Visual Metaphor

 Callesen explores metaphor in his work, visually a metaphor is two things, which when brought together imply one thing, one example of this is a heart and trainers, together they imply health, the heart due to it being a vital muscle and the trainers due to exercise. Another popular artist who uses metaphor is the street artist Banksy- famous for his political pieces and his illusive, anonymous nature in the public eye, he uses metaphor in the most effective way, by combining opposites, similar to Callesens interest in life-death.

 A militant is patted-down by a little girl in a dress- the contrast and role-reversal of this make the piece very striking.

 Commenting on consumerism and blind patriotism, the Tesco bag is the perfect twist to what would normally be a very typical picture.

 A dove, symbol of purity, peace and innocence being targeted with a bullet, symbolic of violence, unrest and hostility. The huge difference once again allows Banksy to create a really vivid piece.

 We created some of our own metaphors that we could try and present visually, the challenge was that we couldn't include what the actual object or person was in the drawing, this restriction helped us not only have a more lateral approach, but aid us in creating experiments with more deeper layers and meanings due to us not being able to literally draw them. 

 I liked the idea of head-phones and vacuum-cleaner. I felt these could be extended very far and could really be adapted and experimented with. I got sketching right away, I wanted to focus more on the development of a couple of ideas instead of creating reams of various unconnected ideas. 

 My brainstorm of Vaccum Cleaner and headphones, both of them had been remotely developed. I then picked my most successful one and took it further! 

 My most successful experiment for Vacuum  cleaner, from here I created some even more extended responses. 

 I was proud of one of my more refined experiments. An actual cleaner cleaning a vacuum, I had created a response using physical things however I felt there was room to create a socio-political response using vacuum? I thought about what it meant to be a vacuum, or a vacuous human being, aswell as a cleaner, something that leaves things dry and bare. These ideas led me onto people and political groups who have tried to,'cleanse' the world, but only to murder many and have a detrimental impact on the world, the nazis, in particular, Hitler.

 I created a conceptual vacuum, one where people are being sucked in, and, 'cleansed', people at the end of the vacuum all look the same, I then thought about the idea of a vacuum even further and experimented with sketching Hitler, and his mouth to symbolise a vacuum. 

 I used the rainbow colours to symbolise diversity and difference, the very things that was being targeted as part of the Nazis regime- this exercise proved particularly helpful in extending our conceptual abilities, it also taught me how such a famous artist like Banksy could get his ideas from- Banksy's style of spray paint, with his metaphorical roots, combined with Callesens, nimble, fiddly, yet equally deep pieces is the direction I want to go in.