George Condo is an American Contemporary visual artist from Concord, New Hampshire. Condo is inspired mainly from European history, American caricature portraits as well as Greek mythological figures, often in a dark yet humorous style. The piece I am inspired by is “Head With Sword”, which was custom made for Hip-Hop heavyweight Kanye West latest Album “My Dark Twisted Fantasy” which sold 496,000 copies in the first week.
Originally Condo created five images for the number one selling album but the original cover art was banned from Target and Best Buy because it depicted Kanye draped in the nude with a nipple-flashing and snow-leopard-tailed phoenix. Condo is known for is cubism and painting which is the medium for “Head with Sword”. Kanye is a very artistic person considering his music and his video visuals and considering Condo being so unfamiliar with his music, he listened in on a recording session to gain his inspiration for the piece. Kanye also told Condo, from the many interviews I have read that “he really likes that idea of a Shakespearian thing, The piece’s two contrasting styles, cubism and classicism are forged together in a single painting”. Condo draws from the finished product that, ” “His tragedy was a kind of an exile that Kanye imposed upon himself. He was free from exile by having the cathartic moment in the image. He’s alive in the painting, you know what I mean? In a strange way it’s like, he opened his eyes.” “Head with Sword” is a painting of Kanye decapitated, wearing a crown with a sword thrust through the left ear. I feel like the big eyeballs are the focal point of the painting because it gives the impression that he is still alive even though blood is spilled on the canvas and a sword is going through his head. The orientation of his head s horzontal which gives the painting an abstract look because it is just not normal, it actually like a resurection from suicide. The clouds in the background gives me the impression that he is in his own heaven. the shading of the clouds is beautiful because its so many different colors in it to gives them a realistic look.
When completing my duplicate of “Head with Sword” i decide to use color pencil as my medium. I originally wanted to used chalk but I could not find the right kind at the stores i went to. I have not done any artwork like this since I was in high school so I was pretty excited for this assignment. Originally I used a regular pencil to draw everything then color everything in with the color pencils. I kept the concept of the image but added my own philsophy to it. I depicted an image of my face with the same orientation but chose to use a orange and brown graduation cap instead of a crown. I then chose to to put textbooks on top of my head with a heart on top of them and have the sword cutting vertically through it all. Socially I feel my peice is very powerful because it just shows my frustration I have had with college considering this is my sixth year. I feel like school has taken my heart away from me but at the end of the day I am still alive and I am still going to graduate. What does not kill me makes me stronger is the theme of the painting. I also used the a lot of different colors like purple, different blues, yellows, tan and oranges in the clouds to duplicate the clouds, even though they look different. After I color everything in with the color pencils I took a cloth and rub the color in to give it a smoother look. I hope everyone enjoys my picture.