PINTEREST RESEARCH

Research as a starting point 16/06/2017

As a starting point for research into afterlife and death I focused on looking at a wide range of different types of art, fro example, Photography, Paintings etc. The images below give a first insight of the links I made to my theme by the different pieces of work by talented individuals in which I have taken inspiration from.

I first began to research 'Death' as a whole and this image sprung to mind relating to surrealism and conceptual art, What I liked about this image was the juxtaposition of colour as there are wide variety of colour in the centre of the image in comparison to the 'background'. This gave me inspiration to begin to look at surrealism and how the imagination can create its own idolised image of death. I began to ask myself questions such as 'What would actually occur in our last moments before death?' and 'What are the effects of after we die? What happens to our personal belongings?'

The question that I personally couldn't stop thinking about was 'Is the decay or abandonment of objects a representation of what happens to us as humans when we die?'.

UNKNOWN TITLE by Sebastian Martorana

After thinking about the effects of the belongings which are left behind after a human dies, I came across this exceptional artist called Sebastian Martorana who created this sculpture in memory of his Father in law when he was lifted from his bed.

The 3D sculpture made me begin to think about the effects on the family and the last senses that are left on earth before an individual, The marks, creases and the hollow frame of which the head would've been placed made me feel very sympathetic for this artist. I have not yet researched into this artist but I think I need to do some more research as I would like to gain some more inspiration.

Another starting point for me was to look at places which have been abandoned and have begin to die from their beauty, I was fond to see if there is still a beauty within an object or location that is forgotten about. For me, this image really inspired me to look deeply into changing the perception of a stimuli looking tatted and old, I found this image by researching key words such as 'empty house' because I honestly didn't know where to start. I believe that if you were to show this image to the viewer they would begin to create a story in their head, for example, I began to create theories such as 'The house has been photographed as if a crime scene investigator was amplifying evidence, evidence to prove the state of the location when somebody was found dead in their home'.

If you were to look at this image from an old abandoned house you can see that the artist is portraying the beauty of something that has no worth, almost like they are bringing it back to life again. The colours look as If they are photo shopped and give a very distinctive yet unrealistic enhancement to the human eye, The colours this artist has decided to use are blues and tonal purples which are portrayed as being the cover up of shadow and brightness coming into the house. 

II am really intrigued by this idea and would love to maybe create my own style of work using the technique of photo shop and then perhaps photographing an abandoned place whilst adding wet mediums such as watercolours, therefore, it could become a representation of afterlife and reliving the past in another world.

I then became inspired by taking away the surrealism of adding colour by researching into photography based images which capture the rawness of objects being left without the owner, I began to make an attachment to the objects decaying when a human who owns them dies, I visually like to look at this image because you are just able to see the change in effect when colour from Photoshop has been taken away. To me, This image represent the modern portrayal of an old persons room who is not present in the image, The burnt orange colour of the lighting gives off a feeling of a ghostly appearance, as if the image was taken in present time from the 60's era. Again, I am finding links with creating stories about the photographs shown as there is a bottle of alcohol on the floor next to a single chair. IF I were to create a story I would believe that an old man has died of alcohol poisoning and so therefore, the imaged captures the past and newly beginning to the death of the human. The lighting could actually represent the beginning of the decaying process to occur as the very warm tone may portray fire, as if the objects are burning into the process of natural decay.

Visual inspiration of abandoned places and objects



An abandoned school bus

I became inspired by visually looking at images of abandoned objects which begin to decay by nature and I was so interested to find out why these objects became deserted and not used. This was the first pieces of research that enhanced my questioning of death and afterlife because I want to find out how the beauty and soul of a non living stimuli can be related to the human body and our soul dying. From this part of my exploration in particular I became acquired to acknowledge the sadness of visually seeing an object being taken over by nature as it rots to the surface of the earth, but does this happen to humans?

I wanted to find a link between the death of an object or location with the human body dying and being able to find or create theories which could suggest that maybe we decay but then start a new life on a different planet which is unknown, I want to find the reasoning's why we get so sad about death and t find patterns that could portray the happiness of believing that there may be a new life to start after our soul disappears.

Also, When visually looking at imagers like the ones here I ask questions about there being an accident to make something become abandoned, for example, Did the school bus crash and people died? does this mean the bus is only just decaying now because it is representing the afterlife of the people who died? These are what will stimulate my exploration.