Mijn Schatje Modern Artist

This piece of art was produced by Mijn Schatje is 2009. The piece is called Blu and its name can be interpreted as the name of the doll in the piece. This piece of art belonged to the pop and surrealist art movement. I think that the title of the piece, ‘Blu’ is the name of the doll in the work, but it could also represent the ‘blue-ness’ of the piece as there is a constant wash of blue, blue could also represent sadness and loneliness, which is also present in the piece through the dolls eyes. If you look closely as the piece, you can see that there are clouds and raindrops that could represent tears.

Content & Composition
This piece of art focuses on a wide-eyed doll’s facial expression – which seems pained and sad with beautiful white hair surrounding it. Although this piece of artwork is surreal, I feel that it not completely from imagination, I think that the artist has taken inspiration off the real ball-jointed dolls themselves and portrayed their huge eyes in this piece. There is little compositional arrangement, the doll’s face fills up almost all the area and in the close foreground you can see faint rainclouds and rain drops and the occasional bird taking flight. As I have already said, I feel as though the doll has a sad expression on its face, you can see that the eyes are almost closed, as though the doll is looking down in sorrow. The colours used in this piece are all very cold except for the slight warmness afflicted by the bright colours on the doll’s eyelids. There is no obvious distortion in this piece, however, this piece is quite surreal and the doll’s facial proportions do not resemble the real proportions of the human face – the eyes are extremely emphasized. I think that this piece is quite literal, because you can tell straight away that is a portrait of a doll, however, there is room for interpretations because you can decide what the rainclouds and the the bird symbolize, tears or the weather?

Process and Technique
I was unable to find the exact technique used to create this piece however, according to the internet; this piece is a unique Giclee print. Since Mijn Schatje is a popular illustrator, there is a high chance that this piece was created through some kind of art software. You cannot see any brushstrokes in this piece, everything is quite airbrushed. I think that I could replicated this piece by using acrylic paint because it is easy to blend and I think I can use cotton wool to represent the clouds on the piece. I also want to create texture for the hair, I could use thick plaster, paper clay or some sealant. Colour and Tone

‘Blu’ consists of very opaque soft baby pastel colours such as baby pink, blue and green, which however gives off a very cold icy feel. There are many tones of blue in this piece which makes in the predominant colour. Although I think that most of the colours used in this piece harmonize well with each other to give the soft feel I think that the red contrasts with the icy baby blue colours and gives warmth to the piece. This is because the baby blue colour is almost opposite the red in the colour wheel.

Mood and Meaning
I think this piece is very expressive, when I look at it I see the sadness in the dolls expression, the eyes, although nearly fully closed, show a lot of expression. I think this is impressive because it is the eyebrows which normally emphasize the pained expression, and in this case, she has no eyebrows. The sadness portrayed by the dolls expression is intensified by the rainclouds and rain droplets surrounding around her which may represent tears and sorrow. Although piece may seem sad the colours above the doll’s eyes express happiness and hope. The redness of the lips often represents love and hope. Overall, I think is a calm peaceful piece which is easy to look at. Many artists like to capture expression within their pieces and I think Schatje has captured it very well.

Form
There are a mixture of shapes that can be seen in this piece, the shapes are smooth and are layered so that they blend in subtly. The shape of the rain cloud and raindrops are repeated throughout the piece to make it consistent, if there was only one, it would look a little odd. As I have explained before, the shape of the raincloud and tears symbolize sadness and grief.

Opinions
I like this piece of art very much, it reminds me of Japanese pop culture, especially manga which also emphasizes the size of the eyes. However, some critics call her an ‘art thief’ or unoriginal. Schatje has taken photos from the companies who produce the Asian ball jointed dolls commonly called Pullips or Dolfies for inspiration. However, other critics describe her work as ‘romantic and dreamy, but also a bit spooky and otherworldly. That makes them ominous.’

Connections to my work
I have looked at this artist because I love her style of drawing; I am also in love with the icy baby pastel colours that she uses. I think this artist capture emotion very well, and I often get lost in the eyes of the characters that she creates. Although, the topic I am investigating, ‘relationship breakups’ has almost nothing to do with the themes of her piece of art, I feel that I could use the cold colours that she uses (the white and the blue) to create a sorrow mood in my art and the abnormally huge eyes of her characters. After all the eyes of the face show to most emotion and I would like to use that in my work to show depth and meaning.