I Need Some Major Surrealism Help

batman

Ok... 2 weeks left of class. One surrealist painting. Need concept for TOMORROW. I have one (the teacher thinks isn't surreal enough)... bunch of nude women with tangerine skin and neon hair 'swimming' through the (VIVID) sky. Not very fucking good.

SO I WAS HOPING I COULD HEAR ANY ART IDEAS YOU GUYS HAVE AND BUILD OFF OF ANYTHING I HEAR... Some dreams etc?????? My teacher is fucked in the head, so the more messed up, the BETTER.

IF YOU CAN INCORPORATE GLITTER ROCK / HOMOSEXUALITY / DISCO ERA INTO THIS PICTURE, I WILL GO BUY A PLANE TICKET SPECIFICALLY TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU!



just jokin, guys.... heh... heh.... joke! No sex.

Ali

How about a couple of lovers standing on top of the world with the background of the universe spinning?

tsopotelba

I have no art ideas, but I have had dreams! I will tell you about them whether you want to hear them or not:

1. I flew to Georgia in a see-through helicopter. On the way back we flew over a see-through McDonalds that didn't have a kitchen, and it was in the parking lot of a bigger see-through McDonalds that did have a kitchen.

2. I was riding through the jungle on a murderous horse, who turned into Avril Lavigne.

3. There was this big infinite bottomless warehouse full of floating roads and railroad tracks, and a truck was stalled at a railroad crossing and a train came and knocked it off and it fell forever and ever. (I had this dream when I was like 5 and it terrified me.)

4. I always dream about being able to breathe underwater.

5. When I was a little girl I dreamed I had a paint brush and everyone was naked and I was going around painting everyone's crotches green and blue. (I have no idea what was wrong with me.)

6. This isn't a dream, but today I went out to pick some raspberries and I put one in my mouth and there was something strange going on in my mouth so I spit it out and it was a GIANT GREEN BUG. I hate raspberries, I don't know why I even bothered.

pearlmutt

here is a dream from The Unbearable Lightness of Being, that I always thought should be a surrealist painting and it goes with your naked women idea.

There is a husband in a swimming pool. His wife is among many naked women who surround the pool. He is picking them off one by one.

(the wife dreamt it, if that helps)

um. . . disco, make the pool a dance floor. He's (the husband), only paint him like John Travolta (give him a velvet leisure suit and we'll call him John Travelto), got a gun in hand instead of finger held up to the disco ball; the naked women could still be standing around, maybe covering their chests or something. Call it "Staying Alive"

That's what I would do if I could paint and had that assignment.

Honestly though your painting sounds plenty surreal.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Think about whether your surrealist image is just fun or whether it distorts and renders ridiculous the sexual consumerism of the subject. An old school surrealist painting would tend towards the latter rather than the former: the Dada movement (bar Dali) were largely Communists under the direction of Andre Breton, and in fact Man Ray once said the Dadaists had, and were, apart from Dali, no fun at all!

pearlmutt

Magritte the Great inspired an album cover for Jackson Browne too. What can you do after Magritte -- he was so good. This is not a pipe, yes it is, no it isn't!

Let me know what you ended up doing. I'm excited for you.

(Fins, I saw a Man Ray sculpture this weekend -- it was neato. A gleaming silver skyscraper leaning over or propped up by a rusted out grip: New York 17)

batman

Thanks for all your ideas... I have to shy away from anything Dali or Magritte-esque because I'm writing a big paper on them and I don't want to burn out or scare away my teacher from really looking at what I do.

There are some really good ideas, though. Laughed at the staying alive concept- cool and ironic. Love it.

When I determine what I do, I'll probably post it.

pearlmutt

yippie. post it, please!

batman

OK... my teacher was trying to help me come up with stuff to put with my tangerine women. He was saying motifs I could use, and one of them was THE CARNIVAL. I've wanted to do a carnival piece ever since I've seen clips of Apocalypse Now- there's a carnival-like scene in it that I LOVE.

Anyway, my pic is going to be this: The big top performance (lots of people watching), and what's happening is this: the ringmaster is hung (dead) from the tightwalking rope, his everpresent whip hanging limply in his band, there's a dead, beaten, decrepid elephant hanging from the roof (THANKYOU NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC!!!), a jaguar posed in fuckingattackmode, the clown and the bearded lady are having sex (I'm going to be using a comic-book convention that should really kick it out a lot), the curtains are burning.... All of this action will stop 3/4 of the way down the page, and will swirl down into the map image of north america (against black backdrop). Lots of colour and confusion.

Of course, this is the stupidest idea ever because i have ONE WEEK TO DO IT! Balls. And, a 10% paper to write as well.

What are your thoughts?!

pearlmutt

ONE WEEK TO DO IT! Balls. And, a 10% paper to write as well.

balls to the wall! (i don't even know if that's the correct expression)

i love the way your images are coming from all over the place. i don't even remember the carnival scene in apocalypse now. i agree that national geographic is a great source of inspiration. i'll post a poem that i've always needed to work on that i started from images in an issue and you all can tell me how to fix it.

where are those tangerine girls going to be? are they going to be mixed in with the clowns?

i can't wait to see it when it's done. that's what i think.

batman

I dunno if I can incorporate the tangerine girls... they're very sophisticated and beautiful, and this painting (should be) very distressing. The conceptual sketch has been scaring people (which I am proud of). I stretched and primed the canvas today, and got the primer ALL OVER THE PLACE because I'm a mental case. Ughhh!

