How to make my final art piece less literal?
May 3, 2010 
3 Comments
My prof keeps lecturing me in how my art work is apparently too literal. For my final project, I’m wanting to do a sculpture of a child, dressed practically as a hooker. Basically talking about how corporations target young girls. Like barbie or bratz. You see too many kids behaving and dressing inapporiatly for their age. Basically I wanted to make this sculpture and have her standing on a street corner at a mall. How can I make this less literal?
Why would you want to sculpt a child dressed as a hooker? Sounds like child porn. Bratz and Barbie are older than a child. A mall is the corporations, why would they want a sculpture that protests them next to them? That is pretty literal. Even if you draped the kid in logo crap and gucci diapers, it’s still literal. Maybe surround her/him with way too many toys and clothes. It’s cute, but who needs so much stuff? Really, I can’t believe the amount of crap some parents buy their little darlings.
Why don’t you talk over a few ideas with your professor so you know your on the right track? He should be there to help you. I know in my classes students would bring in a few concepts for critique and then develop one of them.
Why would you want to sculpt a child dressed as a hooker? Sounds like child porn. Bratz and Barbie are older than a child. A mall is the corporations, why would they want a sculpture that protests them next to them? That is pretty literal. Even if you draped the kid in logo crap and gucci diapers, it’s still literal. Maybe surround her/him with way too many toys and clothes. It’s cute, but who needs so much stuff? Really, I can’t believe the amount of crap some parents buy their little darlings.
Why don’t you talk over a few ideas with your professor so you know your on the right track? He should be there to help you. I know in my classes students would bring in a few concepts for critique and then develop one of them.
References :
Look at the differences between a Barbie doll and a Bratz. The features that make a Bratz doll different from a Barbie is what your professor means by making it less literal.
The atenuated face and figure of the Barbie is also a less than literal depiction of a real, live human being.
You can take these steps even further by adapting your child charactes even more unrealisticly. You can, for example, make them extremely short and chubby. You can make your characters completely flat, like trashily dressed paper dolls. You can make them mechanical figures or animals dressed in human clothing.
One way of interpreting the "less literal" instruction is to make it "less realiistic."
References :
Designer, Illustrator and Desktop Publisher for over 30 years
I can kind of see how this could be too literal…it all depends on how you do it. Sometimes it’s better to conceal your intentions a bit, people like figuring things out and being left a bit confused. Maybe you should think a little more about your message- are corporations the only ones who decide how young girls will behave? do they sell stuff that decides how the kids will act, or do they decide what to sell based on how kids act? Being to cut-and-dry with your message can be a bit boring…we’ve all heard the "big companies corrupt the kids" spiel before, and even if it is a topic you are passionate about, you can’t change the way people think about it unless you change the way you communicate with them. Being too literal means you run the risk of seeming, to some, like a crotchety old man complaining about how girls these days have no morals and civilization is headed for the tubes, even if you don’t mean it that way.
Well it looks like I’ve given you no applicable advice so far, sorry…just keep that stuff in mind. Unfortunately I have no idea what your style is so I can’t tell you exactly what would be good. Try to focus on the artistic aspect of your piece, letting the current image in your brain be your inspiration but not the final product. If you’re into abstract stuff, there is a lot you could do with the image you have now, but if you’re not, you might have to think of another way to approach it…i can’t think of anything now, but i’ll let you know if I do. Good luck on your final project!
References :