Knucklehead.
This digital artwork was based on a previous version I completed in colour pencil whist on my MA. This was a study of the bumps and lumps of a knucklehead pumpkin I had smashed and photographed. My work at this time was trying to find a handhold on the subject of art and nature. Trying to understand my fascination of patterns and structures in organic subjects and fit them into an academic framework. I tried to do this by studying evolution and plant science, trying to understand ‘a pumpkin’ through a scientific or cultural framework just confused me more.
Now I am outside of that academic framework I feel I can be more honest to myself. I wanted to draw the pumpkin because it was epic, the funky protrusions, the strange tumour like lumps were bizarre. The colours were vibrant and I found interesting colour combinations when manipulating it all digitally. The final image was a mixture of strange and beautiful, displayed like a specimen on a table, grow is obviously organic, but could be anything; plant, cellular, anatomical. I imagined a fridge of hair tinted by the colours of the growth and this became a kind of mushroomy mycelium sprouting from it. By re-painting this image digitally I've been able to make it feel more realistic and take advantage of a full colour spectrum and textures that I was unable to draw in colour pencil.
Perhaps I am asking people to see nature through my imagination. My vision of the natural world is a paradox. Nature as being at the same time somewhat mundane and understood and completely bizarre and outrageous. I want people to acknowledge in my artwork the existence of fantasy and the extraordinary in the ordinary sources I exploit and manipulate.
