WHISPER Gallery experiment

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In januari the amazing @mrblinddraw (who made me this awesome portrait) launched the WHISPER Gallery art experiment.

In short:

A chain of artistic creations that are each initiated by a seed idea/art piece (one piece of artwork inspires the next piece, and so on). Each week we will have a featured artist who will create a piece that is inspired by the piece from the week before.
The beauty of this trail is seeing this creative interpretation and reinvention take place on a high level.

I was immediately intrigued, how would I create if I was somehow influenced by another artist? What would all the artists experience, create, get inspired by? Would they change their process and artworks or even styles much if they were influenced by other artists? Or would they be able to create something that seamlessly fit back into their portfolios even though they felt the whispers of a fellow artist breathe in their necks?

Gallery I

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The first Gallery was filled with a lot of amazing artists that Steemit holds: it started with @upheaver and ended with @dunsky. The full trail of artworks can be admired in the WHISPER Gallery II overview post. I was extremely impressed by the addition of @natureofbeing because her medium requires a LOT of planning and a tiny miscalculation might have huge consequences. I loved the artwork of @juliakponsford, and am extremely saddened by the fact I can't really frame a GIF in my living room. Then I discovered the talented @voronenka through the gallery, and have to mention @yusaymon because he is such an amazing artist overall!

Basically, what I want to say is: follow @mrblinddraw and the WHISPER's project, because it really is a great opportunity to get to know a lot of amazing artists working hard on this platform! :-)

Start of WHISPER Gallery II

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The start of WHISPER Gallery II was last week, and the first artist is already someone I love to follow, because @manouche has an eye for something I love: stark-contrast black and white geometric everything! Like, seriously, I would love to create stuff like this. I feel like we might get along pretty well if we were to meet someday - and I was waiting eagerly for her contribution to WHISPER Gallery II. And here it is!

She re-created an older art piece she didn't have a good scan of, but with different tools, resulting in a very different art-piece with a lot of overlapping objects and themes:

[The original artwork.]

[The re-created artwork.]

Now, I love elements of both artworks for different reasons. I'm in awe with black and white artworks, always, it's just extremely satisfying to look at the starkest contrast available in the world, and a true black and white makes for a better appreciation of the shapes and composition of an artwork. But the WHISPER edition of her 'Fête de la Musique' has the same high contrasts PLUS some more fine lines and pastel colours to add a bit more emotion and movement to the overall piece which suits the subject very well.

My first associations

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Now, since this is the 'seed' of my own addition to the WHISPER Gallery II, I immediately went through my mental archives to search for photographs I already made or elements I should create this week. I really want to take over some of the graphic and maybe even compositional elements of the piece of @manouche, of course adding my own twist. I might exaggerate parts and let go of others. But since I feel @manouche and I have an overlapping interest for stark contrasts and geometry I'm going to focus on that a lot in my artwork.

ELEMENT 1: Photographs from my archives:

I had four images in my mind that I could visually connect to @manouche's artwork. Funnily enough they are from my very early years as a photographer (except the one with the flying birds) when I was doing a lot of abstract, geometric and architectureal photography, focused on minimalism and abstractions. I like this fact overlaps with @manouche's development from stark and abstract black and whites towards experiments with softer water colours.

ELEMENT 2: Suminagashi

Now, most people know me as a photographer, but I've recently started experimenting with other mediums, like ink on paper, marbling, book binding, etcetera. I created these Suminagashi pieces in a workshop about Marbling, which I found fun, but when I saw my teacher doing a Suminagashi just as a fun 'in-between' experiment I was hooked and left all my marbling experiments behind to create as many of these as possible.

[Picture of one of the Suminagashi's I made, upped the contrast digitally. I really need to scan this for a better effect. Creating a Suminagashi is something you should do mindfully and I believe with practice these could come out better than they ever would during a workshop. For example, this 'wrinkles' in the lines are mostly created due to a person bumping against the table I was working on ;-) I don't mind a few happy accidents while creating art, but I'm curious to see what I would create in a zen state of mind.]

ELEMENT 3: The big question mark

I feel I need an extra element with which I can connect all the pieces, but I'll think about that the coming days. I might open some paint tubes, I might create some digital shapes, I might... Go out and shoot that last picture that makes sense. We'll see.

I'm excited to start creating the artwork, and hope in the meanwhile you'll start following the WHISPER Gallery project and support and cheer on all the artists that will participate in the coming weeks!