How do artists explore poverty through their work?

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1 How do artists explore poverty through their work? Art exists for the human species. I think that all of the people who love art you should burn with the obligation to save the world - Shinichi Suzuki (SOLGERD, 2011) Poverty has been a very pertinent issue throughout history, and still remains to be a huge problem in the modern day, with at least 80% of humanity living on less than $10 a day (CHEN, 2008). Therefore, it has become the subject matter for many artists who have been inspired to capture the despair and restriction that ensues, whether to tell their own story or inspire others to make a difference. Many of these artists have had to endure crippling poverty themselves, with the starving artist, a term derived from the Romantic period (PHOTOGRAPHY THE VENTUE, 2013), introducing the stereotype of impoverished artist struggling to survive. This figure has been the reality throughout much of history; fine art painters in particular are notorious for leading poverty-stricken lives, spending the little money they have on resources for their passion. However, this makes their accomplishments all the more astonishing, as their struggle, often reflected in their art, still haunts and intrigues an audience to this day. I began my project looking at culture, but after exploring my different routes, I settled on making poverty the focus of my work. This is because I had recently visited Nepal, a deprived third world country, which meant I had a wide variety of primary sources that would be relevant. I also thought that comparing my photographs to the lack of absolute poverty in developed nations, such as the UK and Holland, would make for a final piece with a strong social comment. Therefore, for my line of enquiry, I intend to explore how the subject of poverty can be represented to evoke empathy by focusing particularly on three entirely different artists with very diverse techniques Simon Prades, Philip Barlow and Michal Cole. I intend to assess the effectiveness of each, along with their messages, to see whether very different approaches can arouse the same emotions in a viewer. The artists have similarities insofar as they all use human figures or parts of the human anatomy as subjects in their work. However, it is the differences between the outcomes, and the different ways in which they have explored the relevant topic of poverty, as well as the impact of their work, which will be my main focus. Simon Prades is a German illustrator who mainly works in mediums such as ink, pencil and aquarelle, without ignoring the computer as a tool to refine his work. His pieces can be distinguished by the intricate detailing, and his common topic of demonstrating a social awareness (FEATHER OF ME, 2013) to his audience. This makes his work, especially those pieces in his collection Chaos and Order, very relevant to my enquiry, as his works focus on social awareness, in which poverty plays a major role, and therefore his pieces will provide me with a valuable insight into how social messages can be portrayed. For this collection, he has drawn directly onto his paper with ink, without doing any preliminary sketches. This choice of technique allows him create intricate detailing to refine his pieces. Prades considers each of his pieces carefully, collecting pictures from journals or newspapers, researching the subject until he has a specific idea in mind. He states that, [he is] not interested in producing nice pictures. It would feel ignorant regarding all the mess that s happening around us. (FEATHER OF ME, 2013) He believes an artist has a responsibility to tackle with these issues through drawings or by creating images. Prades means to shock people into action, by combining images of misery and distress to create one, single nightmarish scene.

2 Africa Africa uses shocking images that were compiled using daily newspapers, which were then arranged to inspire an ink drawing. Prades has fitted the images into the continent Africa. The imagery, such as the shanty towns as well as the quality of the people s clothing, is the first hint at poverty. That, combined with the fact that Africa is a developing part of the world, known for its poorer standard of living, gives the overall sense of poverty. There are many different subjects and layers in this image, from the large, people s faces in the foreground, to the sketches of a shanty town that stretches back far into the distance, giving it the appearance of a collage. Black, white and browns are used to add tonality, although the colour palette is very restricted. This lack of brightness suggests a lack of hope and joy in the people presented in the piece. The brown and black tones overwhelm the image, making those sparse areas of total white a rarity. This draws the eye to these areas immediately, and as the two, largest people have a substantial amount of white on their faces, it makes Africa - Prades them the focal point of the piece. This helps convey the hardship and misery the people are experiencing, because it highlights the poignant expressions on their faces. Tonality is expressed through using harsh lines to hatch away at certain areas, which only adds to the feeling of poverty. Although I did not use Prades technique to influence my work, I did take his idea of using a composition of many images of people experiencing poverty. This can be seen in many of my compositions including Image One. The primary sources I used to draw the people from were all taken in different locations. I then compiled them and arranged them, changing their size, to create the most successful composition. Together, the white silhouettes create a circle, symbolising the vicious circle of poverty. The only colour is in the single girl I painted using watercolours, whose contrasting brightness draws the focus. However, the drips that leak out of her form are reminiscent of tears, showing the distress being stuck in a life of poverty can induce. Cole, is a London based, multi-disciplined artist, creating pieces ranging from photography to paintings, and video to collage. However, one similarity emanates throughout her work the theme. She engages images of death, violence and beauty, using subjects from Image One throughout her life: memories, fragments of events and reoccurring sensations. Her artwork provides a reflection on life, loss, destiny and change - all prevalent emotions in human life which she reflects successfully in her pieces. This expression of emotion makes her work relevant to my topic, and the

