Run Mickey!
Acrylic Paint on Canvas
20 cm x 16 cm
August 28, 2017
Acrylic Paint on Canvas
20 cm x 16 cm
August 28, 2017
Exhibition Text: The meaning of this work was to bring awareness to animal abuse, specifically the abuse mice and rats go through on an everyday basis in U.S. labs. More than 100 million mice and rats are killed in U.S. laboratories every year. . When I saw Lichtenstein's painting, I realized how ironic it would be to have Mickey Mouse be a lab rat. I drew Mickey Mouse in the Disney Channel version (2013-2017) to convey that mice and rats in U.S. laboratories is still a modern day issue. Killing a well-loved children's character can certainly bring much more awareness to animal abuse in the U.S.
PLANNING
Artist Inspiration
Roy Lichtenstein. Look Mickey, 1961. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein, Gift of the Artist, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art.
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Andy Warhol. Myths – Mickey Mouse, 1981
Lenox Museum board. 96.5 × 96.5 cm |
Keith Haring. Untitled, 1982.
Ink On Paper. 182.9 cm x 213.4 cm |
For my piece Watch Out Mickey!, I was deeply inspired by Lichtenstein's Look Mickey. In this painting, Lichtenstein was exploring ideas of mechanical reproduction, specifically the printing process, through the fine-art language of painting. His palette was limited to the barest essentials—the three primary colors and white—and he employed hand-painted dots, the standard form for denoting tonality in comics, sparingly on Mickey's face and in Donald's eyes. Yet his style was still in transition. I wanted to create a painting to bring awareness to animal abuse, specifically for mice and rats in science labs. When I saw Lichtenstein's painting, I realized how ironic it would be to have Mickey Mouse be a lab rat. I loved his style too so I got set to work. What intrigued me the most about Look Mickey was that instead of painting an original image, Lichtenstein appropriated a scene from a Disney children’s book complete with bubble text as a visual joke. Liechtenstein subtly altered the original image to turn it into a more unified image by omitting background figures, rotating the point of view by 90 degrees, organizing the colors into bands of yellow and blue, and simplifying the characters’ features. Stylistically, Lichtenstein imitated printed media. He established this by using heavy black outlines, primary colors, and, in Donald’s eyes and Mickey’s face, the ink dots of the Ben day printing process then used to produce inexpensive comic books and magazines.
Warhol, on the other hand, was obsessed with celebrity, consumer culture, and mechanical (re)production and drew inspiration from both popular culture and everyday subject matter to create works that straddled fine art and mainstream appeal. Using silk-screen printmaking to achieve his characteristic hard edges and flat areas of color, he also experimented with other art forms including performance art, film-making and video installations. Keith Haring was another one of my artist inspiration. Haring's deceptively simple imagery and text provided poignant and cutting cultural commentary on issues including AIDS, drug addiction, illicit love, and apartheid. As both an artist and an activist he established that depicting serious issues could be fun or at least lively when communicated through highly cartoony images and fresh and vivid choices of colors.Haring's commitment to clean lines and simple images gave new life to figuration in painting, in contrast to the more abstract and conceptual approaches of the previous generation, and the more expressionistic gestural painting of his contemporaries.Haring provided proof of the possibilities of using public sites that were not usually dedicated to art to share artistic and political messages to multiple audiences. He lent street art credibility and legitimacy and took it into fine art galleries and museums, inspiring a new generation of street-to-gallery artists.
Warhol, on the other hand, was obsessed with celebrity, consumer culture, and mechanical (re)production and drew inspiration from both popular culture and everyday subject matter to create works that straddled fine art and mainstream appeal. Using silk-screen printmaking to achieve his characteristic hard edges and flat areas of color, he also experimented with other art forms including performance art, film-making and video installations. Keith Haring was another one of my artist inspiration. Haring's deceptively simple imagery and text provided poignant and cutting cultural commentary on issues including AIDS, drug addiction, illicit love, and apartheid. As both an artist and an activist he established that depicting serious issues could be fun or at least lively when communicated through highly cartoony images and fresh and vivid choices of colors.Haring's commitment to clean lines and simple images gave new life to figuration in painting, in contrast to the more abstract and conceptual approaches of the previous generation, and the more expressionistic gestural painting of his contemporaries.Haring provided proof of the possibilities of using public sites that were not usually dedicated to art to share artistic and political messages to multiple audiences. He lent street art credibility and legitimacy and took it into fine art galleries and museums, inspiring a new generation of street-to-gallery artists.
