For my Genius Hour project, being an art enthusiast I decided to do it on surrealism. Surrealism by definition is a “20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images” (Google). So it’s pure creativity that has been dug up from the depths of the artist’s psyche. The reason why I love and chose surrealism specifically over other art types is because I myself am a surrealist and I feel like it’s more interesting seeing what artists can come up with than them portraying something that already exists.
The artists I chose to research and put in my presentation were Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, Rob Gonsalves, and my own work. Through my research I learned a lot, from the different methods and inspirations surrealists use for their art to their personal lives and how that influenced their work. Some surrealists take drugs while they do their art as it loosens their minds even more and allows them to get deeper into their subconscious and imaginative side of their brains. Others base their art on certain dreams they’ve had, like Salvador Dali. Dali being in love with nature also got his inspiration from going out to islands and other natural views. If he thought something looked like something else, he’d morph it into that something else when he put it on canvas, creating optical illusions. Rene Magritte used literal art to symbolize notions, which is a paradox, which is also what most his paintings were based off of. He has a painting of a pipe with the words “ceci n’est pas un pipe” which translates to “this is not a pipe”. While others might not get it at first and argue that it looks like a pipe therefore it must be one, Magritte said that it is a painting of a pipe. Magritte loved painting paintings within paintings. “The Human Condition” shows an easel placed inside a room and in front of a window. The easel holds an unframed painting of a landscape that seems in every detail contiguous with the landscape seen outside the window. At first, you’d assume that the painting on the easel depicts the portion of the landscape outside the window that it hides from view. After thinking though, you realize that this assumption is based upon a false premise: that is, that the imagery of Magritte’s painting is real, while the painting on the easel is a representation of that reality. In fact, there is no difference between them. Both are part of the same painting, the same artistic fabrication. It’s probably to this repeating cycle, in which the viewer, even against their will, sees the one as real and the other as representation, that Magritte’s title makes reference. Rob Gonsalves is all about optical illusions and merging two different paintings. For example “Tree House In Autumn” (Rob Gonsalves. Tree House In Autumn. February 2013. Giclée on Canvas). There’s a house that morphs into a treehouse and the tree in back of it becomes the tree that the house in built on and the ladder goes down to the path where someone stands with a plank, messing with spatial relativity.
Doing this project helped me as a person because it made me realize how much more I love surrealism because doing the research I got to see more surrealist art and it’s what inspired me to even create an Instagram account dedicated to my art which has 1,198 followers since I started it last month. Though my project doesn’t really help anyone, I’m hoping it at least sparked some creativity is someone’s mind as it did mine. My next Genius Hour Project however, I’m going to be doing research on the Animal Rescue League, helping out there, and doing a bakesale fundraiser so that and the money we raise will definitely help the ARL, Senegal’s strays, and the rest of Dakar’s petowners because the ARL will have more money to buy medicine and treatments and keep their business running and the fundraiser will also help raise awareness to the conditions of strays in Senegal. It will also be beneficial to me because I can get community service hours from helping out. Here is a piece of my own art that was included in my presentation.