3 collection in which she explores poverty, named cut money, are particularly pertinent, and are therefore the pieces I shall select to analyse in my enquiry. The making of Cole s recent collection, cut money, took place between , and was inspired by the global economic recession. The work deals with notions of life and money and the fact that one dominates the other. She uses genuine bank notes, ranging from 5-50, and cuts them into shapes before mounting them onto card or wood. I started cutting money after the global economic breakdown in 2008, when everything looked so unstable and bleak Relationships around us began to fall apart that made me start thinking about relationships, power and money and the interaction between them. Cole. (NICOLA ANTHONY, 2012) Cole treats money just as she would any other material, stating that, after all, it s a piece of paper we as a society decided to attach significance to. (NICOLA ANTHONY, 2012) Working with real bank notes allows Cole s work to be unique, as well as allowing its onlookers to appreciate its beautiful lithography, its colour combination and its composition. However, more significantly, it allows the powerful symbolism of using money as a medium to take effect. There is a global significance to the value of money, as it has the ability to concrete alliances, influence life and death as well as happiness and relationships; it can determine a person s life. Cole continues, It s a fantastic material to work with, it has a bit of a wax coating feel to it, and while cutting through you sometimes go through the sliver string and stamps, it manipulates very well, and aesthetically it is very beautiful. (NICOLA ANTHONY, 2012) However, there is a restriction to using genuine bank notes, as its scale means all her pieces are very small. This also creates a challenge for cutting the notes into their desired shape, as although it is difficult, the silhouettes must be accurate. $100 To create her piece $100, Cole has used one single one hundred dollar bill, using her work as a medium to once again depict the issues related to money to do with greed, power and control. Her choice of media already restricts her colour palette, but her decision to use a single note, and more specifically a monochromatic note, she limits her colours to an even greater extent. If she had used another note, for example a colourful rupee, her work would have been brighter and more striking. Therefore the choice to use a dollar bill must have been a conscious one, as she will have believed the symbolism of the dollar was more significant than the decision to make her work bolder. This is because the dollar bill is the currency of the USA, a strongly capitalist country. Some believe capitalism results in greed and a poor lifestyle. Financial stress is brought upon people by the profit motive of capitalism, which offers little incentive to feed hungry children or to treat the sick, as demonstrated by the communist, Karl Marx who states that, Capital is dead labour, which, vampire-like, lives only by $100 - Cole sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. (MARX, 1867). He refers to money and commodities as being vampire-like, suggesting, as growing evidence does, that the financial stress leads to health problems and shorter lives. (ALTERNET, 2013) Cole demonstrates these affects by incorporating a skull into the composition of the piece, which represents death, relating to the shorter lives, which many claim to be a result of the stresses of capitalism, and the ignorance towards those who are suffering. The combination of the baby with the skulls juxtaposes the innocence and greed, showing how one is consuming the other,

