It is natural for people to like familiar
things, whether they be daily rituals or old themes and images that they grew
up with. In art, we like to see these familiar images because they seem to
represent who we are and/ or we can relate to them. This can be seen in
historical masterpieces such as Woman
with a Water Jug by Johannes Vermeer which would have drawn on the
day-to-day life a person in the lower class at that time or even more
commercial work such as Graceland
Christmas by Thomas Kinkade that creates a nostalgic image of a
romanticized past that we feel we long for when we look at it.
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| Woman With a Water Jug by Johannes Vermeer |
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| Graceland Christmas by Thomas Kinkade |
We are often taught while growing up that the very best art simply pulls from
the familiar, warm, and fuzzy and represents a simple perspective on life.
This is partially why many people are not too fond of modern art for many
modern art tries to against what we know and wants to give the viewer something
more disturbing. This also plays into the idea that Digital Art is not “real
art” for it does not even use a familiar medium such as paint or pencils to
create work. However, there have been Digital Artist who use their medium to
re-create images and themes that we are used to, but they also take the
familiar, turn it on its head, and create work that makes the viewer think.
In this essay, I am going to talk about digital media artist who do this: Danny van Ryswyk and Adriane Little. Though while they are very different in many ways, they both pull from the past and the familiar to give us a meaningful observation about life, death, and loss.
Danny van Ryswyk is a Dutch digital painter and sculpture. Often having a single subject for both a grayscale 3d printed sculpture and a digital painting, van Ryswyk’s work is dark and creepy and draws on vintage Victorian photography for inspiration. Victorian photo, while highlighting history, today look very surreal and a little unsettling today. van Ryswyk’s decides to emphasize that aspect in his work even more, so that when you look at it, the daemon-like quality is much more obvious. Danny van Ryswyk claims he likes to emphasize "memento mori", or the idea that death is coming. But at the same time, the subjects of his work often look stunningly detailed and beautiful.
Let's look at a specific example of his work Tender Loving Darkness.
In this piece, there is a pretty, little girl who is holding a rabbit and is wearing a bunny mask yet around her, skulls are laying on the floor. Like many of the past Victorian photos, there is something wrong with this image, but you are not quite sure what it is. Of course, for this work, there has apparently been death, but we do not know how that comes into play with this little girl's sweet look. We do not know for sure if she had killed them herself or had witnessed the death. Also, bringing in the age of the bunny, often considered a sweet little animal, mixes what we know with something that seems the opposite to confuse us.
Another strange aspect that is brought in when the subject is a sculpture is that it is placed in a bell jar.
Bell jars in the past were used during the Victorian times to keep things which scientist wanted to observe. What does it mean to the artwork then that this girl was placed in a bell jar? It seems to draw on the idea that this girl knows something we do not and thus we are trying to scrutinize the aspects of her to figure out what is the meaning behind this. Then, the fact that she seems so unfazed in the jar reinforces that we will never know what is going on in her head.
This theme is repeated continuously on by van Ryswyk , for, even though we have images in front of us that seem familiar, they are presented in an unfamiliar way, thus creating a feel of unfamiliarity that chills us.
Meanwhile, Adriane Little, a photographer and video artist, uses simple, colorful, and nostalgic images in her work, but adds a single aspect that throws the viewer for a loop. Alone, her videos' and photographs' meaning may not be clear-- on the outset, they look like normal pictures/ images of things we have seen before such as flowers, cityscapes etc. However, a phrase, a word, or even entire poem is brought in, changing the meaning of the images we are looking at and give us a deeper sense of meaning
Maybe one of her most famous examples is the video Call Home Mother is Dead. The video itself it simple: there are three different panels: one of yellow flowers softly pushing itself in the wind, one of a blue sky with a few clouds, and the one in the middle that is the most eye-catching, an old lady walking very slowly, carry numerous irons on her back. Again, he video itself is not put into context until we hear the title; the meaning then becomes about how even though we are surrounded by familiar things, trauma or loss will push those things out of context and even distort what we are seeing.
This piece in particular, as well as many of her other pieces, point out that we cannot always "trust", per-say, what we think is familiar, for another person, what may look like a bed of yellow flowers can bring back serious feelings of loss and sadness and thus may not be familiar to them.
These two artist are very different in many ways. Besides the obvious medium they choose to create (standstill digital paintings and sculptures vs. more kinetic photography and video work), they both choose to focus on different things. Van Ryswyk uses the lack color and slightly more traditional means, such as hand-painted, tangible sculptures or printed out paintings, to make the viewer feel something inevitable and strange is coming. Meanwhile, Little uses color, words, and sounds to draw attention that sometimes the little, simple things in life are actually not that simple have complicated meanings behind them. However, though vastly different, they both aim to do the same thing-- they draw on the stereotypes, the things we think we like, and the things we ignore to bring to attention things such as death and loss we do not like to think about and makes us think how truly important they are in our culture and everyday life
In this essay, I am going to talk about digital media artist who do this: Danny van Ryswyk and Adriane Little. Though while they are very different in many ways, they both pull from the past and the familiar to give us a meaningful observation about life, death, and loss.
