Ruscha is an American artist who worked with a variety of
medias including painting, printing, photography and illustration around the
Pop Art movement. His art training was
based around commercial photography which introduced his interest in typography
and using words within images. His first
works included oil paintings with comic writing layered over the top referring
to popular culture. He once spoke about
where his phases come from: “Well,
they just occur to me; sometimes people say them and I write down and then I
paint them. Sometimes I use a dictionary.” I find this really interesting, and
so far have worked using images first and then finding words to overlay them,
however I am now thinking about starting with words then finding images after
and see what a different effect this has on the work outcome. Ruscha has always
used different means to add words onto his images, for example pouring liquid
over a flat monochromatic surface, this is something I would have really liked
to have tried in my project, bringing in more of an ‘art’ factor into my work
however at this point it is not a path I could take with the time scale I have
but will hopefully something I can practice in the future. I also like the way
Ruscha makes connections to his words outside of his images, for example a
project in which he presented seven different words that rhymed, and in a
separate project he did a series of images with “dirty” and inviting phrases.
This sort of play on words it what attracted my attention to his works. However
there is an ongoing theme throughout his work, even if it is sometimes not so
obvious, Rushca is constantly asking questions about the impact urban life has
on society.
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