Works of Wafaa Bilal

Art is able to provide awareness of many types of issues. War and conflict is commonly depicted through art to promote peace and compassion. Ben Quilty is a war artist admired for exposing the profound physiological realities of war through the creation of his art. During a three week visit to Afghanistan, he spoke to many Australian servicemen and women about their experiences. He discovered the hardship of the people, and how much fear they live in. This is what influenced him to create portraits of people using vivid colours and intense brush strokes.

Dali employs a “concrete irrationality” surrealist style giving us the illusion of realism. Design is precise, using symmetrical perspective employing a geometrical figure’s composition. The painting is well balanced. Presence of the light coming from the northeast gives a sense of a natural landscape. The light and shadow relationship “pops the elements out” and creates contrast. The pain of war is expressed by the grotesque mutating human body ripping itself apart with the anguishing facial expression.

In Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War, the haunting image “Harvest of Death” catches one’s eye with the seemingly endless field of corpses. The jarring facial expression on the figure in the foreground draws one into the narrative of the piece. However, our initial understanding of the image’s narrative is limited to what we can see and what we know of the circumstances surrounding it. While we know it was taken during the American Civil War, by simply looking at the photograph, we cannot know who is depicted. In black and white, it is difficult to even tell what side of the conflict these fallen soldiers fought for. We can interpret the image for our own readings, but we cannot tell what the artist intended us to see or what message he wanted to impart with it. These unknowns, however, are addressed in the related text associated with the image. These short passages can tell us a great deal about the photographer’s intentions and influence the way we read the image. Through the excerpt, we not only learn the intended meaning of the photography, but we also learn about Gardner’s political intentions and the key points he wanted his viewers to note within the image. Published as a pair, Gardner used his text to contextualize his images and inform the way we perceive them. This is clearly illustrated in “A Harvest of Death” and its accompanying passage.

This paintings powerful message can clearly be seen to the viewer, especially culturally when we see the torn up Constitution of the United States in the background, representing a “free-for-all” on this day as our American beliefs did not matter to the terrorists. We also see the diversity between the three suffering women in handcuffs, showing that this tragedy hit everyone, but we were all bound together as Americans. The visual claims that this event truly was horrific and shows the absolute loss of innocence throughout our nation on this one day. The hands of the men especially show the suffering and anguish our nation felt, as they are deformed, projecting their pain onto the viewer. This work specifically reflects a historical moment in American history in that it depicts the events of September 11th. However, it also shows the future that is to come with the old man who survived passing the information of these events onto the young innocently blindfolded girl on the bottom right. Clearly, this piece is superficial in the sense where it comments on one event, but it also goes deeper, showing the aftermath and actions to come for the American

Through the cultural frame, artworks are concerned with understanding how an artwork is influenced by the values of the society it is produced in, and, in turn, how the artwork influences the values of the society. This includes examining the historical and cultural context in which the work was made, and religious and/or philosophical beliefs, which may have influenced the work. Plate 1, ‘Corpse in Barbed Wire’ 1924 is a German Expressionist etching by Otto Dix, reflecting war and. His works document the reality of the through the subject matter and positioning. He uses abstraction of form to represent the effects and perceptions of war. The work is also an example of German expressionism, a popular art movement at the time it was created.

“Artists today explore ideas, concepts, questions, and practices that examine the past, describe the present, or imagine the future.” Contemporary artists use a dynamic combination of media and technologies, methods, concepts, and subjects to create works that reflects The Human Condition in modern culture and society. Three contemporary artworks that utilise these artistic practices to express The Human Condition are Michael Parekowhai, Tracey Moffatt and Vernon Ah Kee. Each artist has used artistic devices to express the contemporary significance of The Human Condition by creating works that reflect back to their own experience and the history of their nationality.

An artist's job is to interpret, and express the aspects of life in a creative fashion. War has played a big part in shaping our human history, and many artists have portrayed their feelings about art through paintings, and even monuments. Whether it be to show; the joy of victory, the sorrow of defeat, or to educate the public on the gory realities of war. Art about war can also show us a great amount of history of the kinds of weapons that were used at the time. It is necessary for artists to interpret, and criticize all aspects of life; even ones as tragic as war, It can make the public more aware of what goes on in times of war.

Jacob Lawrence, an African American artist, produces two best-known collections like the Migration Series and War Series. Showing in the website, fourteen over sixteen panels are the War Series. Jacob’s War Series described his experiences that he joined the gallery during World War II. Jacob Lawrence painted the War Series when he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1964. Drawing the outline of an object and filling in some uniform color, he was exposing the signified of situation and people’s feeling. War Series: The Letter is an art works I like the best. The picture shows a letter on a black table and a man who presses the black table by his hands. The man is lower his head. I can feel that after he reads the letter, he is very sad. Perhaps,

Farah Ahmedi was eager to escape a war torn country so she could live a better life. “The gate to Pakistan was closed, and I could see that the Pakistani border guards were letting on one through…. I felt desperate to get through...if we got stuck here, what were we going to do? Where would we stay?” (Amedi paragraph 1) She was so worried about the fact that if

This piece was created during a time of political and social change. Increased political awareness and a focus on celebrity demanded art that was more

John Bul Dau’s illustration “God Grew Tired Of Us”, impacted a social movement in Sudan. When living happily in the area of Sudan, John’s life was disrupted by the rebels who had started the

She paints the symbols of war that consist of guns, helmets, violence, masks and grenades which are horrific, in such a beautiful image that you won’t be disgusted by looking at them and will rather appeal to the viewer. This is because of her use of repetitive flowers and layering of objects and colour. She has used complementary colours of warm red and green. It is a very organic piece of artwork, with mechanical objects that are painted smoothly and in tonal colours. The contrast between the beautiful, decorative flowers and the war helmets is subtle.

Powerful art has the ability to influence the emotions and thoughts of the people who view it, captivating, inspiring, and motivating them to act. Two artists, Ben Quilty and George Gittoes, are renowned Australian painters who create very stylistic portraits to convey moving pieces about political, and social reformation. Recently, Quilty was requested to produce works focusing on returned soldiers involved in the war in Afghanistan. Titled After Afghanistan, the work is an intimate portrait of the soldiers and their fragility, their internal wounds, and their strength. Gittoes however, has dedicated his entire career to the pacifistic dissent to war through art, and his portrait Moment of Hope: The Preacher, developed during Rwanda’s civil

Tremendous technological advance and tremendous slaughter leave an artistic waste land of atrocity, emasculation and pointing posters used to manipulate the public into recruiting men to join the military around the globe. Skilled illustrators in America, less inventive but artistic allegory’s in Canada and France and plain typography in Britain leave many artists busy with supporting the war effort. On the outskirts of war were a contingency of international peoples with little means and a negative view of European culture and war that chose to defect to Switzerland where they created the art movement known as Dada.

Linda Bond shared the physical and emotional pain she experienced during the Syrian Civil War with the use of monoprints, video, graphite drawings, prints and sculpture. She recreated the horror and pain associated with the war. Her series of Monoprints depicted a bird’s eye view of bombs being dropped and their destruction below. She produced 425 unique pieces replicating the American air strikes in Pakistan. However, only a small amount of the prints was displayed. This