Mili Patel
I Dream in Technicolor
Prompt: Using Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, by Raymond Williams, and in collaboration with your seminar Bridge 2 assignment, select an additional 10 words form the text and follow a thought path of research using fine art and public databases/resources. Allow this research to be deep and rich. Now, take your current research to your lived space — collecting digital and physical materials from a variety of sources and building an archive of digital and physical things. You will then create a serial body of work — no less than 10 pieces — from your materials.
Creating scenes from my dreams and memories, I am transforming ordinary objects such as paints, fruits, foods, and trash into miniature landscapes and narratives. I began the project by sketching each scene, laying out what objects I want to use, the medium, and how I will make the medium have a message. Next, I constructed the dioramas and began shooting with both LED lighting positioned in almost every way with a variety of lens angles to see what fits each dream the best. In the series, there is a cyclical structure, so that the viewer can see a clear chronological beginning and end and I envision that that will happen based on what the inanimate object in the dream is doing. I have been researching and creating an archive of different images, artworks, and visual things I find in my own personal environment that I will draw from to create this- some include mediums I haven’t worked with. The scale of these photographs are printed in a large format to get a sense of the textures and forms that are taking place. Although they will be constructed on a miniature scale, I digitally modified the sets in Photoshop and blurred the lines of what’s real and what is fiction. The art will be subjective, allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions of what they are seeing and what they can make of it. I also want viewers to make the connection between inorganic parts working together to create an organic form. Some of the scenes will be intricate, with many layers and depth that almost create a sense of how was this even made. Each scene will be vivid in color, perhaps playing on some color theory techniques, because unlike most people in the world, I dream in color.