Danny van Ryswyk is a Dutch digital painter and sculpture. Often having a single subject for both a grayscale 3d printed sculpture and a digital painting, van Ryswyk’s work is dark and creepy and draws on vintage Victorian photography for inspiration. Victorian photo, while highlighting history, today look very surreal and a little unsettling today. van Ryswyk’s decides to emphasize that aspect in his work even more, so that when you look at it, the daemon-like quality is much more obvious. Danny van Ryswyk claims he likes to emphasize "memento mori", or the idea that death is coming. But at the same time, the subjects of his work often look stunningly detailed and beautiful.
Let's look at a specific example of his work Tender Loving Darkness.
 |
| Tender Loving Darkness by Danny Can Ryswyk; Digital Painting version |
In this piece, there is a pretty, little girl who is holding a rabbit and is wearing a bunny mask yet around her, skulls are laying on the floor. Like many of the past Victorian photos, there is something wrong with this image, but you are not quite sure what it is. Of course, for this work, there has apparently been death, but we do not know how that comes into play with this little girl's sweet look. We do not know for sure if she had killed them herself or had witnessed the death. Also, bringing in the age of the bunny, often considered a sweet little animal, mixes what we know with something that seems the opposite to confuse us.
Another strange aspect that is brought in when the subject is a sculpture is that it is placed in a bell jar.
 |
| Tender Loving Darkness by Danny Can Ryswyk; 3D printed sculpture version |
Bell jars in the past were used during the Victorian times to keep things which scientist wanted to observe. What does it mean to the artwork then that this girl was placed in a bell jar? It seems to draw on the idea that this girl knows something we do not and thus we are trying to scrutinize the aspects of her to figure out what is the meaning behind this. Then, the fact that she seems so unfazed in the jar reinforces that we will never know what is going on in her head.
This theme is repeated continuously on by van Ryswyk , for, even though we have images in front of us that seem familiar, they are presented in an unfamiliar way, thus creating a feel of unfamiliarity that chills us.
Meanwhile, Adriane Little, a photographer and video artist, uses simple, colorful, and nostalgic images in her work, but adds a single aspect that throws the viewer for a loop. Alone, her videos' and photographs' meaning may not be clear-- on the outset, they look like normal pictures/ images of things we have seen before such as flowers, cityscapes etc. However, a phrase, a word, or even entire poem is brought in, changing the meaning of the images we are looking at and give us a deeper sense of meaning
Maybe one of her most famous examples is the video Call Home Mother is Dead. The video itself it simple: there are three different panels: one of yellow flowers softly pushing itself in the wind, one of a blue sky with a few clouds, and the one in the middle that is the most eye-catching, an old lady walking very slowly, carry numerous irons on her back. Again, he video itself is not put into context until we hear the title; the meaning then becomes about how even though we are surrounded by familiar things, trauma or loss will push those things out of context and even distort what we are seeing.
This piece in particular, as well as many of her other pieces, point out that we cannot always "trust", per-say, what we think is familiar, for another person, what may look like a bed of yellow flowers can bring back serious feelings of loss and sadness and thus may not be familiar to them.
These two artist are very different in many ways. Besides the obvious medium they choose to create (standstill digital paintings and sculptures vs. more kinetic photography and video work), they both choose to focus on different things. Van Ryswyk uses the lack color and slightly more traditional means, such as hand-painted, tangible sculptures or printed out paintings, to make the viewer feel something inevitable and strange is coming. Meanwhile, Little uses color, words, and sounds to draw attention that sometimes the little, simple things in life are actually not that simple have complicated meanings behind them. However, though vastly different, they both aim to do the same thing-- they draw on the stereotypes, the things we think we like, and the things we ignore to bring to attention things such as death and loss we do not like to think about and makes us think how truly important they are in our culture and everyday life
References
“Adriane
Little.” Adriane Little. Accessed December 19, 2016.
Little, Adriane. Call Home Mother is Dead. Adriane Little. Accessed December 19,
2016.
Thalmary.co. “Art of Danny van Ryswyk,” Art of
Danny van Ryswyk. Accessed December 19,
van Ryswyk, Danny. Tender Loving Darkness. Art of Danny van Ryswyk. Accessed December
van Ryswyk, Danny. Tender Loving Darkness. Art of Danny van Ryswyk. Accessed December
"Young Woman with a Water Pitcher |
Johannes Vermeer | 89.15.21 | Work of Art | Heilbrunn
Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan
Museum of Art." The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. Accessed
December 19, 2016. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/89.15.21/.
Kinkade, Thomas. "Graceland Christmas,
2008 - Thomas Kinkade." Www.wikiart.org. N.p.,
1970. Web.
19 Dec. 2016.
