Angel Punk

For this project, we had to make a 3D art piece based on the prompt “The Flying Dream”. I struggled with this for a bit before finally settling on a concept I thought fit. I tried to do a juxtaposition kind of thing, and I paired Renaissance angel statues with the culture of Punk Rock. I saw during a critique that a lot of people took the prompt very literally and made things that were flying and from their dreams, as in things they see when they're asleep. This made me nervous, as I had gone to a more conceptual approach, and did a whole take on a societal dream or “the American dream” of being able to be who you want without judgement from others. Because angels are from the bible, (and not only that but the ones in the bible are horrific, and the pretty, elegant, modest ones are typically associated with heavy-level Christianity) I paired it with punk, which is a concept and subculture that stands for things that do not get along with Christianity. This being that my concept of the flying dream was a punk angel (flying) and being able to be whatever you want without backlash from either community(dream).

The name of sid the son of rage and love comes from a few different punk references. Sid, being sid and nancy, Sid was bassist for the sex pistols, and he was with this girl nancy, and a bunch of stuff went down and then he stabbed her in the stomach. Theres a whole movie on it called sid and nancy, so bam sid. The son of rage and love, is reference to the green day song jesus of suburbia, and we all know that green day are punk icons, and i think this project and concept would do billie joe proud.

I used car board for this project, which i think was a good choice, because since its cardboard the pressure for hyper realism especially in the face was off, so i just focused on gluing on the cardboard and then didn't over analyze what I was doing and have it look stiff. I originally did it with clay, but that wasnt working out because it looked very stiff and clunky. I then tried wood craving, but after a few days of that it was apparent to me that that wasnt going to be even close to being done on time. So, I landed on cardboard and i am very happy i did. I have been cleaning out my basement with my dad, because i'm going to move my stuff downstairs and make the basement an art studio for myself, and so we found like 10 TV boxes, stereo boxes,etc that have been down there for 15+ years. Because of this the glue holding it together wasnt sticky anymore and so i was able to strip the carboard for parts very easy. This is how i had so much of the wavey pieces as well as flat pieces that almost look like brown drawing paper but are actually the outside of cardboard. This allowed me to get even more depth and texture in the face, and especially in the hair. I used different techniques of rolling, curling, flattening and bending the cardboard to be used in different places for different lift and texture. I also used safety pins for piercings and struck them to the wings, because during the punk movement especially safety pins were worn everywhere as a symbol of protest against authority and the man. I also thought using them as the piercings would be cool because that way its like a take on rebellion from the other angels, because were is an angel supposed to have access to face studs, and rings, and piercings, so instead he just stabbed holes in his face with safety pins. 

After the construction, I used an airbrush for the bottom black fade, the star on the eye, and the anarchy symbol on the back. I stuck to the red and black colour pops because although uneducated teenagers who don't know their subcultures say its emo, the combo of red and black actually started in the romantics era of punk. The clash did it, green day and billie joe rocked it SO. HARD. in 2004 with american idiot, its not emo just because Gerard way was in a black and red combo thing for one album tour.  But I digress. Black and red felt like a good on the nose symbol of punk for those who know their stuff. 

I really like all the textures an stuff, and the concept and the airbrushing an the outcome. However i think i would change the torso, and i might later on. It looks very unfinished, and thats because it is. I struggled with it and was running out of time, patience, and energy, and so i just put shoulders on and hoped nobody would notice the lack of detail too much. Its part of why i later added the black fade from the bottom, i had hoped it would distract from the lack of detail and draw the eye up towards the face and such because i spent so much time on that part. And i think it worked, but still.

In the end i liked this project a lot, even though it took a lot of time and energy, and i think i want to explore this concept even more in the future.