multi-layer art
I saw The Little Theater by Salvador Dalí in person at the NYMoMA this past summer. It’s beautiful. The layers transport you into a cozy, yellow-green world. It smells like fresh paint and new ballpoint pens. Surreal and happy and bright. 2D can be so 3D it’s crazy.
I was very excited to start the multi-layer art project. Looking through the work of past Freestyle students and artists online, I knew I wanted to make a lightbox and that I wanted it to be a scene that could tell a story. Having just dipped my toes into the water of film language in Film class, watching and analyzing Citizen Kane, I felt inspired to employ the rules of composition and framing that I had learned.
La La Land was calling my name for a rewatch and had taken on a kind of depressing personal resonance. I decided it would be the perfect subject for the project. So, I spent months listening to the soundtrack, soaking in the gorgeous visuals, and drawing out my own interpretation of the story during class time.
Unfortunately, translating my sketches into a functional lightbox design in Illustrator was more difficult than I had anticipated. After the initial brainstorming and planning came a long process of trial-and-error revision. By the end, my design ended up entirely different.
Thankfully, I love working in Illustrator and the hours I spent squinting at my computer screen, trying to envision how each layer would look stacked and with light filtering through, were not as painful as they could have been.
When the layers were cut and printed, I was thrilled. They looked just how I imagined they would.
Then came the steps of assembly and presentation. As I put the box together, I took a video to highlight the process.
And then used After Effects 3D editing effects (virtual camera, keyframes, shadows, etc.) to show the layers digitally.
When I finally saw the box all lit up, I ran around my house showing everyone. I like it a lot.
artist statement
When we were first introduced to this project, I knew immediately that I wanted to do a lightbox. As I looked at examples from previous years and other artists, I was enraptured by the dynamic effect of the light on the layers. The 2D layers stacked together make the boxes feel incredibly 3D; it’s like being sucked into a new miniature world. This past summer, I visited the MoMA in New York City and saw The Little Theater by Salvador Dalí in person. It is mesmerizing. It has such a sense of depth and life — which is only more awe-inspiring when you are able to see the layers and how they work together to create the sense of space. I knew that for my own light box, a project that is a similar concept to The Little Theater, I wanted to choose a frame that was as evocative as I could possibly make it. I wanted it to tell a story.
There are plenty of movies that I watch and enjoy and think about for a couple of hours and then rarely, if ever, think about again. There are very few that I think about almost on a daily basis; La La Land is one of them. With my lightbox, I wanted to try and capture some of the magic that that movie (and music and visuals and story) makes me feel. I knew I wanted to incorporate the iconic still of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling dancing, but I also wanted to tie in other elements of the film. Since the movie is about Hollywood and creativity and the creative journey, I wanted to use my single frame to convey the experience of making a work of art — such as what I imagine Damien Chazelle experienced while writing and making La La Land. And so, I put the pianist in the corner, which could be interpreted as Seb at the end of the movie or even Justin Hurwitz composing the score. I added the reflections of the dancers, which are closer to the pianist than the dancers themselves, to show that the memories are now closer than the experience. The birds foreshadow what happened to the dancers later, and are thus closer to the front and silhouetted more strongly.
While making this project, I struggled most to figure out how I would make everything work practically. My original sketches turned out not to work when I tried drawing them in Illustrator, and I went through many different drafts and ideas to arrive at the final frame. Thankfully, I was able to figure it out, and, with some practical revisions from Mr. Flo, I really love the way it turned out.