Talking Colour- Na’eem Saleh

Talking Pattern- Na’eem

REFLECTION

I visited the Lee Miller exhibition, highlighting the periods in her life and work. I chose to be inspired by this because as a long time fan of her work, I admire how differently they can be perceived and believed it would be interesting to and play with.

Taking inspiration from an exhibition that already features completed pieces by another artist initially proved to be challenging, however I realised that I can view it through different cultural and historical lenses to communicate what I perceive. While responding to a self portrait, the direction it took reminded me of Mediterranean culture which ended up inspiring my colour choices.

Overall, I think used a good variety of mediums to draw with and on as well as techniques. I applied white acrylic to create texture before painting on top with watercolour, which I hadn’t done before. In another drawing, I used water and colour splash to recreate the dynamic relationship between the land and sea. I made a collage of a landscape she photographed with coloured paper and scraps of a drawing that did not work.

I could have played around with scale, zooming in and out more to see how my results could have turned out similar but different, especially for “talking pattern”. In interpreting, I neglected to play around with that and I looked at subjects at a distance and depicted them as they were . After realising this I made different drawings to pick smaller elements for pattern and I think it turned out well.