CONCEPT
For my expressive portrait I chose Kurt
Cobain, lead singer and guitarist of Nirvana. He killed himself in the early
90s.
Kurt Cobain rejected society and denounced
its nonsense. Composing, writing, playing or singing really helped him to
express himself and ease his social malaise.
His music became really popular and
famous, as well as him. His person and his music were used by this same society
to make money and served the system he was denouncing and transforming him into
a sad joke.
More he was sick of the society, more he needed to express himself through music. But more he was creating music, more the system was using it to make money. His creations became a tool he hated.
Trapped in the scheme and in the public image of himself, he decided to kill himself, seeing in death the only escape.
His expectation about being a musician were really far from the reality. Once he achieved his goal of becoming a professional musician, it was absolutely not what he expected and he get lost in this disappointment. Instead of learning and back off, he get deeper and deeper in it, though drugs and excesses.
More he was sick of the society, more he needed to express himself through music. But more he was creating music, more the system was using it to make money. His creations became a tool he hated.
Trapped in the scheme and in the public image of himself, he decided to kill himself, seeing in death the only escape.
His expectation about being a musician were really far from the reality. Once he achieved his goal of becoming a professional musician, it was absolutely not what he expected and he get lost in this disappointment. Instead of learning and back off, he get deeper and deeper in it, though drugs and excesses.
In my portrait, I wanted to show
·
the gap between
the idea of being an artist/musician and the reality
·
the fact that
you really figure out this gap when you entered this business
I chose to include a guitar to show his
rapport to the music, the fact he kept doing music despite it became dangerous
for his mental health. The chords became rope.
DESIGN CHOICES
I wanted to used only black lines and
superpose them to create shades. It is not a usual way to use the cubism and
this is why I wanted to try to improve my skills in Illustrator.
Unfortunately, it was hard to recognise him
using only black and white. So I added touches of colors.
The rope has the highest saturation to
highlight it.
And because cubism is about showing what the
eyes can’t see, I added the rope behind his head in transparency. The bright
colour of the rope reveals the shape of a musical note.
FEW DRAFTS
 |
| At first, I used a front view of Kurt Cobain. But the mouth and the eyes were too detailed and they burdened the design. |
 |
| I chose a black and white picture where it was way more interesting to play with the shades of his face. |
 |
| My first idea was to use only black lines except on the rope but I was afraid that we couldn't recognised him and the poster seemed empty/unfinished. |
