Lucy's Statement

​Playing with negative space and the structure of shells is my concentration topic. This idea was inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe's usage of natural objects and the Realistic Abstraction within her style. I focused on zooming into the shells to observe the repetitional structure of shells.

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My work ranges from Realism to Realistic Abstraction. I wanted to keep some of the original form of the shells but also feel free to alter and invent, so I could play with repetition and rhythm. While exploring Realism, I made an attempt for high Realism in image 5. The image was extremely complex compared to the others; therefore I decided to make a detail of image 5 to show my surface manipulation. As I got more comfortable with my work, I started to use more negative space as a tool to push the depth within my compositions. On image 2, I made an effort to push the depth by playing with the negative space, but it didn't work out quite well, because of the lack of variation in the composition. I made another attempt to push the depth on image 7 by adding variation and multiple grounds to the composition, so it would look like the composition would go on forever. To further experiment with negative space, in image 9, I made the composition less realistic and invented all the grounds in the negative space. To further enhance the depth in my compositions, I played with the repetition of the shell structures; as shown in images 6 and 9, where the spiky ridges are seen repeatedly.

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