Henri Matisse

With my work and style progressing throughout my final major project, I have noticed a similarity to the artist Henri Matisse. His use of ambiguous and abstract form reflects the type of style that has developed in my own work and it would be interesting to research him a little further.

His cutouts in particular were very influential of my own work and his use of block colouring. He has created a series of stencils that are distorted but also figurative in terms of form, this was quite interesting to me as he is abstracted the shape of the female nude but still makes the sexuality recognisable. This balance between abstract and figurative form shows a sense of freedom, of fun but has a beautiful quality of mystery. This mysterious atmosphere is enhanced by his use of media. The paper cut-outs allow for the lack of facial and bodily features, and instead forces you as the audience to decipher the positive and negative spaces that are formed. The shapes that are created in these spaces construct the form of the body and therefore the compositions of his pieces seem playful but equally thoughtful. This sense of fun but also mystery is something that could reflect in my own work. The ambiguity of my pieces, like Matisse’s, reflects the sense that no two women are the same and it doesn’t matter what they look like, how much hair they have on their bodies, or how big there breasts are, but instead what matters is that you appreciate the women in the artwork, appreciate the form and line that their bodies are able to make and ultimately appreciate their sexuality. His images, I feel, aren’t provocative or over sexualised or idealised, instead they, like mine, are appreciative of not just the female form but the human form in general and I thought that this was a nice link to the issue of female anger.