Vincent Van Gogh's Animalistic Context

I will be looking at the stylistic, symbolic and conceptual influences of Vincent Van Gogh, Fred Wilson and Pablo Picasso on my work that explores and challenges the idea and concept of animalistic instincts and how they might relate to humans and the 7 deadly sins.

As a topic we were presented with ‘5 millimeter moments”. It took me a while to figure out what to do and explore , but in the end I decided to look at how in the animal kingdom all animals have instincts that affect how the act and react to certain stimuli and how this instinctual behaviour happened very quickly and within split seconds. I then decided to try and explore whether or not these basic animal instincts could be related to humans in any way and realised two things;

I chose Tom and Jerry because they are well-known cartoon characters and thus will attract a viewers interest and spark a thought in the viewers mind about why a cartoon and why Tom and Jerry in particular. Why Tom and Jerry? Mostly because it was my all time favourite cartoon as a child but also because i felt it portrayed (very minimalistically) some animal instincts at the purest level and thus explored the idea that instincts might not be irrational and not thought out , but that they might be vaguely thought out responses to various visual and audio stimuli caused by their surroundings .

I chose the photos of the animals because with their simplicity they move away from the convention of producing artwork that shows all of your emotions and leaves nothing for the viewer to assume and think about . In this way I feel that Fred Wilson influenced my art in a major way. His works are for the most part very conceptual as shown by “Drip Drop Plop” (Figure

The effects Picasso created in his artworks especially the famous “La Demoiselles d’Avignon” (Figure B) is very similar to that of my own drawings.

Picasso’s use of basic shapes played a big part in my drawing component as well , as it was these basic shapes that inspired me to place the different parts of Tom and Jerry, that I had selected into.

Not only did I take his use of changing viewpoints but I also took his use of basic shapes and incorporated them and changed them to suit me and my idea for this component.

For my artwork component his influence was more mental than out on the artworks as the simplicity of his works told me that simple is ok and that I don’t have to think up some very complicated artwork to : one get good marks and two to produce works that are meaningful not just to me but potentially to viewers.

Lastly Vincent Van Gogh has been influencing me , the way I think and my art for as long as I can remember, his abstract way of incorporating what he is feeling at the present moment inspired me to use animals in my artwork as I have deep compassion for them and how they can affect us as humans