NVArt Sureal competition entries by Jennifer Phillips
December 2008 to March 2009
For the NVArt Sureal competition we were invited to recreate our most imaginative fantasies in the style of master surrealist, Jacek Yerka. I made three images and settled on The Flat Land Trees Will Clap Their Hands as my final entry.
The High Way
This is based on Isaiah's prophecy. It is the third image in the series giving you a glimpse of AS land. God's ways are higher than our ways and this "highway" is a high way. It draws those who have eyes to see it saying "Come. Be glad for your ruined places shall be build up."
The Flat Land Trees Will Clap Their Hands
AS A Song or A Symphony in the land of As
As you turn the key
you unlock the trees of the field
crowned with cloud
a Kings laurel.
As the flat land trees
clap their hands
the drawers spring open
to fruit the land.
As the roots grow down
a harvest of seed
is carried by sound
and the trees pluck their song
drawing wings in their wake
that awaken the soul.
As towers of strength border the land
a feast of lovliness mushrooms forth
and ribbons dance a welcoming course.
As hands are linked a building takes shape
with music handles for doors
and welcome becomes a ribboned stream
like wings with eternal floors.
Asland knockers watch and wait
for those who have eyes to see.
They guard the door
as the birds fly down
as a leaf from the canopy.
As you gaze upon the land
the soul is raptured free
and a keyhole view of heaven
wings forth as a symphony.
This poem was published with images in "Word Power Poetry & Poetics"
Creating "likenesses" is something I have always done and I like the way Jerka has done this too. This competition could have been called "As surreal as Jerka," so I have created the poem to speak about the "as" ideas in my art and called the world I created "As land" - a play on the lion's name in Narnia. The prophet Isaiah used earthly images to clothe heavenly things, to ground spiritual things. I hope you catch a glimpse of what he said, through my art ... Joy is the key. Jesus is the key giver.
One thing often looks like another. Yerka's art shows some of these connections and mine does too. The y shape in his cathedral window in "Spring comes to the parish," looks like branches and can be seen in some insect wings. Trees can look like arms reaching up and clouds can look like leaves and leaves can look like birds as I captured on my camera some years ago. Bushels of grain can look like a lion's main and a crown and so I have emphasized this connection because together the seeds fill out the king of As' shape. An upside down strawberry looks like a tower roof and fungi that mushroom up. I gave some of my strawberries tower stalks from the first version of towers I did which I used for the whole notes on the music score. I wanted them to represent beauty and strength mushrooming up.
I placed one main object very central as Yerka tends to put a large object in the center of the image.
"Ultima Thule" - I created the path based on his paths. In this one he has plants between the stones and wider spacing of them along the edges. I widened the space between the stones on the edge of my path.
"The flood-gate" - I used the shape of the stones in his work for the stones on my path.
"Bat
hyscaphe" - I used the contrasting blue colour from his work for some of my ribbons and used a similar straightish pencil line wood grain line for my drawers.
"AmokHarvest" - I studied his fields and tried to emulate the pencil like quality and style of them in this work with straightish visible lines of each stalk showing but only heads showing on top of a flatish colour as they recede into the background. I originally colour picked some of the colours from this work then changed them and used the colour replacement tool in Photoshop to recolour them using the colour chart provided.
"Mushroom's Avenue, 2005" - He has used mushrooms so I made my towers, grain silos and strawberries mushroom up.
"The City is Landing" - I used his towers for the look of my silos and Towers. Many of his objects have a dark outline so I gave some of mine this look but toned it down in the final version.
"The room farm" I used the tree bark as a springboard for the pattern of bark on my trees, roots and branches.
"The summer" - I colour picked two reds from his strawberries and used them as a gradient for the first layer of my strawberries and used the idea of tall thin trees trunks.
"Orange grove" - I used his tree trunk for the tree pattern and placement of my trunks.
"Jealousy" - He has repeated the shape of clouds so I did too.
"Spring comes to the parish" - His cathedral window have a y shape that looks like two trees overlapping. I made my row of background tree branches overlap to produce another tree shape. The crossing of the branches produces a stained glass window, too small to notice unless you take a close up view. I used the y shape in the wings that the music produces and in the branches.
"The Strawberry Grove" - I framed the sky with leaves and would have liked to have hung the strawberries from the top but Jerka had already done that so I hung the music score to give an impression of the top of the crown. The strawberries become the full notes of the music and the jewels in the crown. Some of his works are framed at the top with trees, or leaves so I framed mine.
"The mystery garden" - I created a symmetric circular edge to my flat land being influenced by the circle in Jerka's.
"The lion's afternoon" - I used a similar colour and shape for some of my seeds and decided to add lion door knockers.
"The piano" - I colour picked the sand from his image for my sand.
I used a 3D modeling program for the towers and the drawers then recovered the drawers and some of the tower "hats" in Photoshop and applied filters. I used Flash for the lines of the wings and the flowing music "strings." I used the bas relief filter for the lion's main and created a bronze brush to use on the face. I used a seed head photo I had taken for the brush I created for the seeds and a photo of the ground to use as a brush for an overlay on the stones and sand. I used a piece of music I had created in Noteworthy Composer to
create the music score.
In the end it looked nothing much like Yerka's style!
Samples of progress towards the ones above
Seek The Lord
Another one on the same theme done after the competition had finished.