For my sustainable futures project i wanted to look at overpopulation within the brief of sustainable futures and explore a means of conveying overpopulation in a fine art manner without being stereotypical or cliche but also trying to use smart and easy methods to convey it.
For me as a painter one artist stood out as an obvious starting point; Bill Jacklin. Although not an artist trying to show overpopulation his paintings and monoprints of crowded spaces with visions of people rushing through was something i would like to explore
Jacklins simplistic and bustling pictures shows the crowded movement of everyday life in a somewhat picturesque point of view and i want to try create some paintings with him in mind if not some drawings of people in a crowded public space.
On the flip side the artist Marjan Teeuwen looks at the clutter and disarray of overcrowding spaces and trying to find some order amongst the chaos
Marjan Teeuwen Cabinet of wonder and destroyed house installation pieces
The clutter has been repurposed to show a certain type of beauty with all the colours and shapes from found objects. inadvertently she creates a sense of overcrowding filling your vision to the frame. this is a way of representing overpopulation showing how much material items we carry with us physically which can represent the body of people with it. It can also do so by each object representing a person like an shape and using visual communication to convey this.
I explored looking at shapes to show overcrowding and experimented with a variety of methods 2D, 3D and a variety of colours however this tends to come across as somewhat cliche and more poster art off of the internet or on some motivational picture.
I think i would lean towards the figurative element of overpopulation rather the the representative, as i enjoy the aspect of capturing life through drawing and pictures and can use first hand source material for my work
Harry Toller 