Bauhaus

Bauhaus, literally translated to “construction house”, originated as a German school of arts in the early 20th century. Founded by Walter Gropius, the school eventually morphed into its own modern art movement characterized by its unique approach to architecture and design. Today, Bauhaus is renowned for both its unique aesthetic that inventively combines the fine arts with arts and crafts.
Bauhaus art is usually abstract  or uses simple shapes  put together stylishly to resemble something. Most of the art and designs are limited to primary colours and use very precise, carefully composed lines and curves.

László Moholy-Nagy

   

 Wassily Kandinsky

I like the minimal style of Moholy-Nagy compared to Kandinsky who's work I feel is too crowded, with a lot of different colours but with a dull white background.

I do like how Kandinsky's work appears to have depth even though the art is abstract and only features thin lines and circles. 

Moholy-Nagy's art is more inspirational for me, the simplicity makes the work look stylish and crisp. I will employ elements of  Moholy-Nagy's art into my own work. For instance I like the use of shadow effects in the second piece and the bright red colour. 

I have noticed that a lot of Bauhaus work doesn't use symmetry and the main subject is usually off centre and a lot of empty space is left in one corner.  

Feed magazine spread

I was commissioned to create a piece of art that carries the theme of death in the style of Dadaism for a magazine spread.

I took inspiration from the handmade, collage style that Dada art uses and I created a collage from ripped material, textured wallpaper, tape and cut out grids. I scanned this collage in and manipulated it on photoshop using the gradient map feature to change the colours. I decided to use a rusty orange-brown colour scheme that I feel represents the Dada style well. I added a blue to the gradient map to bring some contrasting colour to the piece. I collected a range of images that could represent the theme death but I wanted them to look like old illustrations. I thought of skeletal and anatomical diagrams and medieval depictions of the Grim Reaper.

Dadaism

Dadaism or Dada was an art movement of the early 20th century, with early centers in Zürich, Switzerland. Dadaism was a form of artistic anarchy born out of disgust for the social, political and cultural values of the time. It embraced elements of art, music, poetry, theatre, dance and politics. Dada was not so much a style of art like Cubism or Fauvism, it was more a protest movement with an anti-establishment manifesto. The Dada movement consisted of artists who rejected the logic, reason, and aestheticism of the modern capitalist society, instead they expressed nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois protests in their works.

I enjoy the style of DaDaism because it expresses weirdness and imperfectness. I like this because I like creating art that is otherworldly, and thought provoking, and favours aesthetic over plausibility. I also like creating art that isn't too perfect and looks handmade because it gives it edge.

Pretty ugly experimentation

This was my first attempt to create a piece of art that looked appealing but is conventionally ugly. 

I hadn't carried out any research on Dadaism or Pretty ugly at this point but this was my idea of what these art styles could look like.