MONAMORTA
Context Death is the event of departure from life, and is the permanent end of all functions in an organism. It is the time when something ends, or the final state it lacks any hope or glory and thoughts into such matters can appear morose. It is often thought of as sinister and dark.
"If you fear Death, you'll be afraid to live life to the fullest, therefore limiting Your Positive Creative Potential"
- Frank Conde
Death is the end of the life of a biological organism. Death may refer to the end of life as either an event or condition.Many factors can cause or contribute to an organism's death, including predation, disease, habitat destruction, senescence, malnutrition and accidents. The principal causes of death in developed countries are diseases related to aging. Traditions and beliefs related to death are an important part of human culture, and central to many religions. In medicine, biological details and definitions of death have become increasingly complicated as technology advances.
- Wikipedia
Actual Meaning
"My art is created with a purpose, To mitigate in humans their fear of mortality."
This piece represents the normality of death as described the exhibitions title, Conde’s intention was to ease the fear of mortality for humans. The composition depicts the ‘Mona Lisa’ by Leonardo Di Vinci but with a skull in the place of the head. The original is a world renowned painting and a common image to the majority of the public. Therefore when merged with a symbol of death it to might also become more normal and accepted in everyday life.
What the piece means to me
I feel the image itself is quite sinister although the concept behind it is and interesting subject to base a piece of work from. In my opinion it is designed to make people think about their attitude towards death. The artist Frank Conde’s appears to be attempting to rationalize the idea of dying, changing the stereotypical views of morbidity. The Mona Lisa is a popular piece to many artist’s as no-one quite understand how it got to become so famous and why so many people go out of their way to view it. This is similar to the idea of death, which over years has become morbid and sinister, something to be feared and for no apparent reason. So this piece appears to me to be downsize the hype of death and show it in its true form, normal just like the piece of art its part of.
Materials used and how they compliment the meaning
The image by Frank Conde is a digital print using computer aided design, it makes the final outcome of the piece crisp but with layers of texture built into the background. It is in black and white which adds a good tonal quality to the skull in particular. It also helps to convey the meaning of normality and finality in death, that it is something neutral, straight forward and nothing to fear.
Overall Judgment
I find this piece overall quite striking with the use of monochrome and rough textures incorporated with the image of a skull. The image as a whole communicates a clear message or mortality and the idea of death. I feel the way the composition had been laid out is effective as it helps emphasize the meaning, with the harsh lines and the striking contrasts.
My Response
This is an experiment I designed on Photoshop from my interpretation of the 'MONAMORTA' by Frank Conde. It uses the same principals from the previous piece, such as the fact it portrays a famous painting by the artist Picasso with an overriding image of a skull to symbolize death. I changed the image to grayscale to add a more sinister feel to the composition, similar to the piece it was inspired by. I then got a picture of a skull and cropped different features of its face and imposed them on the images using a photoshop effect. I am pleased with the overall result and feel it has the same kind of qualities as the one above but if i was to do it again I would build up the layers using different medias and scan them into the computer to add more depth to the image and make more of an impression.
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