Minority complex art shenanigans

 The minority complex art movement primarily features artists who celebrate and embrace their culture while providing an updated commentary on our society and the groups it seems to favour. A complex, by definition, is a related group of repressed or partly repressed emotionally significant ideas which cause psychic conflict leading to abnormal mental states or behaviour. A minority group, by definition, is a group of people whose race, religion, ethnicity or other characteristics are fewer in numbers than the main group of those classifications. It doesn’t necessarily mean there are less people with these characteristics, but it does mean that they are treated like outsiders (women have a slightly larger population than men but are still a minority). Pretty much, anyone who isn’t a heterosexual, cisgender white man is a minority. The movement really took off in the 20th century, as society became more critical of which voices it gave importance to (mostly straight white old men, traditionally). During this centuary, the world saw first and second wave feminism, the gay liberation movement and the civil rights movement. In NZ, we had movements such as the suffragette movement (we were the first country to let women vote, which is pretty embarrassing for the rest of the globe) and the Maori land rights movement (Whina Cooper was one of the spokespeople for this) which protested against the loss of Maori land. There are no specific style choices within this art movement, especially compared to movements such as impressionism, but the subject matter and themes of the artwork is what connects the movement. Often aspects of the artist’s culture are included in their artwork.

Faith Ringgold:

Faith Ringgold is an African American artist, who uses both painting and quilting as her mediums.  Her style is very geometric, both when painting and when quilting. Her painting style features little blending, instead featuring geometric shadow shapes with different shades of the same colour (to create a similar look). The subject matter of her artworks is typically an African American doing something in their daily life, american flags and blood. Her work often criticises either another artist's work (woman looking in a mirror) or society as a whole. She was influenced by cubism and impressionism, especially in her early works. Cubist elements, such as geometric shapes and little blending are used throughout all of her art works, often with bright colours contrasting against darker hues. Her work, especially the quilts, feature stylistic choices influenced by Kuba textiles (a form of textile embroidery which is unique to the democratic republic of Congo.

“Woman looking in a mirror”- Faith Ringgold. (1966) (oil on canvas)

The painting by Ringgold is an updated version of Picasso’s “girl before a mirror” painting. ‘Woman looking in a mirror’ also acts as a criticism of Pablo Picasso’s ‘Girl before a mirror’. Even the name choices suggest that Ringold’s painting has a more active, protagonist role in her painting rather than being represented as a vain object like in Picasso’s painting. Pablo Picasso is well known for culturally appropriating African art work motifs, saying he is ‘Inspired by primitive artwork’. The use of the word ‘primitive’ demonstrates how he sees the African artists as less than himself. Ringold’s painting reclaims the motifs with an African American perspective and reclaims the woman in the painting, having her as an active part of her painting rather than the submissive beauty by Picasso, who is a demonstrator of the male gaze in the art work. 

While style features such as geometric shapes and colour blocking remain as an influence within all of Ringgold’s work, her style looks more like actual people, compared to cubists such as Picasso. Picasso arguably objectifies the subject matter of his paintings (such as his muse and mistress, featured in ‘girl before a mirror’) while Ringgold preserves the human form. This could be a political statement, as during the 60’s (when Woman looking in a mirror was painted) the civil rights movement was a big deal within society, and Riggold herself is an African American woman, who would feel the need to represent people like herself as actual human beings, like a criticism on the treatment of African Americans for the centuries prior. 

Sofia minson:

Sofia Minson is a New Zealand artist who embraces a plethora of cultures within her paintings. She is of multicultural background and has lived in many different countries, being exposed to many different cultures. Her primary medium is oil paint or acrylic and flashe paint on canvas. Her works often depict Maori women as the main focus of the paintings, with elements from other cultures included in a cohesive way. The focus of the paintings are often a high contrast portrait (usually of a powerful Maori woman) who is situated in front of a flat patterned background. 

Sofia Minson’s art captures multicultural ideas, taking the wisdom of the ones who came before us and connecting it with our modern lives. Her art connects cultures (as evident by ‘Rose of the cross’, where she connected ideas of Maori spirituality with traditional European christian art work), making it relevant to everyone who sees it. “We need inspirational symbols to navigate this strange new world. Through my art I explore seeds of truth that are common between traditions seemingly spread far and wide across time and space." This quote helps us to understand that Sofia’s art is portraying messages of wisdom which stays true to anyone, no matter the location or time. From a young age she was interested in different cultures and the similarities between all people.

The paintings typically feature no more than 2 bright colours, along with neutrals such as brown and grey, which create a united feeling within the artwork.

