This is a coursework motivated post, with the aim of describing and analysing three different approaches to depicting figures/beings of my choosing (from a curated set).
The figure is an endlessly interesting subject for art, and as such has been subjected to seemingly endless treatments. As much as we may take an interest in the world around us, such is the condition of our self-obsession that we must seek to experience this world through the lenses and sensory inputs of other beings, even if those beings are merely figments of our imagination. The presence of the figure makes explicit what otherwise is only implicit: our relation to the external world.
For this post I'm interested in the depictions of figures by Antony Gormley, Christoph Niemann, and Robert Weaver.
1. Antony Gormley
Antony Gormley uses the human or humanoid figure as a space to explore themes of interest to him, subjects concerned with space and connectivity, the organisation of matter and the nature of matter itself. Gormley has an impressive body of work where he interrogates his subjects through stunning sculptures that depict composite humanoids from simple geometry.
In his Liners series of sculptures and related the figures are perhaps best described as etch-a-sketch figures in a three-dimensional space with the lines confined to a grid based motion. Assemblages of boxes (rectangular and cuboid) overlap in space, their volumes void and their edges delineated by solid but thin architectural wire. The figures are abstracted, almost symbolic, retaining a box-like quality, but are posed and constructed with such care that they retain a sense of movement and hence of energy. There's something very pleasing about these figures, one recognises the figure but then considers the construction and its relation to the figure. Unlike a purely abstract shape, these figures encourage the mind to infer meaning from them. A similar approach is used in his framers series, although there the direction is perhaps more architectural and the lines never extend beyond the figure as they do in Liners.
With the Big Beamers series (and others), Gormley depicts chunky figures composed of orthogonal blocks, figures composed of space and voids. These are perhaps best described as pixel art figures brought forward into a three-dimensional space and indeed Gormley describes part of the thought process for one such series (Big Blockworks) as involving precisely that. The pixels aren't all of the same size though, there are long blocks and short blocks, and this asymmetry nicely complements the poses of the figures, often forlorn, and carrying with them a sense of weight and instability.
The Cube Works and Polyhedra Works series of sculptures construct figures out of simple geometric solids, here allowed to be rotated with respect to one another and to intersect. In the case of the Cube Works series this brings to mind early 3D computer graphics while the Polyhedra Works retains the distinct qualities of the iron pyrite crystal that is its inspiration.
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| Polyhedra Works series [Source] |
Finally of interest to me is Gormley's Aperture series of sculpture, where he has composed the figures using a bubble foam matrix and then removed the skin, allowing the interstices to reach out into space. A bubble foam matrix is the arrangement that a soap film will take, it is the most efficient way to fill space, the three-dimensional equivalent to the honeycomb structure. Interestingly the exact answer to the bubble foam matrix is not actually known. The Weaire-Phelan structure, an arrangement of two different kinds of polyhedra, is the most efficient known, but is not proven to be the most efficient.
Gormley's sculptures are visually arresting devoid of any context. The sculptures invite us to see and inspect the way the figures are constructed. By keeping the figures simple and blocky, the figure itself is not permitted to rise above its compositional elements, rather both are enmeshed. The architectural techniques and geometric forms cast the figure in those lights: the figure as architecture, the figure as geometry, and we naturally connect the figure to the human body and inevitably to ourselves.
There's a sense of deconstruction to the figures: they are simplified, made of simple forms, as if they are prototypes, and often an openness through the use of gaps and voids in their composition. This provides significant visual interest to the sculptures as compared to solid, smooth, contiguous volumes. In Gormley's earlier work the figures are often more organic, with the geometric composition being subsidiary to the form, and these figures are immediately less engaging than his later works. By blocking in the figures, Gormley turns objects into space and challenges the implicit heirarchy of demarcation.
2. Christoph Niemann
Christoph Niemann is an illustrator and graphic designer who has done a number of covers for the New Yorker. Netflix's design-centric program
Abstract features Niemann in one of its episodes. While Niemann employs a variety of styles in his work, his figures tend to exude a certain playfulness and cleverness. Looking at Niemann's easy-going lines one can easily be deceived into thinking that he produces his illustrations almost on a whim, with a sort of casual ease.
Abstract does well to counter any such perception, revealing that Niemann experiences the weight of the daily grind as acutely as the rest of us.
In Niemann's photo drawings the figures are incorporated on top of photography as simple ink line-work. Despite being clearly stylistically out-of-place, the figures feel at home in the environs by cleverly responding to and incorporating the landscapes, tricking the eye into perceiving the two as belonging together. Despite being simplistic and stylized, the figures demonstrate a strong command of anatomy and perspective.
While Niemann's photo drawings combine figure and space, his Sunday sketches combine figure and object, again to clever and often humorous effect. In these drawings (actually photographs of a composite drawing-sculpture), Niemann takes an ordinary everyday object (a bag of tea, a pair of scissors, etc.) and draws around it, using the object to form an important part of the figure. Seeing the figure then becomes about either flattening the object down to the plane of the drawing, or raising the drawing up to volume of the object.
Perhaps the best place to find Niemann's work online is through his Instagram @abstractsunday.
3. Robert Weaver
Weaver's approach was that of a visual journalist. He was an early practitioner of reportage illustration, approaching his craft with a journalistic eye and imbuing his illustrations with ideas from fine art. Weaver's sketches tend to combine the loose and gestural with the detailed and intimate, pulling out specific details and suppressing (by omission) most others in order to clarify and to show a certain perspective. I haven't become too familiar with Weaver's work, but in both his sketches and paintings I find a certain appeal that can only come from careful observation and study of the subjects.
References
Gormley, Antony (2017).
Antony Gormley: Sculpture: Series. Available at: http://www.antonygormley.com/sculpture/series (Accessed 13 November 2017).
Niemann, Christoph (2017).
Christoph Niemann. Available at: http://www.christophniemann.com/ (Accessed 13 November 2017).
Sachs, Zachary (2013).
Robert Weaver and the Pedestrian View. Available at: http://www.tcj.com/robert-weaver-and-the-pedestrian-view/ (Accessed 13 November 2017).
