The Use of POP Art

Whenever I hear the word pop art, I immediately think of comic books and newspaper comics. But is this really all that it is limited to? Certainly not!
I have always been extremely interested by pop art and its ability to portray something that we are so familiar with, yet in bright colors and different formations. Although art expresses the technique and styles of the artist in an unfamiliar way to the viewer, pop art allows the person to connect to the artwork because it may be a can of soup in their kitchen or an iconic celebrity whom they admire. Interestingly enough, pop artists use bright vivid coloring so not only does the part of the title 'pop' come from the popular culture it portrays but also the colors really do POP out to you. Although I do love pop art, my interests are most associated with the American pop artist, Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol depicted campbell's canned soup in a innovative way that inspired many artists to use his form of technique. And it was just not one soup can he expressed.. but many of them. Each different can of soup was brightened with a different formula of colors, all of which compliment each other when put in one big exhibit. Aside Andy Warhol, I am intrigued by the pop art created by famous Rosalyn Drexler who has a bit of a different approach than Andy Warhol. This artist not only uses bright colors but take these forms in an almost geometric/abstract fashion. She mainly shows iconic people in popular culture, but she also expresses her opinion on issues in society through her art, which is daring and very impressive. Pop art was a revolutionary new technique at the time and soared through the United States, especially after Andy Warhol's road to fame! Art is most commonly made through representations of natural life, realistic scenes, and what not, but pop art paved the way to show popular culture as part of the nature of life. It recognized how pervasive consumer materials, pop icons, music, etc. were in our society so much that it often goes unnoticed. Pop art is what genuinely made the majority of people take a moment to appreciate what society offers in its popularized culture and pushed this even further by creating them in bright and fun colors.

In my design class, I recently had to create a design that showed my ability to make colors compliment each other. No other than Andy Warhol did I think of when I heard my assignment. He aligns the same picture together with different colors but keeps in consideration that some colors don't look so good next to each other. For example, most of the time I don't find the colors yellow and purple together but I guess it can be based on one's opinion. Pop art may seem as though it is just painting 2 different colors into an object and doing this consistently to make a whole piece but it is most definitely more difficult than one would think. With this being said, I will post my ending piece of my design to show how Andy Warhol exercised his technique. Here you go!