Michelle Matson
This artist is another one of the contestants of Work Of Art season 2 ( just go check out everyone http://www.bravotv.com/work-of-art/season-2/bios they are all amazing artists and are all very inspiring)
Well, comparing her to Sarah Kabot ( mentioned in my previous post) SHE IS THE GREATEST ARTIST ON THE PLANET (to me that is ). Like me, she is also a fan of human figures. And she is the greatest inspiration i've ever came across. Her creativity in using very common materials and her ability in the manipulation of the material just adds up to perfection ( to me) . the first episode, she came in with this AMAZING self portrait of herself. And at that moment. That was it. I was her number one fan.
You can say that it does not look like her ( i think it kinda resembles her in terms of the shape of the face, the nose and the brows) but hey, to be able to do that with just coloured paper, thats wow...
Here she is! :
Her style of art is very very special ( at least i've never seen it before)
Here are some photos of her works: get ready to be wowed!
(dosent this remind you of songebob?)
anyway, take note of the way she curl and cut the paper to create contours of the shoulder and collar bone, the circular or round-ish pieces of paper that come together to create the face and the curled paper that forms the beard and hair. Ususally, we would think that to create a 3D object using paper, is like origami, we fold it. But for her, she actually layers the pieces of paper, at most curling them to create the shape. I find the way she is able to break down the image to different sections and piece them together using paper is similar to how a cubist would create their works ( just that her's is not so 'cube like' in a way that it is not of geometric shapes and lines overlapping each other) She re-interpreted the work and translated it into overlapping sheets of paper.
upon seeing it at a glance you can tell that it is a old woman. Well i think it is not purely because she has white hair but also because Michelle used smaller pieces of paper layered on the face instead of larger ones as seen above ( and below) . And this makes the face look wrinkly and rough. how the hands are made looks simple but using paper to create the curve of the arm is quite difficult. She has to take note of how wide each ring that forms the arm is so as to create this smooth curved shape. And the hands are just wow. The way the fingers bend makes it look so live like . I say this because i think paper is not really a very flexible material and for it to make such a smooth rounded surface of the face and the slender bent fingers really requires skill.
This work may look like any one of her head sculpture ( i think we can consider this to be a sculpture.. haha) but look at the shades the woman is wearing. It is not a translucent piece of plastic placed over the face, but is made of different coloured paper ( gray and black) that forms the eyes, making it look like she is wearing sunglasses. The use of color is what makes the work amazing and if you noticed the background, it is actually a painting. The way she puts this two contrasting elements together allows them to complement each other.
The part about this work that i really like is not the face nor the arms ( though looking at the way the fingers are created, it is beautifullllllllllllllllllllllllllllll) The checkered shirt is actually made with circular sheets of blue paper with lines of red green and yellow laid over it to make it look like a checkered shirt. The process must have been extremely tedious. and the next thing that amazes me is the print on the t-shirt under the checkered shirt. The image is also made by paper cut out... so it is really quite impressive how she can make all this believable where the clothing actually tricked me to thinking that it is actually cloth when it is made of pieces of paper.
Although this work is much simpler than her previous works , i think this has deep meaning to her. Notice how it is missing some teeth? well she was actually involved in quite a big bike accident, being the victim, she has suffered a lot from it and i think she wants to show that through this piece of work.
I find this very interesting because i think paper behaves very much like how a plant does, some times rigid but can also be very flexible at times depending on how they are like. The mushrooms are very realistic especially the area under the cap, she made use of the paper's edges to create this. The grass and leaves also looks realistic ( may be just abit too perfect) but the overall effect is really like a pot of plant ( just that its on half a disco ball)
Now this piece of work is the few of her bigger ones where she tackles the challenge of creating full body sculptures. She uses the same technique of layering paper and i think she used wire or some kind of support ( well she must've) to made a base structure to create her work on. I would like to focus on how the legs of the person infront is done. it is very different from the layering done for the person behind. The legs are actually made up of rolls of paper instead of layers of paper. i think this can create the long rounded shape of the legs better and i think this trick would come in use for me~
and finally, here's one of her work commenting on pollution. And looking at the plinth of her work, it is not just a white piece of wood. It doubles as a concrete floor. I think this is a very creative way to present her work.
Now i will show you something that i made that is inspired by her.
I was given the challenge by my class to be in charged for the New Year Class decorations and thought, why not use this chance to create a work of art? >:D
here's a photo of it ( sorry about the quality... not that clear)
Using the technique that is influenced by her, i constructed this dragon in a similar fashion, where i used red packets of different colors up and piece them together to form the head. The eyes are also made with reference to the work above.( the one with the two hanging eyes) Then for some extra decorations, i just cut shapes out and attached it on to the head~
And yay!! our class were the champions for class decoration!~ <3
For something similar that i've done, this is actually cut out from templates and then folded and glued together. I would want to try designing my own template but i think i can only start with simple designs.... This one is made with four pages of packed cut-outs... here it is~ ( sorry bout the messy table)
by the way, its the big ship, small one and the simple one is the head~ <3
This took me a few weeks to complete due to its difficulty... i have a few more other ones that are not 100% completed so i will leave them out~
If u love Michelle too,
Check her out!
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