GCSE Art Blog: 2016

Tuesday 22 November 2016

Homework

Your homework this week is to create a double page spread about Niki de Saint Phalle. It may contain her early work but must contain some of her Nana series. You may paint, collage, make your own sculptures and photograph them.

Niki de Saint Phalle is said to have based the Nanas on a pregnant friend so perhaps you might find photos of family who are pregnant (get permission first!) and add these images to your page

You might look at the Willendorf Venus (one of the earliest images of the body carved some 25,000 years ago at just over 4 1/2 inches it was found of the banks of the river Danube in Austria) perhaps the de Saint Phalle was also influenced by it as well.

Niki de Saint Phalle

1. Brides, Nanas and other sculptures
The early works represent the artist’s attempt to re-build her life following her hospitalisation – destroying her past and creating something new from the fragments. She was also trying to redefine and reconcile her own roles as a woman - a wife, a mother and an artist. If the early works demonstrate an aggressive approach to material, her later sculptures and paintings reveal a more relaxed, playful attitude and the artist appears comfortable in her new-found freedom to create.
Between 1963 and 1964 she created a series of brides, mothers, hearts and heads. The brides were sometimes seated, sometimes on horseback and constructed from small objects and toys bound by chicken wire. They are beautiful, passive and detached from real life – more like fairy-tale princesses.
In contrast, the Nanas are loud, brash and bursting with energy! The inspiration for these larger than life characters was a drawing made by her friend, artist Larry Rivers of his wife Clarice whilst heavily pregnant. The first sculptures were made from cloth, yarn and papier maché over a wire base. Those meant for outdoor settings were made from stronger materials such as polystyrene, plaster and cement, with a metal frame.

Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle - Black Beauty

Niki de Saint Phalle - Black Beauty (Nana series) 1968 from Art Gallery of Western Australia on Vimeo.

“My first exhibition with Nanas I called ‘Nana power! To me they represented happy, liberated women.” Niki de Saint Phalle