JOE WEBB RESEARCH

Joe Webb
Joe Webb who was born in 1976 is a collage artist who admits a political perspective into his work whilst using imagery to re-create scenarios that he believes in or wants to make a point about, In particular, Joe uses themes such as war, Climate change and inequality to really commit a exploration of what he thinks needs to change.

“I started making these simple hand-made collages as a sort of luddite reaction to working as a graphic artist on computers for many years. I like the limitations of collage...using found imagery and a pair of scissors, there are no Photoshop options to resize, adjust colours or undo. My collages work to a basic rule of sourcing just two or three images... with these I can reinvent the original scene to communicate a new idea.” - Statement made by Joe Webb himself.

DJ

To me , I found this artist on pinterest a while ago as I was looking for inspiration regarding the adding on cut out and colour with surrealist collages, I really had a connection with this artists pieces as I initially viewed his work in a different way to how he himself wants to portray his work; In relation to my own work I am getting to grips with how he positions his cuts outs of photos whilst juxtaposing colour with the tonal black and whites. On most of Joes work he composes imagery through using images from the past, whether it is a cut out from a magazine or primary sources from his own life he incorporates old vintage photography to emphasis the era of the theme. Furthermore, As I look deeper and look longer at some of the pieces created by Joe I believe that he uses a canvas or a board as a background of composition when looking at the paintings he adds, for example, The painting called 'DJ' which was exhibited in 2016 has been painted on but you are able to see the lines that show as a patterned texture. It really adds a powerful aspect to his work because to me I feel like I am able to emotionally link to the concept of his work about war as I evaluate this piece in particular as being about somebody listening to the radio. In which the radio symbolises the media censorship about what the public are allowed to hear. However, The planet has an involvement because it Is being used as imagery as a vinyl, I portray this as being a clever way to suggest the spinning of planets resembling the spinning of the vinyl, whilst acknowledging how big the planet is as the media is telling the world what they want to hear about war, The planet may be a link to         the acknowledgment of size of the population who would be brainwashed by the media. In my opinion I believe that this piece would be on a large scale to exaggerate the concept of Joes work about the size of being out of space, also, although the medium on the painting is specifically unknown I think that it may have a relation to oil paints or acrylic as the coating on the photograph seems glossy and not matted, however, you are able to clearly see the pattern of the board underneath, which tells me that it may not be oil paint as the paint would've covered the texture completely as it is so thick.

I am going to take inspiration from Joes work by the way he actually paints the planets as I believe he really creates a cartoonified effect, however, he juxtaposes the wacky, effect of over exaggerating the colour with aspects of his work by including an old vintage photo that has aspects of realism but is an off grey tonal colour- adding affects of duplicated black dots which are symmetrical to one another to tell the viewer about the age of the photo itself.

 

http://www.joewebbart.com/about/