I don't know if it’s a normalcy, but as for me, who switch to this new profession just now, sometimes feel unconfident about myself, like suddenly forget how to draw. At the first week of new term, I received the brief of introductory project. As a result, I spent nearly three weeks on working in progress, keeping a low but stable pace everyday. I felt like I have been heated up after completing the project, maybe that's exactly the aim of setting this assignment.
Speaking of the brief, primarily I need to create something about visual allegory. Instead of just simply using the Pied Piper of Hamelin story on the brief, I decided to pick up new ideas from the beginning. (I used to work as a copywriter, which means idea generation should be my profession.) I took about a week to think about the storyline, and finally settle down to create a contemporary version of ‘the Tower of Babel’. What surprised me is I talked about this idea to many students including the local, it seemed most of them didn't know the original story, let alone I wanted to recreate it. But I stuck to it anyway. To make everyone understand my theme was not necessary at this stage.
A1 size, which is quite challenging for me because I always do small-scale work.
The image should contain at least 20 figures. I draw a lot of group figures so it won't be a problem.
Black and white and one added colour. (This may be grey-tone/pencil or black and white line). It's quite interesting to use the minimal colour to enhance the readability, impact or emotion of the image.
The sketches and references:
Work in progress (multi-material handdrawing and digital collage):
Besides, after one month, the final piece has been selected for the New Camberwell Art 19/20 Exhibition held by Camberwell Student Gallery during 20th November and 16th December, which encourages me a lot. Although the scale is small, but it’s the first time that I attend an exhibition as an illustrator. I suppose it’s a good starting point for my MA study.
The following are the text I sent to the gallery:
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Title: Rebuild the Tower of Babel
Medium: multi-material (gouache, ink, pencil, pastel, digital)
This artwork is inspired by the story <The Tower of Babel>. I was trying to recreate it into a contemporary version.
According to the original story, the descendants of Noah were living in Babylon. The population was growing and they all spoke one language. The people decided to build a tall, proud symbol of how great they had made their nation. The Babylonians wanted a tower that would ‘reach to the heavens’ so that they could be like God and that they would not need Him. God did not like the pride and arrogance in the hearts of the people. God caused the people to suddenly speak different languages so they could not communicate and work together to build the tower.
Nowadays, many of us can speak multi languages and we also have translators, but can we rebuild the Tower of Babel? My answer might be “no”. I tried to put all the unstable issues happening globally into the image: terror, political struggle, immortality, brexit (babexit), refugee crisis, and even some factors extracted from Seven Deadly Sins (lust, greed, slot). God on the cloud may remind audience of a Yiddish proverb: Man thinks. God laughs.
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