In Apocalypse Now, there's a scene where one of the characters has to find this guy named Roach (I think)- he's symbolic of satan I believe... he's got a radio, and he's all chilled out in the middle of this horrible battle. When the guys ask who's in charge, Roach doesn't even answer (in a meaniningful sort of way). On the way to find this dude, these guys have to pass though all this wreakage. There's one shot where these 2 guys are standing looking around at a pole with lights strung on it similar to a carnival tent, there are all these psychotic explosions going off, and there's a demolished child's tricycle sadly sitting there... and, if memory serves, we might be hearing Roach's music (or some music), and it's some psychedellia or something good like that. However, knowing my memory, imagine the opposite of what I just said and that'll be more like it!

We have an AWESOME media teacher who tells us a lot of uber cool stuff about films. I have more information about the making of apocalypse now if you care...

I'd like to read your poem! I don't know if I'll be able to help... we'll see.

And, as for balls- there is no 'proper' saying: I myself say Fuck Balls very often... but it can be used in any context as any noun, adjective or verb. Free speech, baby!

I have to go film a soccer tournament tomorrow for a final project. 8am to 7pm, outside in the dangerous sun, and it's been running around 32 degrees (not counting humidity) everyday... right now it's 30, and it's 7pm. I think I will die, so, farewell...............................

What's the weather like from wherever you are?????

pearlmutt

the scene you described sounds very interesting. (you write really well by the way!)

I'd love to know more about apocolypse now. It has been years since I saw it, and I don't remember much -- the chopper scene to the fantastic music, flight of the valkeryie? That's about it.

i hope your picture does whatever you want it to do! It sounds amazing. I wish I could paint. I try from time to time. When I was a little kid I wanted to do everything and took some classes. I created the stuff that people say a four year old could have done -- the difference being I couldn't do anything else, that was it, and it wasn't in any way conceptual art -- it was a flower that was supposed to look like a rose and looked more like a red lump of coal. You know?

I love neat pictures, especially smart ones. I know that a lot of surrealists say that their stuff doesn't mean anything, but I like their stuff because it sure does look like it means something.

My poem's down there under with a little help. Pasta Nazi has been helping me edit it.

It's superduper humid here. Hot. Like I like it.

FinsburyParkCarrots

I'd like to see Henry Kissinger and Fatty Arbuckle as cupids kissing atop a Gestapo motorcycle helmet, in a huge corridor adorned like a twister board, inside a television set watched on a cloud by three penguins dressed up as the Beverley sisters, while in the rainbow sky above, a candy floss zeppelin toot toots "Krispy Creme for Jesus Freaks" backwards, studied by a rather large green bespectacled fly.


You might need a big canvas for that one.

moho

Pretend you've never heard of Salvador Dali: " Dali who? Oh bloody hell jasus what a coincidence well I've gone and put all that work in.... sniff.... it's not my fault.... sniff....."

It might just work!

Otherwise what you want is a fat trucker in a beautiful purple carnival outfit dancing on top of hot coals presumly trying to reach the burger lying on top of the german shepards head dripping grease due to the intense steam rising from the dogs head. Surrounding it all is a cage which looms right up forbodding into the background. Jeering crows stand in top of this cage, their eyes illuminating and reflecting a little girl holding a yo-yo with the world spinning like a yo-yo rather than revovling like it actually does.

Basically it's a reflection of how fucked up and paranoid the world is right now. Everyone else is trying to cage America's actions to keep them under control but you just know that fat trucker will manage to dance his way around every hot coal thrown at him and devour that horrible burger thus destroying the free world as we know it.

pearlmutt

I really wish we could just say



Wow.


"by three penguins" -- Fins, you've been to see Madagascar haven't you? Come on, admit it, i can tell, it's right there in the painting!

Nast

surrealism and fantasy are two different greys that share similar area...

your picture though the actions seem surreal the entire image seems more fantasy than surreal...

my portrayal of surrealism is the physically impossible... ie:

The big top performance (lots of people watching), and what's happening is this:

the ringmaster is hung (dancing and singing) from the tightwalking rope, his everpresent whip floating in the air smacking his own ass...

there's a dead, beaten, decrepid elephant walking on the roof...

a jaguar posed in attackmode, the clown and the bearded lady are having sex on top of it...

All of this action will stop 3/4 of the way down the page, and will swirl down into the map image of north america (against black backdrop). Lots of colour and confusion...

pearlmutt

Ride of the Valkyries, not flight; memory, how it fails me, so Blue are you going to come tell us all of the details that your professor's been dishing?

and I second the reading of Indifferent One's poem -- it's really interesting -- great verbs.

pearlmutt

god dangit. I did it again. I wish I was on drugs I'd have a good excuse. Sorry batman, i was thinking blue. I am going to have focus. Or I'll be logging in as ISN.