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Mapping Project:

“Murder of Many”

By: Heather Behrendt

 2/22/2011

For the past five weeks I have been continuously reading of the continuing and growing destruction of the world. Most people would think economical or human destruction. Maybe even aliens taking over, but isn’t that what humans are doing? We waltz into any creatures’ home and take what we want. We have created this idea of superiority to nature when we really are a part of nature. Once we began to discuss mapping in class my ideas started to roll. They were rocky at first but began to turn into a political concept portraying the United States taking over the world. This may be the political side of the world but what about the world including all its factors. Natural vegetation is losing. I searched on Google for maps that distinguished what areas of the world contained lost forestry. I was shocked to see the results. Almost all of Canada, Japan, Europe, and Madagascar were completely destroyed. Large spots in the Middle East, Center of South America were missing, and the only large forest in Africa seemed to strategically being attacked surrounding its perimeters. The brown spots representing the lost forests gave me an idea. I wanted to draw a rough map of the world and burn holes in the spots that represented those lost forests. I think it is a strong statement and representational way of getting my point across. They are simply gone. How would this be presented was my next issue to tackle. I could not just simply hang this on the wall because it would lesson the effect of the wholes. I came up with the idea of mounting the art piece between two boards of plexiglass to allow the strong absence of the spots from the paper.  This ideology that we can fix anything is not truth. We are advanced creatures but as of now there is now technology that can replenish the world of it nature resources at the rate we are taking them. I want to expose more then just a simple map with wholes. I want to use black ink sketches to poke fun of this idea of forestation target at people. I began to think of surrounding the map with cartoon drawings of human forces destroying the world in fantasized ways.

            I can’t compare my artwork in a similar mirrored idea to any of the artist we talked about, but I did involve subtle ideas into my piece. I enjoyed Julie Menretu’s idea of no conclusion, but the complete abstract way of creating this idea seemed difficult for me. It did strike a thought; this idea of deforestation is not yet concluded in reality so how could I portray such an idea. I also enjoyed her bold mark making with the shapes. I had been seeing charts representing the growth of deforestation shown with a bright red jagged line; what a great incorporation that used a bold mark. How could I show this as inconclusive? I then thought of the idea of people keep taking. What happens when the two ideas meet? That is where the second line was invented. The first line represents the amount of forest existing and the second line represents how much forests humans are destroying. They do not quit meet but it is intriguing to thin of what would happen if they did. Arshile Gorky also caught my eye, but yet again my artwork was not completely influenced by such a style. His art is a step towards representational from Menretu’s but not quite a leap. His bold choice in colors and little white space is what I was focused on. I did not want to leave the blank spaces of the world blank. I enjoyed the bright colors of maps and the arbitrary lines. I decided to take those maps and make them the blank spots of my world. Also, I decided to make the water blue, and the tree areas green. I know that it seems uncreative and far from unique, but I am trying to represent something and my decision has a deeper meaning then those destination maps. Then it occurred to me; how is the water being destroyed? Well recently the big news was the oil spill. How often does this happen? I left it to Google to show me a map of the history of oil spills and so began the blank ink spots.

            Though my artwork did not completely inhabit the idea of abstract, it represents something strong I feel. I think its weakness is it’s simple and close to accurate appearance of the world.  I think it is a fare concept to point out as a fault. I think the next weakness is its materials. I think I like the materials I used but since some were new to me, I wish I played with them a bit before incorporating them. They seem to mesh just not in the right spots. In all honesty I am not 100% happy with this project. I think mostly because it is far from what I normally do. Also, I feel the water I applied extremely too strong. It is overwhelming to the piece. I would love to take another crack at this idea and be better at meshing the materials together and making it seem more cohesive.

Questions:

1.     Do you find the representation of the world too common?

2.     Do you feel that the cartoons are too much? Too big?

3.     What areas to you think is weak in relation to cohesiveness?

4.     Do you think the burning is an effective strong representation? 

EXTRA:
I am not entirely satisfied with this piece but I am enjoying where it is going. I am going to continuing working on it more and come up with a better way of displaying it for the best effect. Also, I did not mention an artist above who I seemed to connect with through this piece. I have always enjoyed Andy Ducett's play with sketched outlines with a cartoon feeling. My characters I had added in this piece definitely are comparable to his art work; maybe not accuracy of drawing but I think style wise. This is also a terrible picture. Once I am done I'll post this again.