Lecture 4- Pop Art

Andy Warhol (1928-1987, USA) used commercials, an illustrator and a painter.


He was famous for creations of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Mouse, Elvis Presley. He distinctively used contrasts with colour and dark shadows around the celebrities.

 
Also influenced by commercial advertising, Warhol recreated a Brilla Box packaging. This era was fascinated with signage and trademarks.
Some of his advertisement recreations include Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, matchboxes, and Campbell soup cans.

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997, USA) is a painter who uses strong colours such as reds and yellows. He played on the speech bubbles, using phrases such as sweet dreams. His inventive phrases were implemented in films before someone would shoot someone. He used automateopia in his comics to describe the sounds happening in the narrative. The following is one of Lichtenstein's pieces of work called the drowning girl:



Even this picture describes a narrative and we can assume what has happened. Without having to read the comic, only from experiences and the experiences of others we understand the message of the image. It shows a woman who is love struck, and her emotions are commercialised. The image is a pun, that she crying and looks as if she has taken the water of the ocean from her tears. It explains that she does not care anymore, she would rather just "sink" hide away and never come back than call Brad.

Lichtenstein has the ability to isolate a moment and make us focus on the one situation. It displays a problem in a narrative and what she her head is thinking. The speech bubbles are the monologue, as verbally they express what she is thinking. The narrative could again be love struck and that there is no point running after the one she loves when it is hopeless when he doesn't love her back.
Below is the image Hopeless: