Michael Brennand Wood And Dale Chihuly (The Natural Form In Art)

Michael Brennand-Wood is a textile artist with a national and international reputation for innovative and imaginative combinations of ideas and media. He explores three-dimensional lines, structures and patterns. He has persistently worked with in areas that use textile practice, embroidery, pattern, lace and recently has been inspired by floral imagery. He has used textures such as, acrylic paint, wood, glass and collages with in his work. These pieces of work are colourful, dramatic and rhythmic, which contain intense detail that merges at a distance.

Michael creates many of his images with bursts of colour to make looking at natural form more interesting. The colours he has used in the image are very repetitive, to link in with the theme of the repetitive pattern. The yellows and the dark pinks contrast well with the dark blue background, making them brighter, which will catch people’s attention. Michael has explored many imaginative ways through the use of fine lines and colour. The lines behind the flowers are very visible due to the bright colours. This is a useful technique used by Michael because his audience will be able to spot the pattern and connection of the lines better compared to using dull colours such as, black or grey, helping to convey the meaning of the image. The artist tried to create a “water theme”. This theme is captured in this picture as the blue background denotes the colour of water. Therefore, this helps to create the impression of a tranquil atmosphere, through the vibrant colour of a calming blue and the very bright but subtle colours used for the flowers. The textiles work has been photographed from a bird’s eye view, helping to create the effect of the natural form floating on water. This camera angle will make people think about the picture and it shows more of the image compared to a close up view. Once I saw the picture and realized the theme captured, I felt like I wanted to dive into the beautiful colours and swim around in them. Further more, this two-dimensional artwork adds a lot of texture to its image, as the artist has painted many detailed lines for the edges of the flower heads and the criss-cross pattern in the water.

The process to create this picture must have been very hard and time-consuming, as Michael had to paint every little detail expressed onto a piece of fabric. The picture contains many extremely small lines and patterns, which would need extensive time to create. As well, it would have been very challenging to try to recreate the exact flower, which would follow the existing pattern. There are a variety of different shapes and sizes of flowers included in this image, so it would have been difficult to try to make each individual pattern look the same. A lot of preparation must have gone into this work. I believe before Michael attempted to paint this picture he would have practiced each pattern to make sure he got them perfectly similar. A lot of skill would be required to create this type of picture.

Over all, this image did please me. There was a lot of skill and dedication that went into the picture. The picture successfully communicated it’s hidden meaning of the natural form floating on the water (water theme) and it successfully communicated a happy and calming mood/atmosphere, as the natural form was captured at a stand still, where no movement could have been seen.

Dale Chihuly:

I also looked at Dale Chuhuly he has used a variety of glass shells to explore different patterns and colours involved in the picture. The picture creates a very happy and exciting mood from the vibrant and deep colours used. The colours used are not too bright and over whelming and many contrast making the colours even bolder and sticking. The texture of the glass immediately grabs your attention through the different shapes and patterns, adding variety to the picture. The picture will therefore deserve a second glance as the different shapes and patterns are not plain or original. Further more, when somebody looks at the image again they will notice something that they have not noticed before such as, the chipped pattern around the edge of one shell or how certain shells are more transparent than others. This makes the image less predictable and tedious.

The artist has positioned their camera at a birds-eye view angle. I like this position because it shows the distribution of the shells well and portrays the added height to the image well, through the layering of shells on top of each other. This helps contribute to making the image look more realistic, compared to the shells being spaced out in rows, looking more like it has been set up. I believe the artist wanted the image to suggest they had found the natural form in this statue. However, the more closely I look into the image, the more gaps between the shells appear. These gaps are shown to have a bright white background. This is a limitation to the image because it shows the image has been set up by the artist, giving off the impact of the image being more artificial than realistic. This may have a big influence on people’s opinions, as a lot of people will be more interested and astonished by seeing how nature has created different types of natural forms. Although the picture still conveys the meaning of natural form being bright and enjoyable. At first, I interpreted the image as if the artist took the picture looking up at the shells from a low angle.  The shells appeared to look like they were falling but have been stopped by landing on a square piece of glass. However, as I continued to look further into the image I realised that was not the case. The artist cleverly turned the shell upside down, to make it look like he took a picture of the shells looking up at them from down below to create this effect. Over all, due to there being little background shown, it allows the audience to make up their own interpretations of what the image shows.

I believe the artist brought or made the shells in order to try to recreate the nature form through burst of colour. Dale then would have placed them onto a plain white background, in order to intensity the colours. A light must have been used to the right-hand side of the image, to cast a few shadows under the shells and to make the white background very bright. The artist must have used a camera with a flash, as the picture shows patches of light captured from the reflection of the glass on a few of the shells. I do not think the artist improvised as he went along because it is a very simple picture. I believe they had the idea of what they wanted to capture and how to convey it, with limited changes to their original plan.