Emily Knight | Contextual Studies

Here is my final poster for this Nature project, which was based on my chosen subject of Biomimicry. To create this I chose to do it digitally using Procreate. I felt it could enable me to get a contrasting and graphic based design that suits what a poster aims to be. I chose to design a whale with mechanical features which really emphasises the idea of Biomimicry and what it means. We owe nature and it’s creatures more than we know, the very buildings me live in, everything we use to live the way we do is lead back to nature. There is so much that we have learnt from the world around us, form the very animals we share this planet with. Animals survive because of the behaviours they have evolved with and learned. We have observed these and adapted them to our own modern way of life, consisting of technology and the man made world we have created.

My graphic media project on Nature and Ecology proved to be more complex and more of a challenge in comparison to the previous two projects. However at the same time it allowed me to explore a whole new interesting idea that I have never focused on before. My project is based Biomimicry, I chose this topic because I knew it would be a unique subject to explore and have an interesting outcome for my poster. As Biomimicry consists of using features and aspects of nature to explore and make sufficient man made things. I knew I wanted to make imagery that took the meaning of Biomimicry seriously and specifically. Something that was a representation of nature, combined with some sort of technology or machinery. This would hopefully then push the message of how we owe so much to nature and what is had to offer, our environment has inspired so much we now take advantage of. Out of centuries of evolution we have tired to push progression within the modern world. However instead of growing with...

Jan Van Goyen was a Dutch Landscape painter and what a major influence in naturalistic landscape art. His work is almost a collection of his trips and all the travelling he did in Holland and beyond. As well as paintings he also had collections of drawings and etchings. I like his work, especially his paintings, because of the atmosphere he creates due to the colour palette he uses. The tones are quite muted which I feel gives the painting more realism and a quality that allows us to engage more with the image. There is so much detail that we are constantly looking through it and seeing different characteristics that he had added. It makes an image so much more interesting and fun for the people looking at it. This is something I have taken from Goyen’s work and tried to apply to my own. Keeping in mind that details are important and make a difference between a painting and an influential one. The topic of Biomimicry is a good topic to execute this because I have the ability to combine...

Here are some examples of my experimenting with Procreate, as it was a new tool for me to use I found it challenged working with a style that suited me. Trying out different ways to paint on it whilst also combining the idea of animal and machine (Biomimicry) was also a fun challenge to figure out.

Steve Bakers "Art and Animal Rights" text is a discussion and examination of contemporary artists and how there work talks about animal rights, and how it also confronts the treatment of animals. I appreciate his discussion about how most contemporary art discusses such strong and harsh topics around animals, however these same artists do not always provide a solution to the problems they discuss. He focuses a lot on the subject of animal cruelty and how it is represented in artists work. However what I find most interesting about this text is his ability to allow us to think more in depth about how us as a species share the planet with these animals. He confronts questions about animal life and how they might perceive the world in comparison  to us. We will have a completely different perspective on the world around us and what we expect of it, in comparison to the animals we share it with. It’s funny how most animals such as farming stock, the majority of the time are not s...

Andrew Browns ‘Art & Ecology Now’ text explores how contemporary artists are viewing nature and how their work perceives the world around us. The text aims to represent a variety of different artists who all share this same interest and passion, from independent artists reviewing nature, to activists expressing their views. The images down the sides of the pages really enables you to see so many different perspectives and what they think of nature, or what it means to them. As nature is so broad it comes as no surprise that the work it helps inspire would be too. The pieces we see are all very unique and personal, there are paintings, drawings, sculptures, photography, instillation etc. I am particularly interested in when Brown discusses how the environment has always inspired artwork throughout history. Even from cave paintings by early humanity who gave the environment and the objects around them symbolic meanings in their work. The success and survival of their tribes and famil...