4 leading inexperienced people into a world which they are not prepared for. The plain composition and the overall bleakness of the piece, as a result of the lack of colour in both the money and the black background, shows the oppressive future Cole predicts is stretching out in front of the American people. I took inspiration from Cole s piece to create my own interpretation of her work. This included using a different subject matter I chose to use the silhouette of a small girl I photographed. I also chose to change the currency to Nepalese Rupees, as the girl is Nepali. I did this to relate my piece to the abject poverty many people in Nepal are suffering under, including the child in the picture, as she became an orphan after her parents couldn t afford transport to a hospital after falling ill. However, I did keep the background black, as I left this contrasted well with the orange and red in the note, making the silhouette stand out. The outcome of this can be seen to the left ( Image Two ). I then pushed the idea further to add in more silhouettes. Not only did I change it in this way, but I used white paper to cut the silhouettes from instead Image Two of paper. Then, rather than a plain black background, I dripped bright, coloured paint down the front of the piece. However, although the outcome is effective due to the contrast between the white and the colours as well as the more interesting composition, I do not feel this piece ( Image Three ) is as successful as Image Two as by not using the money it loses a lot of its symbolism. The white represents the emptiness of the lives of those in poverty, and the circular arrangement of the silhouettes shows the cyclical nature of that poverty. However, not using money makes the fact that the piece is dealing with the issues related to wealth more implicit, which is a negative, as it is the shocking impact of the piece which has the ability to shock people into action. My final artist, Philip Barlow, who works in the tradition of landscape painting, creates photorealistic, abstracted oil paintings that give the illusion of blurred, out-of-focus photographs. The landscapes he paints are often figurative and full of city life, evoking both a familiarity through his choice of subject, and unfamiliarity, through the ethereal outcome of his work. Through blurring his paintings, Barlow leaves much to the imagination, hinting at forms and shapes and using the play of light and shadow to explore A landscape less ordinary; where the line between the physical and the spiritual realm has seemingly been removed. (PHILIP BARLOW, 2013) Barlow notes, The figures in the landscape serve as carriers and reflectors of the light that falls upon them. Bathed in the luminosity, it is my hope that they would become more beautiful. To me, light is the ultimate subject because it embodies the pinnacle of all reality. (PHILIP BARLOW, 2013) However, these Image Three

5 scenarios are not intended to be of a surreal nature. Instead, they are intended to seem curiously familiar and convincingly real. They are relevant to my investigation into how poverty is represented in terms of emotive imagery as Barlow approaches this issue from an entirely new position. Instead of showing a deprived area of the world, he instead paints the bright lights of a booming city. However, often a single figure will stand alone before the lights, not quite part of the successes shown in the background. This is a different way of viewing poverty, as Barlow is showing the development gap between people within a city, not just between countries. Anticipate Anticipate - Barlow Barlow s piece, Anticipate, features a single, solitary man standing alone to the right hand side of the piece. Behind him, the background glitters with the lights of the city. These bright, fluorescent colours contrast with the plainness of his appearance. This, and the circle of light by his feet, literally puts the spotlight on him, making him the focus of this piece. Together, this creates the feeling of isolation. He is surrounded by the bright lights of success, which leads the viewer to believe he is not part of this, and feels isolated from the wealth of the world around him. The bright lights surrounding him are predominantly orange, which is known to symbolise passion, energy, determination and success which portrays the accomplishments of the city and the people within it. There are also gold tones within the lights, which evokes the feeling of prestige and wealth. This is a different way to look at poverty, as Barlow has but the two disparities together in one painting. The title of the piece, Anticipate, refers to the man s anticipation towards being a part of the city and gaining all of the amenities and positives a successful life in the city entails. However, the out of focus finish to the painting suggests that this may be just a dream to the man, and that reality is not so promising. Crossing The second piece of Barlow s work that I have chosen to include is entitled, Crossing. Although this could literally refer to the zebra crossing the people are using in his painting, it also refers to the crossing from the developing world into the developed one. Therefore, the painting depicts what can happen if a country manages to overcome poverty and becomes wealthy and successful. Crossing - Barlow

6 The varied and bright colour palette helps to depict this prosperity. In the foreground, the focus of the painting is a young woman holding what appears to be shopping bags, and behind her more people make their way through the city. This creates a bustling, lively atmosphere in the painting, which also aids the picture s message. The careful, realistic tones Barlow has used to create the image helps it to look realistic, but the out of focus method he has used to create it makes the scene look like something from a dream. This would be the fantasy of someone who can not experience this prosperity because they are below the poverty line. I took inspiration from Barlow s work and chose to create my own versions of his work. To begin with, this meant using one of my own images to reproduce his style. However, I chose to use chalk pastel to create the out of focus effect, as I found this made the blending of the colours very easy, while still being bright and effective. The outcome for this experiment can be seen under Image Four. However, I found that the pastel rubbed off very easily and it was hard to retain the brightness for long. Therefore, I started experimenting with photography. Firstly, I chose to take an image and then Photoshop it, using effects to make it look out of focus (see Image Five ). I then decided to push this idea of using photography further, as I felt it still held a lot of potential, and chose to take some long exposure images of Amsterdam at night. This was perfect, as the multitude of different bright lights creates beautiful patterns (see Image Six). Therefore I felt this experiment was the most successful as it retained the brightness of the nights while producing a unique outcome that was still relevant to my theme of poverty, as it shows the success a city can achieve if it can cross the poverty line. I combined this technique with my interpretation Michal Cole s work, as I found her pieces to be very influential, and I felt my first interpretation including the cut money was successful. I decided to try and integrate these two styles together. As I felt that the long exposure photographs have been my most successful interpretation of Philip Barlow s work, I chose to experiment with cut out money Image Four Image Five Image Six

