True Colors Shining Through?

Here's an article about these colors.

Katrina Review

      Page 17 of Peter Precourt's Katrina Chronicles Volume 1 drew my attention immediately. The work a mixed media on paper approximatly 30 by 22 inches fits into Precourt's graphic novel style instillation. The entire Katrina instillation deals with the artists familial, professional and personal development and the effect the 2005 huricanhad on them. Page 17 is primarily focused on the various professions Precourt dabbled in before the narrative starts.

       Done in the graphic novel style this piece starts with a road sign themed panel and progresses through 7 or eight other panels of rouphly the same size representing different professions the artist held in the past. Of particular interest to me was the artist's choice to use arrows to guide the viewers progression through the panels.

       In themselves each panel varies significantly from the others in level of detail. Both the text and the graphics vary in this way. In only one panel does he describe the job directly by title “I was a waiter in a bad restaurant.” and provide a picture from a moment in the job (a hazy line drawing of two customers). In others he only mentions a specific duty “...the sorry guy who cleaned the bandsaw...” along with a picture of the bandsaw. A DJ job is hinted to only in a picture of audio equipment while a stint counting cards in black jack is expounded upon in a detailed illustrated description of his counting method. It's as though the author/artist adopts different voices in each. Like his narrative style changes from panel to panel.

       While each panel is meant to convey a similar piece of information, a different way the artist made money in the past, the varying style highlights what he feels and remembers about each part of his life.

      I questioned at first the choice to use guidance arrows between panels I found they added to my experience of viewing that panel. Usually in graphic novels such blatant guidance is avoided as it is seen as interference in the reading process. The author will either use subtle narrative, visual, or written cues to steer the readers eye without apparent effort. Or authors might choose to leave readers completely to their own devices expecting them read panels in any order they choose. Since Precourt chose neither tact the viewer must consider the arrows a deliberate part of the art work.

       When taken as a whole these elements add depth to the work. The iconic stop and detour sign introduce the page pulling the reader out of the rest of the installations narrative. The guidance arrows pull the reader along a serpentine path of disparate panels. Each one a specific memory window into the authors past. Jobs and experiences that have no relationship with each other are forced into a sequential narrative only because that is the way the author remembers it. To me this page effectively conveys the aimlessness of a mans early adulthood.

MT

In this piece I tried to highlight nothing. By Creating a complex frame to a nonexistent picture I wanted the the viewer to feel like the should be looking at the center of the piece but get hung up on the surrounding border. I used emphasis repetition and symmetry. I used a combination of white circles, black circles, and black rings placed in a symmetrical pattern to create the effect.

Falling In

In this composition I tried to pull the viewer's eye into the center of the work. My method involved positioning alternating black and white circles on top of each other. I reduced each successive circle in size by a 1/4 of an inch and placed them in a repeating offset pattern. This created a slightly irregular spiral image. The elements I tried to use were emphasis, scale, unity, and repetition.