Pop Art

As mentioned in an earlier post, I created a pop art piece in accordance to Danto's modern day approach to defining art.

Pop art in part refers to conventional American imagery found in popular culture which stipulates consumer items as manipulative, powerful, and symbolic. These items are subsequently embedded with power that affect entire lifestyles and patterns of mere human routine.

Artists of this style, put an emphasis on objects that have been mass produced in our modern day society. By this, the artist demonstrates the impact these simple items have on our lives.

The following are additional pop art pieces created by classmates around the same time I made my own:

My pop art

LACMA: One Of My Favorite Places On Earth

"I can't get enough of Chris Burden's Urban Light exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA]. The installation features 202 cast-iron vintage 1920s streetlights collected mostly from all over L.A., and it feels like a forest of light that is leading you to a temple. I love how it reflects the life of the city, while at the same time capturing the idea of the museum as a temple of art, culture, and enlightenment. And LACMA gets bonus points for having the streetlights be powered by solar energy."

—Arianna Huffington, pundit and co-founder, The Huffington Post

5905 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile; 323-857-6000

A Chalk Full Of Fun!

Saturday afternoon we ventured back to elementary school.

We grabbed our 3-year-old niece's stash of colored chalk and headed out door!

Our Hopscotch is very innovative.

We included negative numbers.

An Easter basket in lieu of the upcoming holiday.

"If you want to sing out, sing out

If you want to be free, be free

'Cause there's a million things to be

You know that there are"

- Cat Stevens

Je t'aime

Suffer

As a birthday present for my brother, I painted the iconic image of the burning boy from Bad Religion's Suffer album cover on the sleeve of his leather jacket.

Leather isn't the easiest thing to paint on. To start off, I outlined the image on the sleeve with white charcoal and than painted it in with a thick layer of white acrylic paint. After the base coat dried, I was able to draw the image on in pencil. I later went back and traced various portions in black charcoal. This allowed me to see everything much more clearly. After that, I was ready to start painting.

I did everything in portions because it took several days to finish. This was completed between classes or whenever I had free time.

This is how it turned out:

I hope you like it Frank!

In this picture: Frank with Bad Religion's Greg Hetson

Along the Way

Along the Way by Beverly Darline Soto

This painting is done in the existensialist manner because it portrays the world of the man in black at the far right corner of this painting. He looks upon three women and in doing so turns them into objects in his world. This is exemplified through the style in which the women are portrayed in. None resemble human bodies, just impressions of them. The women are essentially what he makes them out to be. Therefore, all the charachteristics he has drawn from them are reflected in their bodies. Their bodies are composed of geometric shapes and shades that do not match each other. The background of the painting and the surrounding abstract shapes are present to supplement his world. At the moment, he is at the center of his universe being as he is the looker. He still has his free will intact. However, due to the very geometric and far removed nature of his observations, it is evident that he is alienated from the world that surrounds him.

Along the Way was inspired by three original paintings:

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907, by Pablo Picasso

Le Chef D'Oeuvre ou Les Mysteres de L'Horizon, 1955, by Rene Magritte

Dinner at the Grand Palais, 1975, by Sir Howard Hodgkin

American Spirit Cigs

In accordance to Danto's modern day approach to defining art I created a piece in the artistic genre known as pop art. Pop art in part refers to conventional American imagery found in popular culture which stipulates consumer items as manipulative, powerful, and symbolic. These items are subsequently embedded with power that affect entire lifestyles and patterns of mere human routine. Artists of this style, put an emphasis on objects that have been mass produced in our modern day society. By this, the artist demonstrates the impact these simple items have on our lives.

Created by Beverly Darline Soto and with a little help from her friends