The main objective to my project was to capture the essence and emotion of the album Lungs through a series of drawings. Florence’s sound is dramatic, playful, emotional and even magical at times. My aim was to make imagery that portrayed this intense, raw emotion but in an ethereal, theatrical manner. I chose four songs in particular, each with very different themes, in order to sustain the wide scope of emotion offered by the album.
You got the love is about faith; knowing you have god to look after you when there is noone else. It’s an uplifting song about religious beliefs and the strength they find as a result of that belief. The doves signify peace and hope and act as a symbolic reference to God. The doves circle the protagonist serving like guardian angels.
Cosmic love is about an unrequited love that turns how to be just the opposite. The over-riding theme in this song is love and how powerful it can be. She sings of being stuck in a twilight zone where she ceases to live and merely exists. When the couple find out they’re both in love, they stay in this twilight and it instead becomes a positive place. She’s describing how when madly inlove, you can be anywhere as long as you are with that person; nothing else matters. Their love is so powerful it could ‘blow out the stars and moon’. I have drawn the protagonist to expose both her extreme loneliness and love simultaneously.
I believe Drumming song is about repressed urges. I wanted her to be trying to ‘drown out the drumming noises(the urges)’ by diving underwater. Her taut posture re-iterates the frustration she feels when it doesn’t solve the problem. If you dream about being underwater, it’s supposed to mean that you’re feeling overcome with emotion. If you dream about breathing underwater, it’s said to signify a withdrawal back into the womb; a yearning for a chance to return to a position where you are liberated from responsibilities. This would be a place to escape her adult inclinations.
Rabbit heart is about Florence giving up her normal life to make it as a successful artist. The song is very sacrificial which I wanted to demonstrate again through her stance; as if she is anxiously giving herself up to a life of fame and fortune, but also non-stop hassle and judgment. She’s giving up a life she can never get back for her love of performing. While researching, I discovered that Welch did actually suffer from bouts of depression in that cross over stage from normality to stardom, so this song is obviously very close to her heart. One lyric from the song : ‘and in the spring I shed my skin, and it blows away in the changing wind’ inspired me to paint the change she is going through with a shedding skin; the unravelling of her old life. It’s a song about decision-making; about choosing your path in life; not knowing whether it will be the right one. The shed skin blows off into two directions – two paths, two choices.
Rendering the dress in only line defined it from the tonal body and left a fine linear quality suited to illustrate the material.
I plan to develop this style on by looking at people and situations from an obscure angle – a different take on the world. Possibly to the extent that a figure or day-to-day object becomes almost unrecognisable and more of an abstract composition.
Possible exhibiting layout
