Art Analysis: Paper Bag

The attention to detail once again plays a large role in Venus. At first glance it is a contemporary piece that seems calming to the eye, but in reality, it is an eye-opening view into our society’s consumerism. The closer you get, lots and lots of colorful bags create this piece. The women in the middle is another intriguing add on to the piece. Where she is in the middle of the, so our eyes are first drawn to her, and then to the others surrounding her. Jordan might have wanted us to first look at this women, so innocent, vulnerable, and pure, to remind us of the oceans and environments that live within it, as well as she is standing on a clamshell, which is a symbol for the spawn of life from the ocean. The women on the right looks as if

This piece of art is called Paper Bags, which is a 60’’x80’’ panel that is made up of slender trunks of trees, leading your eye into a thick and dense forest. Compared to the last two pieces, this piece is quite plain in imagery and color, the past two pieces, Gyre, and Venus both had abundant colors of varying color intensities. Paper Bag’s colors resemble cool hues, of browns as well as grayish white color to create a foggy tone. The piece has lots of vertical lines that make your eye trace up and down the piece, along with the sheer size of the piece, it creates a tall feelings as the viewer stands there. Some of the trunks are bent slightly to the right or left, creating a worn and old feeling to

The foggy atmosphere now symbolizes an eerie silence that rests upon the viewer’s thoughts, as they view upon what consumption destroys. Not only does consumption destroys nature, but it also destroys the animals that use to live there. That forest of trees use to be a thriving ecosystem of forest creates, and now, it is nothing. Jordan wanted you to be astonished when you read the captions, almost to turn your good day into something opposite, to be struck by the statistics, because, that is the only way change will happen. There is also no main focus within the piece, whereas before there seemed to be a centered object to stand out among the rest. Jordan wanted you to look upon all of the piece as a whole, to create this widespread mass effect – just the like widespread mass effect our mass consumer society is causing. If we continue with our destroying habits, forests such as these will be ghosts in our world, just a figment of our imagination. Jordan is trying to tell us a story through his photographs and artwork, that if we don’t take action now, our beautiful world will turn into something