Blog Archives

Purple Rain

24/4/2016

By Deb A.

He would play a few notes and then stop, nonchalantly dismissive: 'Nahhh... I don't think you can handle it.' The crowd would shriek, laughing and begging and howling, unsure of whether their cheers meant that they wanted more or that he was right: they couldn't handle it. He would always give them just a little more than they could handle. Prince made an indelible purple mark on generations.

As the world began to light up purple, collaborative studio Random International put a call out to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to amend its Rain Room. The exhibit allows visitors to control the rain: falling water pauses in response to a human presence. LACMA bills Rain Room as "a respite from everyday life and an opportunity for sensory reflection within a responsive relationship."

On Friday, visitors found themselves underneath the purple rain.

"I only want to see you laughing in the purple rain" #RIPPrince — see our tribute to the pop legend on Snapchat (@lacma) #lacma #RainRoom #PurpleRain

A video posted by Los Angeles County Museum of Art (@lacma) on Apr 21, 2016 at 1:43pm PDT

The exhibit is closed from tomorrow until May 19th due to conservation efforts. But the world will still be purple for days and weeks to come.

And the universe will be, too, for much, much longer.

A purple nebula, in honor of Prince, who passed away today. https://t.co/7buFWWExMw pic.twitter.com/ONQDwSQwVa
— NASA (@NASA) April 21, 2016

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Loving Vincent: A Film in Oil Paintings

16/4/2016

Still from Loving Vincent

By Deb A.

It only makes sense that a film about Vincent van Gogh be groundbreaking.

Loving Vincent is the world's first fully painted feature animation. The investigation of the artist's life and death is based on van Gogh's own paintings and an archive of 800 of his letters. Honouring van Gogh's statement that "we cannot speak other than by our paintings," the film is anchored by the artist's own works; 62,000 oil paintings on canvas (one for each frame, or 1/12th of a second), created by artists who were specifically trained in van Gogh's techniques, fill out the story.

Of van Gogh's 2000 works, only about 100 made the cut: some, like The Potato Eaters, were too much of a stylistic break from the method used for the animation. Others, including some of his most famous paintings, were sacrificed for the sake of a cohesive storyline.

There was another type of painting required to make the film: being forced to stifle their own creative flourishes in order to fit within van Gogh's distinctively energetic style, some of the team of 85 artists needed an outlet. They painted for themselves on the weekend.

The character of Vincent van Gogh does not appear in the film; instead, quotes from his letters are read out by his family, friends, and the subjects of his paintings, including Margaret Gachet (Saiorse Ronan) and Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth). Directed by painter and director Dorota Kobiela--who came up with the idea after rereading van Gogh's letters--and produced by Oscar winner Hugh Welchman, Loving Vincent is due to be released later this year.