Trip to Paris

Over Easter I took a weekend away to go to Paris, and considering the short time we were there for, we got to see a hell of a lot! So me and my bud Marco planned out the trip and some spots to check out to help us both with our projects, and overall get inspired! Once we got there we grabbed some awesome French food and set off for the Eiffel Tower...which sounded like a plan!

Untitled from Dan's tests on Vimeo.

As we took a lift down from the Eiffel Tower i recorded all the amazing structures as they moved through the frame. The complexity of the frame work was inspiring for my exploration into the industrial scene and how i may go about designing it. What makes this video work well is this difference of speeds as the structures travel down the frame. The idea of using depth in my piece and capturing different speeds from close objects and distant objects is an appealing direction.

Also we checked out some Cathedrals and the Notre Dame, which was a great place to sit and sketch and gather some ideas for my project - loved the detail and scale of the structures. Really helped me to get my head around the gothic appearance of the structures, and is an interesting direction to consider for the design of my industrial scenes.

Second day we went to the Luve, which was a chance to see some iconic art pieces. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before - went trigger happy with my camera a bit, but came out completely inspired and amazed by it all. One of my big inspirations is life drawing, so I think the sculpture rooms are what really rocked me back the most and made me consider the understanding and approach different artists have on the human body. Part of my research is focused on pose and how this communicates emotion or thought, and to be surrounded by this diverse collection of sculptures, each expressing a message through the pose/gesture/position/expressions, was hugely inspiring.








Last day we went to Montmartre to see the Salvador Dali exhibition 'Espace Dali.' Got to be said I was in my happy place, but before I go making this blog post even longer ill go straight on to what this made me think about my project!

As I walked around the exhibition I began to realize that every wall was organized into a theme,color and medium. Something i didn't know about Dali is that he actually made collections of paintings/sketches that told a story in a sequence, and was common to see using the same color palette for each one. For example he told the story of Romeo And Juliet and Alice In Wonderland in a collection of around 12 paintings. It really made each collection, as a whole, look pleasing to look at as a body of work. For example this collection 'Neuf Paysages' uses the same color palette of yellow, white and red.


Another example - 'Le Chateau dOtrante,' this time black and white and have a wire like sketched appearance.

This made me reflect on the approach I am taking visually with my piece, and how I can go about exhibiting it to suit that aesthetic. So now I'm thinking about how I can take my idea of using black and white, positive / negative space and pushing this visual forward in my show to express and compliment this approach.

And just for fun here's a snippet from the exhibition, one of Dali's video pieces -