Perspectives of Art: An Emotional Phenomenon

Johar Manzar
Art Appreciation
Dr. Gibney
15 February 2008


I looked for a painting form the University of Texas at Arlington Fine Art Gallery, and found a painting that struck me as both interesting and a work that fell in with my senses. I chose, “It Never Occurred To Me It Wasn’t The Beginning”, painted by Kelli Vance. This painting was an oil based painting that was painted in 2007.
Looking at this painting, I see a woman, sitting down as if she was exhausted, or weeping. She seems to be ready to faint and looks quite brokenhearted. Her blue satin party dress and blue shoes along with her styled hair indicate she was at a party or something of the sort. After examining, reading and looking at Kelli Vance’s other pieces of artwork, (http://www.joanwichgallery.com/artists/graphics/vance/index.html) I can say that she is centering her paintings on two women, and one man. According to what I can perceive, the two women are both being dated by one man, and both of the women, one of whom shown here, found out. I think this painting is about the betrayal she felt after finding out.
This woman has detergent falling down from the brush she was using to clean with and has latex cleaning gloves on her hands. The sink is overflowing, and the fridge is open, representing some sort of sadness or disorder. Lines in this painting are used to define objects, not to signal a direction, and most of them are straight, thin and long. Since the subject has her head down, we are unable to find an implied gazing line, which tries to show what she is looking at. However, the hands and body position, along with her hair, place a vertical axis centerpiece for the focus to land upon. The lines are used to border objects and to create the implication of depth and reality into the picture. The most important lines I see are on the woman’s dress. These lines describe the crumpled up dress and give the perspective that she is sitting down, sad and lonely. Furthermore, the lines on the cabinet give the cabinets realness, and the light blue lines describe the water falling down from the sink. The other line that catches my eye is the detergent falling down from the brush, which has blue colored soap suds. The lines on the oak wood floor, which are perpendicular to most of the other lines in the painting, express a sense of quietness by bringing the focus down to her lower body, which describes the feelings of despair and hopelessness.
I see many flat geometric squares and rectangles in this drawing, found on the cupboards, the fridge, the inner tag of the shoe, the blue furry rug, the oak wood segments on the floor, the sink and the shape of the toaster. As you can see, most of them are found on the middle-ground. The most important shape that was most easily seen was the cupboard right beside the almost fallen woman. After the cupboard, I see the fridge, and then the floor. I then look at the appliances, like the toaster. When I look at the toaster, I see blue diamonds, which are actually decorations. What intrigued me was that the toaster decorations looked like handles, and because they were pulled down, I thought that there was bread inside being toasted. In reality, however, the diamonds look as if used for bringing attention to the toaster and the blender right beside it. These shapes look like they are placed in the background, as a place to explain what the subject is doing, or previously was doing. In terms of space and perspective, Kelli strongly imparts the three dimensional view into this painting. She does this by creating wrinkles on her dress, drawing almost real bends and curves of the body and hair, and creates layering of the objects and subject in a real way.
The source of lighting comes from the fridge, which imparts shadows correctly placed and a perfect way to impart focus on the subject. Without the fridge’s open door artificial lighting, the room would have been dark, as indicated by the area not lighted by the fridge. The light is brightest inside the fridge, as it is almost pure off white. The only problem with the shadows is that some are lighter and some are darker, as indicated by the blender and the toaster. Despite their being together, the blender’s shadow is much lighter, and the toaster’s shadow is darker. The artist shows a shadow by the difference in color. By using shadows, the artist sets the focus towards the woman, because her largely unaffected blue dress is the brightest blue in the whole painting. These shadows also emphasize the woman because it makes the wrinkles and dress’s texture appear more realistic.
The artist definitely chose a lot of blue in the painting, and made this painting feel immersed in cool colors and calmness. This color, often associated with silence, perfectly sets the setting for this scene and activity. This color complimented her brown hair and the yellow latex gloves very well. She used a certain degree of complementary colors by using cyan and yellow-brownish-orange, almost on opposite sides of the color wheel. Blue was generally used in places where the artist wanted to create focus, such as the rug, the woman’s dress, the shoes, the toaster, the detergent, the brush, etc. The opposite of atmospheric perspective is used, because it looks like the cupboards, warm in hue, are in the background whereas the cool cyan is in the foreground. The texture of the woman’s dress is smooth and silky, as it looks like it is made of satin. The gloves, wall, and the floor look glossy, as do the shoes lying on the floor. The rug appears fluffy and soft, whereas the toaster looks metallic. By using satin for the woman’s dress, it looks like she just arrived from a party. Her brown hair is also silky and smooth and it is quite helpful to note that it flips a little on the bottom. The actual texture is rough and spotted with tiny one millimeter wide polyps.
The artist employs balance by placing an equal number of objects colored on one side of the picture as on the other. However, one side has it scattered throughout the appliances and the left side of the dress, whereas the right side has it mainly on the bottom side. The right side has much more lighting and darkness (on the far right) at the same time. The left side has a medium lighted medium throughout.
The artist heavily uses emphasis by the beauty and brightness of the cyan. There seems to be a repetition of the same color of blue over and over again, trying to bring focus on different parts of the painting, such as the dress, detergent, toaster, shoes, etc. The first object that my eye is drawn to is the dress, bringing about thought to crying face, which then brings attention to the bright yellow latex gloves, thereby focusing attention to the detergent and then the overflowing sink. We then notice the shoes, which look as if thrown and out of order. As you continue to look at the picture, you feel an increasing emotion of sorrow or a reminder of a past event. I noticed that as I looked to it, my head tilted to the left side, as if I tried to understand why the woman was crying. By looking at the scene, it feels as if the woman, who was on a date, found out that her boyfriend was cheating on her (because of another painting I found painted by Kelli) and so she rushed home, threw her shoes on the floor in frustration, tried to vent her sadness out by cleaning her house, but eventually was overtaken with grief and sat down to cry as she felt helpless and isolated.
Since this painting was in oil, it was durable, but took very long time to dry. However, because it was easily smudged, this was harder to paint with. This oil painting gives a glossy and shiny appearance and gives me a greater view of the depth within. The artist was most likely able to make long brushstrokes and blend the colors in each other easily, leading to the greatly enhanced depth perception. Since it was painted in 2007, I believe it looks no different than it looked while being painted. The texture is rough, causing the artist to control the oil medium more easily and allowing for easier perception of depth. The practice of painting on oil requires great practice, and with such great skill and beauty that is seen in this painting, Kelli must be a great professional. This artwork looks bigger than life size, but still employs the same proportions of objects to person, etc. I think this is a very consoling art where one can start to feel the sorrow of betrayal through someone else, that is, the woman in the painting. I think this gives one a sense of companionship and understanding if one has undergone such an experience oneself.