conceptualising your own work

Conceptualising your own work

Anna Heard

Matt Moseley

In this essay I am going to reflect on the details of a specific piece of work by one artist who has influenced my ideas and work. I will discuss what the artist is trying to communicate through visual means, how they use materials to communicate these ideas, describe what it is about the artist’s work that interests me and I will give an example of my own work and the artist’s work. The artist I think has influenced my work is Kurt Schwitters who is famous for his collages, also known as Merz pictures. I have chosen to write about a collage called Das Undbild which was made in 1919, just after the First World War.

Most of Schwitters’ collages have a connection to the world around him. He uses his own rubbish in his house to make sense of the world which, he believed, had gone mad. He used materials such as cardboard, scraps of metal, old furniture, leftover objects found in bins and items from his friends. Also travel tickets, wood and fabric. These are all part of everyday objects which are incorporated into his work. This is a good idea because it makes his work different from other artists. On the other hand this could be bad because it might not fit in with the formal characteristics of art. I think Schwitters is trying to communicate what the everyday life was like after the war, because of the economy, political and military, and how much things had changed and he is trying to make sense of it by using objects used in everyday life. A quote from Schwitters is "Everything an artist spits out is art". He used anything he could find to form his collages.

I think the materials used could portray the instability of the economy, the way they overlap making the collage look chaotic could resemble the economy after the war. Schwitters has used his own rubbish to form the collage to maybe give the viewer an insight into his own life. For example, I have noticed there is a horse shoe maybe because he wants good luck, and also travel tickets showing where he has been and newspapers he has read.

I find Schwitters’ work interesting because I like how he has turned his rubbish into an abstract collage which form a composition made up of texture, form, colour and print. I think this makes his work unique. In my opinion the collage is quite rhythmical because the layers cause the edges to form lines which your eye follows. But whilst I think the overlapping was considered, the lines formed by the overlapping aren’t. These lines make your eye follow the lines continuously. I also like how his collages have an old look to them.

Overall, Schwitters’ collages are formed from objects used in everyday life. He creates depth and texture by layering these up. In my collage I have tried to do this by using receipts and bus tickets which are part of everyday life. I have tried to get an old rustic feel to my collage as well.

Word count: 524