
1. Project:

2. Product:

Creating Kaszubian Mask

On our last lessons we were discussing the differences between plagiarism and inspiration. Plagiarism is copying someone else work, while inspiration is creating something new which has visible signs showing connection with someone else work. We also made projects of Kaszebian inspired mask. You can see my project below:

Unfortunately the background of the mask was chosen badly so the Kaszebian pattern are not visible.

ASIAN MASKS

Asian masks and cultures are strongly influenced by Indian culture. It make all Asian masks similar, but with some differences.

Indonesian people used masks in dancing rituals. Dancers were said to be interpreters of gods or just spirits of ancestors. Different case is Hudoq dance, in which masks represented nature.

China is very old empire so mask come from ancient times. In old caves, in Chine, it is possible to find portrays of people wearing masks. As China developed the role of mask changed. They were used in rituals, mask were supposed to protect person wearing mask from evil spirits.

In Korea masks originated from warriors, they and their horses wear masks for protection. Masks were also used in rituals.

In Japan mask firstly appeared in prehistoric myths and then moved to theatre. One example is bugaka.

Bibliography:

1. http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-indonesian-mask-image6211974

2. http://mymasks.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/

3. http://asianhistory.about.com/od/arthistoryinasia/ss/KoreanMasks_3.htm

AFRICAN MASKS

In African culture masks were used as a part of costumes during ceremonies. Wearing masks during all rituals was crucial. Every mask had symbolic meaning and represented spirit of dead. Person who wore it made an attempt to control evil forces by recalling spirits from mask. African masks usually presents animals, it means the closeness to the nature.

The mask makers were provided with the respect among tribe. Symbols on the masks had deeper meaning so mask makers had to have great knowledge about his job. Mask are made from wood. There are two main reasons why wood. The first one is that it is easy to get and the other is that people from Africa believed that trees had souls, so before cutting down they had to give sacrifices to the trees. Masks were decorated with geometrical patterns.

Examples of African masks:

1)

2)

3)

Bibliography:

1. http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/mask.htm