Teenage Queen the Loaded Gun.

I went to the library today to borrow some books after not going there for almost 6 months. I like how quiet the library is when it's the school holidays and you don't have the masses of hormonal year 11 + 12 St George + Tech students flirting all the time. Nevertheless, I found some solace as I dug deep into the non fiction books, looking through books of paintings and other magnificent architecture of Paris. And then I found a book on the artworks of Degas. From the first time I ever saw a work by Degas, I had been entranced by his work. There's a gentle yet sad quality about all the subjects he paints, as if I was an omnipresent being looking over these ballerinas in their daily activities. 

And then there was Edward Hopper's Nighthawks. I have a very vague recollection of this painting but as I look at it again, I was very much intrigued by it all and thereby, I came home and searched for analyses on it. According to Hopper, the painting essentially consists of 3 subjects who are vulnerable to the outside as they are bathed in the bright lights who are therefore, exposed. The man working behind the counter is in Hopper's words, 'free' for he is able to leave as he wants, has a job and perhaps a family. There's something about this painting I really identify with... Nighthawks was composed at the end of the Great Depression so therefore, it must've been relevant to that era yet I feel this painting is still as relevant to our lives as ever. Sometimes, despite living in such a big city where people proliferate the streets and seem like they enjoy life and all it's glory, loneliness is still as present as ever. I feel like at this day and age with all the intrusions from digital communications and how social networking is so emphasised that it is expected that everyone is happy...? Yet as you look further in and focus harder on people, you can see that that is not the case. That not everyone is happy and there is a place where they retreat to, where they feel most alone and most vulnerable. Like the cafe above, it is located in what seems like an apparently big city yet the cafe can't help but look uninviting, as if this is the culmination of the worries, loneliness and emptiness that cannot be expressed in regular life, where apparent smiles are what are only acceptable. The scene that Hopper creates is just so desolate and lonely, resonating hopelessness in an increasingly overwhelming world. 

As I think back to my minimal artistic pursuits in years 7 - 10, I had come to the realisation that...those assignments where we analysed artworks were actually quite fun. And I also really miss being creative and just drawing whatever I pleased, plastered whatever inspired me onto the artwork I was completing. I remember painting a self portrait of myself...that was atrocious but in a way, I do wish I still had it because it's still part of my body of work. So from now until the end of the holidays, I guess I shall be divulging in collages and scrapbooking. The work I produce will certainly be substandard but I guess that's the best I can do.