7 silhouettes of people I had photographed in Nepal and use them in the foreground of my photographs. I experimented with many different country s currencies and experimented with compositions and colour combinations. However, I feel the image to the left ( Image Seven ) was the most successful. This is because I feel I have taken both the artist s styles and used them to influence my thought process to create my own, unique pieces. The work I have produced deals with the issues of living, Image Seven when life is dominated by money. I have Image Seven used a range of different notes from different countries to represent that this is a global issue it is not simply a local problem. However, poverty is much more of an issue in developing countries where much of the population is stuck in a spiral of decline and is unable to escape from a life of poverty. Alternatively, in developing countries very few live life in abject poverty, only relative poverty, and still have the basic necessities of life. The contrast between the bright lights of the background and the silhouettes cut from the money shows the disparity between the two worlds. The notes are of people I photographed in Nepal a third world country and one of the world s poorest, with around forty per cent living in abject poverty (NEPALI JIWAN, 2013). They are placed on top of the long exposure photographs I took in Amsterdam, which is in a developed, rich nation, which is depicted by the bright lights made all the more prevalent by the long exposure that makes them elegantly sweep across the photograph. They show the vibrancy of the city and its economic success and wealth. From my investigation into my line of enquiry, I have discovered how artists approach the theme of poverty from a range of different angles whether they attack it straight on with a collage of images of suffering, like Simon Prades, by showing the destruction obsessions with wealth and money can cause like Cole, or by addressing the issue through showing the desires of those in poverty by showing images of wealth, just as Barlow has done. However, although they all approach the topic from very different angles, using entirely different techniques, they all produce similar messages and evoke similar feelings. Prades highlights the issues that others might ignore by choosing the most upsetting photographs from newspapers and collecting them together in one image to create one, powerful piece of art designed to make the onlooker realise the destruction poverty can cause and shock them into proactivity. Cole s work does much the same, by cutting up money into the shapes of skulls she shows the evil money can create within people, and how it creates a consumer capitalist culture that are too obsessed with earning more for themselves that they ignore those is distress. She means to make the public notice these people, and try to convince them that money does not create happiness, and that people should instead invest their time in helping others. Finally, Barlow approaches poverty by including images of wealth. Therefore his pieces could be described as being less shocking. However, although his pieces are not innately controversial, he still highlights the fact that many people in the developing world are not as fortunate as those in developed countries, convincing his audience that more should be done to help restore this balance. These artists all know of the influence they can have over the public, and they have chosen to use their power to highlight the elephant in the room and to evoke feelings of pity and anger in their audience so they will be more likely to take action on the prevalent issue of poverty.

8 My findings can all be summed up in the single quote that Artists are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact. - William S. Burroughs (GOOD READS, 2012)

9 Bibliography ALTERNET (2013) 4 Creeping Ways Capitalism Is Killing Us. [Online] Available from: CHEN, S and RAVALLION, M. (2008) The Developing World Is Poorer Than We Thought, But No Less Successful In The Fight Against Poverty. World Bank. FEATHER OF ME (2013) Simon Prades Social Awareness [Online] Available from: GOOD READS (2012) William S. Burroughs [Online] Available from: artists-to-my-mind-are-the-real-architects-of-change MARX, K. (1867) Capital, Volume One. Moscow, USSR: Progress Publishers. NEPALI JIWAN (2013) Poverty and Wealth, Side by Side. [Online] Available from: NICOLA ANTHONY (2012) Interview The Art of Making Art Out of Money [Online] Available from: PHILIP BARLOW (2013) Philip Barlow Biography. [Online] Available from: PHOTOGRAPHY THE VENTUE (2013) Why the Starving Artist No Longer Exists. [Online] Available from: SOLGERD (2011) Fungeringar [Online] Available from: