Untitled - Nazli Uzgur

Work:

I’ve chosen a sculpture by Alexander Calder. The name is “Untitled” and it is currently in the Carnegie Museum of Art. It was the first work that really got my attention as I was walking around the paintings. When thinking about art, I always think of paintings but actually I’ve realized that especially in abstract art, I like sculptures more since it has freedom in three dimensions whereas in paintings there is only two. This work “Untitled” isn’t anything flashy, it’s on the ceiling and dark colored but that made it even more interesting for me since with abstract art, it always feels like the art tries to draw attention to itself and this sculpture wasn’t like that. It was not put at a place eye level like most sculptures and it didn’t have flashy colors. I found it more beautiful like this. 

Experience and Response:

The sculpture was hanged up in the ceiling. After I found the name and artist of it on the wall, I started looking at it. At first, I couldn’t see any similarity between what I saw and something I could recognize. After watching it for a little while, I realized that the sculpture isn’t stable, it has hinges that lets the parts of the sculpture move. Then I realized that the sculpture looked like leaves. That was very interesting because after realizing it, I couldn’t understand why I didn’t see it in the first place. I decided that it was because the leaves on this sculpture were completely black. After seeing them as leaves, I couldn’t see them as anything else anymore. It is high up, so when looking down from below, I felt as if I was under the shadows of tree leaves on a sunny day, laying on the grass. The sculpture and parts of it were slowly rotating, as if it was affected by some wind. I thought I would feel something darker since the leaves were all black, but I felt calm and relaxed.

Product:

I painted on an application on my iPad. While under the sculpture by Calder, I felt like I was under a tree, seeing the sky between the leaves. It was a very solid image in my mind, so even though it didn’t seem too abstract, I really wanted to do that. I used a special kind of brush to make it so that the leaves are not completely solid drawings, I wanted to be able to show the sky in the leaves too but it didn’t work. The blue of the sky was the background and the leaves and the sun were all done in that special brush. I used a surface pen to draw, and Paint in Windows to add the background blue. Here is the painting I made:

Reflection:

I learned many things. I am more interested in abstract art now after seeing very interesting things in the museum. But on the other hand, I am also more scared since there were very scary projects. I’m not sure if they were meant to be scary, but they scared me. However, I also learned about Alexander Calder, who is one of my favorite artists now. I learned that the more you look at abstract art, the more it makes sense. That’s why, after seeing it and coming back home, 3 days later, I felt the need to see it again and I went back to the museum to watch it again.

If I could do something differently, I would find a way to replace the white in my painting with blue. I feel my painting wasn’t bad. After coming back home and searching online, I saw that I’m not the only person who saw leaves in this sculpture, so I think I have the correct idea. I’m happy with my product.

Bibliography:

Calder, Alexander. Untitled. 1941. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Carnegie Museum of Art. Web. 05 Oct. 2015.