1.4+Mixed+Media+Collage

**1.4 Mixed Media Collage** Visual Arts 1.4 A.S 90021 Credits 4 DUE DATE: Week 6, Term 2 Exam **Extend ideas in media and techniques to produce new work** This achievement standard involves using a study of artists’ works to extend ideas and produce new work using techniques and conventions appropriate to media and techniques. You will look at ways artists acquire and transform ideas into artworks and use this understanding to generate ideas for your own personal expression. We will study Michael Mew & Ben Schonzeit’s choice of imagery, compositional layout, colour and look at the processes, procedures, and art-making traditions that influence their ways of working.

[|1.4 student handout.pdf]

==**Michael Mew** click on the painting below to go to Micheal Mew's website ==

**Artist Statement**
In my recent collage work I’ve synthesized the historical and personal imagery that has shaped my life as an artist. After making and exhibiting assemblage boxes for more than a decade, I began working on two-dimensional collages in 1994. I turned to collage so that I could continue working with found images in a different medium. My layered, cumulative process of collaging, sanding, and repainting, leaves room for the kinds of intuitive material and pictorial juxtapositions that can only arise from the unconscious mind.

My new Botanical Series was inspired by antique botanical illustrations from masters of the genre who worked between the 13th to 18th centuries. In my large panels I’ve combined these flower drawings with vintage product labels from Chinese firecrackers, and from apothecary and cigarette paper packaging, syncing their typography and design to the history and character of the flowers. Juxtaposing the pre-industrial view of nature with the logos and advertising of recent eras, I’ve paired the common and overlooked detritus of various cultures with the classically beautiful. Michael Mew 2008 from Michael Mew's website

**Botanical Art** Before the invention of photography and a long time after, botanical art was the only way to record accurately the different species of plants. The work of the botanical illustrator required great skill and technical knowledge. The botany illustrations from the 18th and 19th century are important resources for the history of botany. Many vanished cultivated plants are only known from illustrations and antique flower prints. [|info from suite101.com]

The Natural History Museum has an fantastic website with lots of information and images of botanical illustrations from the voyage of HMS //Endeavour// (1768-1771). It is well worth having a look at if you are interested in finding our more about the type of botanical illustrations that inspired Michael Mew. It will make it more relevant if you use botanical illustrations of native NZ plants and flowers in your own artwork. Click on the images below to see more botanical illustrations from the Endeavour voyage

= The Endeavour Botanical Illustrations =


 * The Botany Library at the Natural History Museum holds all of the surviving botanical artwork from Captain James Cook's first Pacific voyage.** Represented are works of the artists [|Sydney Parkinson] (1745-1771), John Frederick Miller and Frederick Polydore Nodder, among others. These artists' works feature in the finished watercolours made during and after the voyage, between 1773 and 1784. Of the three, only Parkinson sailed on the ship and it was he who made the first sketches of the plants which were encountered and collected.

In early parts of the voyage Parkinson was able to keep up with the pace of discoveries, finishing his coloured sketches, but later, overwhelmed by new specimens, he could only sketch and partially colour-in significant portions of each plant portrait, just enough to give an overall scientifically significant view of the plant specimen before it wilted and lost its colour. These remain in the Botany Library collections today.

The scale of the job
In early parts of the voyage Parkinson was able to keep up with the pace of discoveries, finishing his coloured sketches, but later, overwhelmed by new specimens, he could only sketch and partially colour-in significant portions of each plant portrait, just enough to give an overall scientifically significant view of the plant specimen before it wilted and lost its colour. These remain in the Botany Library collections today. The above information is from the Natural History Museum website

==**Ben Schonzeit**  == Ben Schonzeit was born in 1942, he lives and works in New York City. His life work, which spans nearly 40 years, tells the story of his life — each event marking a different phase of his work. An unfortunate boyhood accident may have had the most impact, as it led to the loss of one of Schonzeit’s eyes and ultimately changed the way he “sees” things. To help deal with this life-changing event, Schonzeit found comfort in art.

Throughout the 1970s, Schonzeit focused his efforts on his own brand of photorealism for which he became well-known in New York circles. Next, he dabbled in abstraction and the use of figures and symbols throughout the ’80s — a time of new beginnings and endings. He married his second wife, a Chinese-American with whom he traveled to China and Japan.

The Paintings that we are studying are from this phase of his work

=**Japanese Screens**= click on images to see information about the screens and more japanese screens

**Byōbu** (屏風 [|**?**], wind wall) are Japanese folding screens made from several joined panels bearing decorative painting and calligraphy, used to separate interiors and enclose private spaces, among other uses.

History
Like many Japanese arts and crafts, folding screens originated in China; prototypes dating back to the Han dynasty have been found. The term "byōbu" means figuratively "protection from wind", which suggests that the original purpose of byōbu was blocking drafts. Byōbu were introduced in Japan in the eighth century, when Japanese craftsmen started making their own byōbu, highly influenced by Chinese patterns. Through different Japanese eras, byōbu evolved in structure and design, along with the techniques and materials used: Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1568-1600) and early Edo Period (1600-1868): Byōbu popularity grew, as the people's interest in arts and crafts significantly developed during this period. Byōbu adorned samurai residences, conveying high rank and demonstrating wealth and power. This led to radical changes in byōbu crafting, such as backgrounds made from gold leaf (金箔 , //kinpaku//[|**?**] ) and highly colorful paintings depicting nature and scenes from daily life. info from Wiki - Japanese Screens