Lecture notes: David Bowie
Last week we were given a lecture on David Bowie, so in this blog post I decided to create a short summary of things I have learned about David Bowie. I knew about him before and I have heard his music in the past, but I did not know he was also painting. This was a new information for me, but back to the beginning.
David Bowie was born in 1947 in London and he was a very well known musician. His first hit was called 'Space Oddity' and it came out in 1969. Bowie was generally interested in all types of art, not only music. He was also passionate about theater and mime. For my generation David Bowie is mostly known for the creation of his alter ego - Ziggy Stardust because it was indeed his breakthrough.
Ziggy Stardust is a character created by David Bowie in 1972. He can be recognized by his makeup and style which was colorful. He was a rockstar.
David Bowie was a real musician who he did not limit himself to only one genre of music. He played rock, punk rock, new wave and pop. In my opinion artists who try different music types and are successful in all of them are extraordinary. I believe that it shows the possibilities of the artist and their willingness to evolve musically. I think it also shows the maturity and shows the process of maturing by going through different music genres.
What I did not know about David Bowie is the fact that he also painted. This was a new information for me during the lecture. I have never seen his paintings before. I think the fact that he liked theater, music and fine art shows his flexibility as an artist and the real creativity. Nowadays there aren't that many artists who are successful in so many different art directions.
Bowie started showing his work in 1994, but he did create before that, he just did not really show the paintings. 
This self portrait is a lot more serious. It does remind me of a comic character. It makes me think of a villain, which I believe is really interesting because that means that the author probably had something similar in mind. Why would he portray himself to look scary and so strong. That is something that intrigues me. I can see a huge difference between the piece from 1978 and this one. This makes me think that the artist knows exactly who he is and what he wants to achieve. It is a strong personality that is not scared of anything, it is the other way around - others are scared of him. I think the red accents make the piece really stand out and they add seriousness to the artwork. 
This artwork is done in a very extraordinary technique, it is hand-pulled silkscreen on a special Japanese paper. It is inspired by a tarot card and it is definitely very expressive. There is a lot of color contrast created in the piece, both light-dark contrast and green-red contrast (complementary colors). The skeleton looks very childlike which makes it even scarier in my opinion. If I saw this piece in a museum I would probably spend some time analyzing it, however I do not really like it. It is interesting, but it it not something I particularly enjoy looking at. I think it is messy and it does not have this something special that make me dive into the artwork. It is my personal opinion and everyone is entitled to having their own opinion and I understand how one can admire this piece, but for me it just does not do it.
David Bowie created a lot of self portraits, therefore I also decided to look at that work he has created. I picked only a few of them to just get the idea of where he was going with those self portraits. I also wanted to see how his style changed over the years.
This first portrait I decided to look at is a very childlike piece. It has different sort of line-making techniques used and the lines are of different thicknesses. I think this creates a very interesting composition because it makes me wonder why some lines are thicker than others, what did the author have in mind while creating the piece. I personally think that this portrait looks like a boy. It does not look like a grown adult because the face is very soft and the eyes are big. It makes me think of a young boy who is still growing. I do not know what Bowie had in mind creating this piece, but I do think he may have thought about himself as a child. He may have meant that he is still growing as an artist and he is still evolving. I personally can see that idea of showing immaturity and childishness of a grown adult. The piece reminded me of a Polish book called 'Ferdydurke' because the book is showing the awfulness of changing from an immature young person to a grown adult and the book is analyzing how people see immaturity and how it is something shameful for adults. I think this piece by Bowie could be a representation of artistic immaturity of a person who is an adult and who should already be mature. I personally enjoy this piece very much because it created thoughts in my head. Any piece that provokes me to think makes me pleased because I like when art has many deep meanings I can figure out just by really analyzing it in depth.
This piece is from the same year as the last one and once again Bowie portrayed himself by using many very strong lines. In my opinion it really shows what he thought about himself at the time. Maybe he was mad at himself or was generally just feeling some sort of very strong emotions. Maybe he saw himself as a very powerful person and it is why he was no longer showing himself as a child. There is a big difference between the first portrait I looked at and this one. This is a lot stronger and really shows that he is an adult. Maybe he is highlighting his maturity and that he knows what kind of artist he is and he is achieved. Maybe he saw himself as evil and a villain in the story in his life. I am not able to ask him the questions or enter his head, but I can make speculations on what he might have thought when creating the piece.
David Bowie died in 2016 and he is still a very famous musician.
I really enjoyed looking at Bowie's art pieces because I have never even knew that he did art. I liked looking at the portraits because they can always tell a lot about the artist and especially when the artist is such an interesting character. I think entering Bowie's head can be quite scary because of his extraordinary approach to life and art. Looking at his paintings can be understood as a way of entering his head a little bit and seeing his thoughts. I think it is very interesting and I liked analyzing his works.
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