“Sophia”- Sofia Minson (2016) (oil and Flashe on canvas)

This painting features the titular character, Sophia, standing mid frame in a Victorian dress. Sophia is the gnostic goddess of wisdom, and is painted holding a large gold sword which contributed to her powerful presence. She also has a moko kauae and large pounamu earrings, both accessories representing status within Maori culture which reflects Minson’s Aoetearoa culture. The painting encapsulates divine feminine energy in both Maori and European cultures, reflecting Minson’s goal which is to create art that can be related to by anyone, regardless of culture, age or gender. 

The dress is painted with high degrees of contrast between the folds and the highlights, which visually contrasts the very flat but equally ornate background. Sophia holds eye contact with the viewers, signifying her mana. 

Post impressionism

Post Impressionism:

Post impressionism began in the late 19th century as a ‘break free’ compared to the earlier ‘Impressionism’. Impressionism was very popular in the 1870’s and later, characterised by its use of small, visible brush strokes, open composition and ordinary subject matter. Impressionism gained popularity as cameras were becoming more prevalent, lessening the need for hyper-realistic painting. This allowed more personal style and choice to be communicated within a painting. In the early 1800’s, the camera obscura had become smaller and more portable, which made the ability to take photos anywhere much easier. As a result of this, it was no longer necessary for art to serve the purpose of capturing realistic images, as cameras are much less time consuming. Colour theory, especially the psychology surrounding colours, was being more understood within the 19th century, helping artists to convey further messages within their paintings just by using colours. From here, art movements strayed further from realism and more into more emotional styles, such as impressionism, where the painter can create more symbolic meaning within their paintings with more stylised choices. Impressionism was one of the fathering movements for capturing a feeling rather than a realistic image. This was made popular by French painters such as Claude Monet. Post Impressionism took the texture and relative style of Impressionism but focused on more symbolic, stylized and emotional topics, compared to landscapes and realistic portrayals. Painters such as Paul Cezanne (known as the father of post impressionism) and Vincent Van Gogh are best known for post Impressionism.

Paul Cezanne: Cezanne, popularly known as the father of post impressionism, made work which transitioned the art world from late 19th century impressionism to 20th century cubism.

Methods: Paul cezanne uses impasto oil paint in his earlier works, categorised by his thick brush strokes. His early work has even been described as ‘violent in nature’ because of the hasty brush work. He started off working from his imagination, rather than a reference, until he befriended Pissarro Cézanne and they started painting outside. As this change occurred, his style became more structures and brighter in colour. Impasto oil painting involves layering thick oil paint on a surface (eg. canvas) to create texture. The brush strokes are often large and loose, vaguely creating the shapes within the painting. The mind of the viewer fills in the rest of the detail. Understand the nature of the brush work - faceted, directional but not logical to the illusion of the form, dark outlines and blank canvas often visible.

From my impasto experiment, following “three pears”, I have come to the conclusion that cezanne must have used a dark base colour (organic black) and then painted over it with thick lighter colours, leaving edges to peak out as an outline. The brush strokes in the background go in different directions within different sections, while the brush strokes within the pears is mostly parallel to the sides of the paper (straight ish lines). This makes the background seem more organic while the pears seem more artificial with their very structured brush strokes.

Evelyn Page: Page is a post impressionist artist from New Zealand, who was active during the early to mid 20th century.  Page maily features still lifes, portraits, landscapes and nudes as her references. Her paintings are bright coloured, featuring plenty of thick white highlights, crowded frames and every day scenes. Her compositions are busy and often have dark shadows which juxtapose with the bright highlights of the foreground.  Her earlier work featured plenty of stylistic and subject influence from her teacher Cecil F Kelly, who taught still life and landscape paintings. His paintings fall under a gentle impressionism style, still relatively realistic with thick brush strokes and small amounts of impasto. The highlights are very bright and the shadows within most of his paintings aren’t overly harsh, creating a light and fresh feeling colour scheme. It is clear that the colour scheme stayed within Evelyn Page’s later works. Her later works feature influence from Sydney Thomas, a painter who lived in France for 12 years before meeting Evelyn. Thomas’s work features more post impressionism and abstract style features compared with Kelly, and it is clear that the thick paint application, blended highlights and open compositions, which are very heavy influences for Evelyn’s paintings, especially “Luncheon under ash” and “Oriental bay”. 

In my impasto experiment of “summer morn”, I came to the conclusion that Page used the brush strokes when painting the water to convey slightly wavey water. These strokes feature different shades of blue, plus other colours as reflection. Plenty of thick, white highlights were used in the original painting, which I tried to emulate. She also painted over part of the vines with blue to make the vines thinner.