Task 4 ( Component 2 )

For this task I should write an essay about the famous artist and describe about the artist and their artwork and I should create a visual communication art to send the massage through and choose my favorite artist or designer that may influence my art pieces. From the artist I choose I should create one artwork but must influence by the artist and their artwork. By their artwork I choose, I must put in my artwork like the technique, color, style their use. But by artwork I create related with current issue any humanity issue that I concern. I should choose one current issue any humanity issues that I concern and describe that in my artwork.

For the current issue I have listed some of humanity issues that I concern such as, voice of society, tragedy MH370 and MH17, health, environmental problems, corruption, flooding, criminal and economy. And the issue I choose is flooding. I decide to make a painting for this task, and the technique I choose is abstract. And I want make a abstract painting for my task. The artist I choose is Philip Govedare.

The Artist Background

Philip Govedare received his MFA from Tyler School of Art in 1984 and his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1980. He has received numerous awards including an individual artist fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1993, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award in painting in 1991, and a Fellowship in Visual Arts from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts in 1988. He has exhibited his work in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, San Jose, Houston, Seattle, and Rome, Italy. His solo exhibitions include the Morris Gallery of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Paul Cava Gallery where he was represented in Philadelphia, and Francine Seders Gallery in Seattle. His numerous interdisciplinary collaborations include the American Association of Geographers, and his essay “Altered Landscapes” is in the book Geohumanities: Art, History, Text at the Edge of Place published in 2011. He is currently represented by Heather James Fine Art in Palm Desert, CA. In addition to teaching at the University of Washington, he has taught at Tyler School of Art in both Philadelphia and Rome, Italy. (Building, 2012)

Philip Govedare’s paintings have been compared to the surface of Mars, surreal, otherworldly, deeply saturated with color but what he see is the southern Utah landscape he love so much. Painted on large canvases with oil, they are beautiful and dramatic, with a powerful sense of depth, and we don’t have to squint too hard to see the Great Salt Lake in the foreground, the Wasatch Mountains limning the horizon. Or the Mojave, its salt pans pooling reservoirs of color. Or even the strange dessicated landscape of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.

They are stunning, and I would love to witness them in person, where the richness of their oils and the breadth of their canvases can convey their true intentions. And I’d like to see just how forceful they are face to face, because even at distance they can generate a visceral response, a dyspeptic energy and discomfort at the sense that not all is right with these places.

“My work is both a response to and an interpretation of the world,” he writes, “but it also imparts sentiment through projection that comes from a perspective of anxiety about the condition of landscape and nature in our world today. I endeavor to create a fictional response to an observed phenomenon, a metaphor that is infused with a blend of celebration, apprehension and doubt about our place in the natural world.”

It will be interesting to see where his work goes from here. His paintings from 2005 to 2008 are rendered with slightly more pastoral colors and a stronger division of spaces. In the last two years, the boundaries have softened, suggesting a breakdown or blurring of construct, and the colors have shifted to the dark red of anger or, perhaps, blood. Just a few days ago, he sent me a shot of a new painting and the palette has shifted once again and I asked if this was a conscious move into a new place. (Casimiro, 2011)

Figure 1 : Philip Govedare

About The Artist Work

Philip Govedare current landscape painting are derived from sites that are both visually compelling and charged with implications of use, development and ownership. The conditions of the landscape including light, color, texture and atmosphere give meaning to place. The transformation of land and sky through industry and enterprise may be deliberate , or simply the unintended consequence of the human impact on a fragile environment. (Casimiro, 2011)

Philip Govedare is both a response to and an interpretation of the world, but it also imparts sentiment through projection that comes from a perspective of anxiety about the condition of landscape and nature in our world today. He endeavor to create a fictional response to an observed phenomenon, a metaphor that is infused with a blend of celebration, apprehension and doubt about our places in the natural world. In this manner, this work may allude to the past and simultaneously project into the future. He painting are a response to the landscape we inhabit with all its complexity and layered meanings. (Casimiro, 2011)

Figure 2 : Excavation 4, 2010, oil on canvas by Philip Govedare

Figure 3 : Flood, 2009, oil on canvas by Philip Govedare

Their Wave (culture or people)

When every painting is green in the landscape, and then the sky is blue, there’s a kind of familiarity to it, but I flip those things around, and color becomes more about light than it is about a literal transcription, and I think then it starts to elicit certain questions. The forms in he work could be could be natural or they could be part of road building, they could be mining, they could be the result of natural erosion those kinds of questions, the kind of tensions that those things bring up are definitely a part of what my work is about. “What is this?” “Who are we?” “What is our place in the world?” I think by creating this kind of a distance between the viewer, which is a physical distance of the aerial perspective, just this kind of epic scale of the painting in terms of what I’m depicting, makes us think, or ponder, or re-examine our place in the world. “Are we a part of nature?” How do we fit into the scheme of things?” Those are basic questions, and nothing original to me, but it’s something he definitely think about. (Building, 2012)

Their Influence

My own work evolved out of abstraction that was grounded in a reference to landscape. And then as I worked further, it became clear to me that I was really painting landscape. I went back out and I found this site, the Duwamish River, in south Seattle. A superfund site that has a history of dredging and heavy industry, it was also an Indian fishing ground and village, so it was loaded with this history but also with this mix of nature and industry. I went down there and I started doing a lot of drawing, and I ended up doing a series of paintings. After I finished that series of Duwamish paintings, I went back to a kind of abstraction in the aerial landscapes, but I didn’t leave observation. I recently started a series of cloud studies, which are partly observed and part imagination. One thing that really interests me is the intersection of observation, memory, and imagination. For example, the paintings that I do are clearly informed by being in a place, observing certain phenomena, but not being limited to that. I recently told some of my students that I was doing some cloud studies. (Building, 2012)

For the current issue I have listed some of humanity issues that I concern such as, voice of society, tragedy MH370 and MH17, health, environmental problems, corruption, flooding, criminal and economy. And the issue I choose is flooding. Why I chose the issue of flooding because lately we hear a lot about flooding in some areas for example in Terengganu, Kelantan, Kajang, Selangor and some areas are experiencing flooding problems. The flooding problem there are several causes such as prolonged heavy rain and there may also drains are clogged by debris are thrown away. And caused flooding problems this people will also get a variety of problems for example, their homes destroyed by floods, lost property and may also get a dangerous disease. Flooding problems also can describe the feelings of sadness, anger and also danger. Because of that, I influence that to make my painting related with the felling of issue.

Figure 4 : Flood in Kajang

Figure 5 : Flooding in Kuantan

Figure 6 : Flooding in Terengganu

Description Of My Painting

My painting shows how the situation that occurred in an area. I play with colors in my painting to express feelings and issues flood. Blue color that I use in my painting is depicting flooding in an area and how they immerse the area. Brown color, I would like to describe the ground. Green color also is nature. And to describe the sadness I played with soft colors and gloomy. To illustrate the danger, I would put a little red and black colors. And if seen in my painting, there is such a stream, it describes as flood flow in a region.

Below is my progress and my final outcome :-