H.R.Giger

H.R.Giger is one of the most famous artists, in the realm of fantasy art. He was born to a chemist’s family in 1940, in Switzerland, he moved to Zurich in 1962 and studied architecture and industrial design at the school of applied arts.

By 1964 he was producing his own artwork, which was mainly ink drawings but his real work started when he discovered the airbrush. This instrument combined with his own unique style lead him to fame for his surrealistic biomechanical dreamscapes. Giger’s most famous book, Necronomicon, was published in 1977, as it was the inspiration behind Ridley Scott’s film Alien. For this he won an Oscar in 1980 for best achievement in visual effects, for the designs of the alien and its life cycle and the environments that surrounded it.

Sculpture was also a big part of Giger’s work, extending the work he did on paper into the third dimension. In 1988 he was given the chance to design his own first total environment, a Giger bar in Tokyo Japan. By 1998 he had opened a museum in the chateau St. Germain,, in the old city of Gruyeres, Switzerland. This is a permanent home for many of the artist’s more prominent paintings, sculpture and furniture’s.

Appropriation (art)

Appropriation can be understood as the use of borrowing of elements of another persons work to produce a new piece of work. In the visual arts, appropriating means to borrow, recycle, adopt or sample aspects of another’s work. By doing so we re-invent, what once was, in to something new by variation, interpretation, parody and many other methods.

I decided for my appropriation project to work on a picture by H.R.Giger called future kill. Not being the first artist to appropriate work from someone else, I will be looking at other artists who have done the same. One of Banksy famous pieces of appropriation art is Show Me the Monet.

This was a close copy of Claude Monet, Bridge over a pool of water lilies 1899, except it shows a traffic cone and trolleys dumped in the urban paradise. Another artist, Douglas Gordon used the film psycho and just slowed it down and called it 24 hour psycho. He said that it was not a simply work of appropriation but more of an act of affiliation. He felt that his different take on the familiar classic, allowed people recognition and repetition, time and memory, complicity and duplicity, darkness and light, which in its normal context would be over looked.

Mind

Mind is a leading mental health charity, which covers the regions of England and Wales. The idea behind mind is to create a society that promotes and protects good mental health for all. It tries to build a society that treats people with an experience of mental distress, fairly, positively and with respect, It looks to make sure that those who experience mental distress are listened too, that their voices are heard by those that can influence change. It focuses on demanding higher standards of mental health care and to challenge discrimination wherever it occurs.

The services for mind include supported housing, crisis help lines, drop-in centers, employment and training schemes, counseling and befriending. Although mind is one charity, each local mind is an independent charity run by local people, for local people. This gives mind the ability to respond to issues within the community, like the planning of mental health services, local campaigns to on metal health issues, and raising awareness so that attitudes towards mental health may change.

Mind is totally independent, this gives it the integrity and the independence and freedom to stand up and speak out on the real issues that affect people’s daily lives.

Types of Masks II

Art Masks

Masks can be just for decorative purposes, used to create atmosphere to enliven a room. They are usually have elaborate designs, which are of great beauty, creativity, diversity, and the richness of human imagination. It represents our desire to show where we have been, our present, our future, heroes, demons, dreams, fears, fantasies, and nightmares.

Mardi Gras Masks


Mardi gras is the season of carnival, in is the celebration prior to the fasting season of lent. It is traditional to wear a mask on Mardi gras day; it allows us to truly be free or anonymous. Masks can express your inner secretive personality or your alter ego.

Masquerade Masks

These were historically made for a masquerade ball, a party that involved costume, dance and most importantly masks. The ideas behind these occasion was in the realms of pure play, itself an avid pastime in the 17th and 18th centaury, is found the Art of Masquerade. Masquerade Masks are things of play; they enable us to enter the realms of fantasy and dreams, things that we all inhabit within our own imagination. Just like we drink to allow us to socialize more freely, so we aid ourselves with masks to do the same.

Types of masks I

Halloween Masks

Halloween is short for All Hallows’ Eve, which is know as day of the dead, and is the day before all saints day. Halloween is a holiday that celebrates the well being of departed souls, allowing us to pray for them. We are reminded of our own mortality, and that the doorway between life and death is guarded by many devils, ghosts, goblins, and fear itself. Wearing masks on this day is a tradition, and is favorite celebration for many because of this reason.

Ritual Masks

A ritual is a form of sacred theatre used to commune with the dead. Masks are used quite a lot by certain cultures as ritual devices, being a vehicle to leap into other dimensions. This is accomplished by merging with the spirit of the mask, thinking of what they want to conjure, thereby transforming into it. It has many different ritual uses from healing, telling the future, teaching and sacred theatre.
These masks are also called Guardian masks; they can be angelic or demonic
And are used to connect us to unseen forces, using the power to protect inner or outer treasures. Guardian masks can sometimes be placed above ones bed or a doorway entrance.