Teo, as you know, I really like your idea of doing Waiting for Godot as an abstract piece, and I appreciate the logic of your approach. While I really like the repeating circles and how you painted around them, I don't think the activity within them was the best choice. I know you got a lot of comments about this during the critique, but I'll add two more thoughts: First, I think there's a scale issue at work here. The size of the circles is so big relative to what's happening inside them; this might have worked better visually if the elements inside were slightly larger. But mostly I think it's the symbols themselves. While I understand the logic (and I get the placement, which I find clever), the symbols are not very interesting visually. They seem a bit generic. Given that this is an abstract piece, it would have been nice to see some more eccentric or original shapes in there -- something with more visual nuance and intrigue. And I think it would have been better if you stuck to one medium; as they are, the symbols look discordant with each other. As I've been saying to other students, this is a common problem where concept-heavy art is concerned (i.e., where you're trying to convey a specific narrative or some kind of message); it's easy to get so hung up on communicating the message that you forget the most important thing about visual art -- namely, that it is visual! What you want more than anything with visual art is for the viewer to be drawn into your work visually so that they'll be compelled to stay and wonder about the meaning. I could see your idea here working terrifically well as an abstract piece where you have -- perhaps -- a grid of many circles inside which the same five shapes shift from one to the next. If you had enough of these circles, the viewer would get an overwhelming sense of sameness -- but sameness with slight differences. Scale (i.e., how many such circles are placed in what kind of picture format) can be a wonderful way to create overall mood; imagine this piece with a hundred such circles! In any case, I hope you'll continue to think about all these issues moving forward with your own work.
Teo, as you know, I really like your idea of doing Waiting for Godot as an abstract piece, and I appreciate the logic of your approach. While I really like the repeating circles and how you painted around them, I don't think the activity within them was the best choice. I know you got a lot of comments about this during the critique, but I'll add two more thoughts: First, I think there's a scale issue at work here. The size of the circles is so big relative to what's happening inside them; this might have worked better visually if the elements inside were slightly larger. But mostly I think it's the symbols themselves. While I understand the logic (and I get the placement, which I find clever), the symbols are not very interesting visually. They seem a bit generic. Given that this is an abstract piece, it would have been nice to see some more eccentric or original shapes in there -- something with more visual nuance and intrigue. And I think it would have been better if you stuck to one medium; as they are, the symbols look discordant with each other. As I've been saying to other students, this is a common problem where concept-heavy art is concerned (i.e., where you're trying to convey a specific narrative or some kind of message); it's easy to get so hung up on communicating the message that you forget the most important thing about visual art -- namely, that it is visual! What you want more than anything with visual art is for the viewer to be drawn into your work visually so that they'll be compelled to stay and wonder about the meaning. I could see your idea here working terrifically well as an abstract piece where you have -- perhaps -- a grid of many circles inside which the same five shapes shift from one to the next. If you had enough of these circles, the viewer would get an overwhelming sense of sameness -- but sameness with slight differences. Scale (i.e., how many such circles are placed in what kind of picture format) can be a wonderful way to create overall mood; imagine this piece with a hundred such circles! In any case, I hope you'll continue to think about all these issues moving forward with your own work.
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