Here is a mail i recently received in my mailbox. I would like to share with you theses questions and my answers as you may be interrested to see what happens behind the scene.
Hey pierre, i am doing an art essay and i would like if you could please help me by answering a few questions on one of your portrait drawings
- How was your artwork made/constructed? (materials, techniques and processes)- What is the mood of the artwork?These few answers I have no idea either, if you could answer these too or give me a couple of hints that would be great.- What idea/theme do you think the artist is exploring?- What influences may have affected the artists? (political, social, historical, religious, cultural)Thankyou so muchsharnice poulson
The artwork construction
1 – Get the picture
2 – Creation of the mask
3 – The creation process
The creation process start first with browsing the internet to get written notes about the personnality, this is what i want to tell to thoses who look at the portrait. I do a translation ofrom words to pictures and stories to make the picture understandable to anyone, have a great sense of detail if needed (jimi plays a fender stratocaster, so the picture has the shape of a stratocaster ), i could put the accent on some events that change the life of the personnality, put the events that made them famous, etc…
- What idea/theme do you think the artist is exploring?
Jimi Hendrix is kwnown as the master of the guitar electric, what did he do exactly to achieve this rank, why do every guitar player claim he is the one who inspire them.
When reading and agregating the life of jimi hendrix, the first thing coming to me was the link between him and his guitar, it’s not just music it’s a passion like if this guitar was his muse.
I’ve drawn jimi playing in the toilet, to say that all the time he had during the day was dedicated to play his guitar. This guitar which got a special story as it was a right handed guitar with reversed chords to be played by a left handed player (the artist adapt the instrument to the way he his playing, not the opposite as it’s done in the classical way to play music). The portrait his also a presentation of a self taught musician, driven by passion, always creating strange soundss and pushing the guitar science forward. (he did control the larsen effect and made this imitation of falling bomb during the woodstock festival).
Jimi was a sound explorator, not prepared for success, ready to live his life in the fast lane, he represent an musician icon without any preconception of what to do and not to do. He was playing music, prefering to break his leg (simulation?) during a parachute drop and not to go to war.
- What influences may have affected the artists? (political, social, historical, religious, cultural)
Jimi was from a poor background, without strong family life, used to cope things by himself as most of the selftaught people do.
He had a very bad nature, specially when he was playing guitar in a band : impossible to stop in his solo, very few concern about the band mates, almost impossible to bring a correct sound to the audience during a concert as the sound was too much ditorded and saturated, etc…. When playing, he was on an other planet especially when he was using drugs.
His relation to money did affect him very much, always looking for it when young, he did stole cars as well, all this money coming, bringing him to a stage where nobody could tell him anything or change destructive behaviour. (the death his strolling inside the picture, between mushrooms pills and booze bootles).
Dying at the age of 27 made him enter the club of the 27′, maybe one of the most famous to found this club. Live your life with intensity excess and passion.