Planning Sketches
Experimentations
PROCESS
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For this painting, I reused an unfinished painting canvas I had bought over the summer at Michael's. Since it was already prepped with Gesso, all I had to do was paint on the background and make sure the old painting didn't show through. For some reason, in the pictures shown to the left, the old painting shows a bit. I can assure you that in the finished piece, it's barely visible unless you hold up to direct sunlight. I chose to paint a warm colored gradient as the background because such bright colors typically represent highness on drugs, which correlated with my meaning. Drugs are used on lab rats that can severely injure them or even kill them. I sketched my desired image on the canvas in pencil first, in case I didn't like the final image. I then filled in the pencil outline with acrylic paint. My strategy for this painting was to apply the base colors first and then add on layers. There were times were I had to repaint some areas because my brushwork would appear sloppy. When I finished my piece, it appeared to be not as colorful as I thought it would be. Using Haring's techniques, I used lines to provide movement to my painting, but in bright colors to give it that extra pop it was missing.
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REFLECTION
Meaning
The meaning of this work was to bring awareness to animal abuse, specifically the abuse mice and rats go through on an everyday basis in U.S. labs. More than 100 million mice and rats are killed in U.S. laboratories every year. The abuse ranges from toxicology tests, meaning they are slowly poisoned to death, to psychological experiments, were fear and anxiety is induced. Such abuses can lead to depression and a sense of helplessness in mice and rats. Mice and rats are also deliberately electrocuted in pain studies, mutilated in experimental surgeries, and have everything from cocaine to methamphetamine pumped into their bodies. They are given cancerous tumors and are injected with human cells in genetic-manipulation experiments. PETA’s investigations inside the laboratories of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Utah revealed that mice and rats were given enormous tumors and painful, deadly illnesses. Rats had holes drilled into their skulls for invasive brain experiments. The Jackson Laboratory deliberately breeds mice to be genetically predisposed to have debilitating ailments—including cancerous tumors, obesity, paralysis, a depressed immune system, and high levels of anxiety and depression. Each year, the Jackson Laboratory sells millions of mice to laboratories around the world and experiments on an additional million mice in its own laboratories, force-feeding them large quantities of test chemicals; forcing them to swim in a pool of opaque water, in which they must find a hidden platform to avoid drowning; and placing them on hot plates, heated to 131 degrees F, to see how long it takes for them to respond to the scorching heat of the plate in pain-reflex tests.
I initially chose to paint the original Mickey Mouse design, much like Roy Lichtenstein did, but decided against it. I drew Mickey Mouse in the Disney Channel version (2013-2017) to convey that mice and rats in U.S. laboratories is still a modern day issue. Killing a well-loved children's character can certainly bring much more awareness to animal abuse in the U.S.
I initially chose to paint the original Mickey Mouse design, much like Roy Lichtenstein did, but decided against it. I drew Mickey Mouse in the Disney Channel version (2013-2017) to convey that mice and rats in U.S. laboratories is still a modern day issue. Killing a well-loved children's character can certainly bring much more awareness to animal abuse in the U.S.
Compare & Contrast
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Differences: |
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ACT RESPONSES
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
My inspiration heavily influenced my artwork. Roy Lichtenstein's Look Mickey was what gave me the idea to make Mickey Mouse the subject of my piece.I used Mickey Mouse as the subject of my painting, much like Lichtenstein did. I initially had decided to paint the original Mickey Mouse design, much like Roy Lichtenstein did, but decided against it. I drew Mickey Mouse in the Disney Channel version (2013-2017) to convey that mice and rats in U.S. laboratories is still a modern day issue. Another change I decided to do was that rather than limiting myself to Lichtenstein's color palette, I used a multitude of colors.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The overall approach by the author from my research was professional and unbiased. The author wrote with the seldom purpose to provide a brief analysis of Roy Lichtenstein's Look Mickey. However, the authors for the PETA article regarding animal abuse, wrote to persuade its audience to help put an end to the abuse.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I learned that more than 100 million mice and rats are killed in U.S. laboratories every year. The abuse ranges from toxicology tests, meaning they are slowly poisoned to death, to psychological experiments, were fear and anxiety is induced. Such abuses can lead to depression and a sense of helplessness in mice and rats. Mice and rats are also deliberately electrocuted in pain studies, mutilated in experimental surgeries, and have everything from cocaine to methamphetamine pumped into their bodies. They are given cancerous tumors and are injected with human cells in genetic-manipulation experiments. These statistics were what lead me to believe that mice and rats in laboratories is still an ongoing issue that needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea around my inspirational research was to bring awareness to animal abuse, specifically the abuse mice and rats go through on an everyday basis in U.S. labs.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I inferred through my research that Roy Lichtenstein's artwork defined the premise of pop art through parody.