I originally started to look at designing the t-shirts in a way that didn’t make sense. For example I wanted to use them as recipe books or as a notebook. However as I have created some more objects to go into my room, I wanted to make designs focussing on the aesthetic whilst also looking at the history of surrealism. Below is a design I have made in response to Magritte’s Ceci nest pas une pipe.
Whilst Magritte states that an image of a pipe is in fact not a pipe, I tried to flip the narrative and state that an 8 ball is an orange. I am also referencing Paul Eluard’s poem La terre est bleue comme une orange (The earth is blue like an orange). It is a metaphor that can appear to be absurd, but ends up imposing its legitimacy. Both the earth and the orange have a spherical structure. The colour blue carries happiness – as it is linked to the blue of the sky, to the air and to the ideal. The earth is compared to an orange – a fruit that is rich and full of life. The ideal earth appears as a beautiful fruit – it has its round shape, its fragrance and its fullness. Throughout Paul Eluard’s works, we find surrealist characteristics, such as love, poetry and the unusual combination of words.
The spherical shape of the 8 ball recalls the shape of an orange – to say that an 8 ball is an orange, is no more ludicrous than saying a shoe is a moon in Magritte’s La trahison des images.
I am adding to this post a little later… instead of painting a t-shirt, I have made a giant 8-ball from a vinyl – that will sit in my vinyl player for the installation. I thought about the links between the chape and sturdiness and felt that this linked more with the research above.
My surreal world 