AVI OAC PERSONAL THEME STATEMENT
What do I want to say or express in my work?
For my theme I will try to express through paint the wonder of music. Each painting will specifically represent a few lines of lyrics from a particular song. Beyond that, I will try and make the paintings reflect the song as a whole-both the musical nature of the song, and the lyrics as a whole. Due to my musical inclinations, it would be reasonable to assume that most of the subject matter will come from U2 songs. By nature, U2 songs have vague, non-specific lyrics that could be interpreted in many ways, so the interpretations will often be up to me, and based on my personal response to the song. I wish to demonstrate the value of music beyond simply listening to it; and show through my own experience how the meaning and feeling of songs can vary from person to person and communicate the great emotional force that I feel (good) music constitutes but in a non-musical way.
Why do I want to say these things?
I am very interested in this theme because music means a great deal to me. Music moves me profoundly when I listen to it, it can elate me, sedate me, and make everything seem ok when I’m feeling low, or open my eyes to situations I would not otherwise be aware of. In particular, I find U2′s music to be filled with a great deal of honest passionate feeling. Because the music is so dear to me (I have also grown up with much of it, since U2 has been my favourite band since I was about eight years old) I am eager to work with the music in any way I can. I feel that at its core all art (be it music, poetry or painting) is about feeling rather than calculation, so I will attempt to transfer the same feeling from one medium to a vastly different one. It seems to me that our current trend in music (and in many other things) is toward the calculated and commercialized, that it is no longer made to say something, but simply to get cash. In our world many of the best artists are in their basements barely able to pay the rent and those with the best marketing teams but little talent are on the top of the charts; U2 is a band that has maintained relevance and commercial success without compromising their artistic ability. An ulterior motive of my theme is to selfishly afflict my musical opinions on true art on others. Also, my recent interest in directing films, and interest in music videos has influenced this choice, as each painting will be similar to a music video.
Subject matter choices
- Where the Streets Have No Name “I want to run/I want to hide/I want tear down the walls that hold me inside/I want to reach out and touch the flame/where the streets have no name/” this song to me expresses wanting to come out of a situation and “break through into a new frame” as Bono sometimes sings when performing the song live. To represent this I would show someone reaching out literally into a new frame like in a comic book, the frame he is in is dark and dusty, but the other is sunny.
- Wake Up Dead Man “Jesus, were you just around the corner?/did you think to try and warn her?/ or were you working on something new?/Is there an order in all of this disorder?”. This song demonstrates not being able to understand the seemingly random tragedies that beset all of us. I would represent this pictorially by showing a saddened face in the foreground with a scene of mayhem behind, perhaps a car accident behind.
- Bad “If I could throw this/Lifeless lifeline to the wind/Leave this heart of clay/See you walk, walk away” here I would think of depicting someone on the street amidst garbage, malnourished and scarred, looking with a faint glimmer of hope out of the painting. This doesn’t go directly with what the song is about-heroin addiction, but to me the scene I picture is perhaps a metaphor for what is going on in the mind of an addict.
- Walk To The Water “I’m looking through your window/I’m walking through your doorway/I’m on the outside/Let me in/Let me love you” Someone sitting, dejected on a porch beneath a dark window, while at the other side of the house is a lit window.
-Stay (Faraway, So Close) “Dressed up like a car crash/Your wheels are turning but you’re upside down” an interesting lyric to interpret. I know I really want to paint this one, but I don’t yet have any idea what it means! I will figure it out eventually.
-Running to Stand Still “Step on a steam train/Step out of the driving rain, maybe/Run from the darkness in the night”. The idea of running from the darkness in the night has always intrigued me, it is a metaphor that I would explore in a painting. The steam trains and driving rain would figure into the painting somehow, even though they are metaphorical as well.
-So Cruel “Oh love…like a screaming flower/Love…dying every hour…love” The whole song tells a vivid story of a man in an almost masochistic relationship with a woman who treats him like mud, but that serves to make him want her more. I’ve always seen visions in my head of screaming flowers.
-A Sort of Homecoming “The city walls are all come down/The dust, a smoke screen all around/See faces ploughed like fields that once/Gave no resistance” The words of this song are very poignant in light of the recent tragedy in New York, the song represents a reflective mournful mood, and a determination to rebuild.
-Please “Shards of glass/Splinters like rain/But you could only feel/Your own pain” This song speaks of arrogantness and refusing to see the other side of an argument. Someone in a fit of rage throwing a rock through a beautiful stained glass window.
-In A Little While is one of my favourite songs of all time, and I would really want to work with it in some way, but any sort of inspiration in the form of what it is I would paint is very lacking.
-Bullet the Blue Sky “Across the field you see the sky ripped open/See the rain through a gaping wound/Pelting the women and children/Who run/Into the arms/Of America” One of the more angry U2 songs, exploring the negative effect of American commercialism on less developed countries (I think that’s what it is at least). Not exactly sure how to represent this, but it would be interesting to work with, there is very strong imagery in the lyrics
-Mothers of the Disappeared “Midnight, our sons and daughters/Were cut down and taken from us/Hear their heartbeat/We hear their heartbeat” This song was written about the mothers in Chile whose children were taken from them by Pinochet. A very dark song, an old woman with a great sadness in her heart, thinking of where her son might be.
Many of these ideas and the actual subject matter I will use will probably morph slightly or entirely before actually being painted. Also, It is becoming apparent that only a few songs have a line or two of lyrics that reflect what I want to express, so maybe I will give up on trying to find specific lines, or maybe I will find specific lines that scream to be painted.
Specific Mediums
I intend to use paint for all of my works. I want them to be pictorial representations, so sculpture isn’t an option. I will probably use our trusted water based oils because they can support a wide range of colours, and that will figure prominently in the designs. I may want to use markers as a base on the page, I see in my mind including borders and additional smaller frames showing different situations for some of the paintings. In this way some of it will be a little like a comic book, coming closer to the moving film of a music video.