Pastiche

“an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period” – this is the dictionary definition of a pastiche. It describes exactly what a pastiche is, but it doesn’t give the wider context. A pastiche then, I believe is something that is often used to portray a message, either through imagery and/or text. Some people may argue that a pastiche piece of art is plagiary, and there is an arguement for this – you are taking somebody else’s design and using it for yourself. However, I think the way in which a pastiche takes the original message and changes it to suit the new one, transcends any plagiary. It takes a lot of originality and creativity to produce a successful pastiche, and could be argued is almost harder to achieve, than starting on a blank canvas.

With this in mind I set out to produce a pastiche of my own, which tackles the current global issue of the Coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of writing most of the world is in some sort of lockdown, and a general 2m ‘social distancing’ rule is in place. But the longer this restriction goes on, the more frustrated and fed-up the general public are, and will, become. My pastiche then, will aim to reflect this feeling, but also advice/encourage people to stick with it for the time-being, in a sort of ‘tough love’ kind of style.

My initial thoughts as to how best to portray this immediately lead me to thinking about faces, and face coverings which are becoming ever-increasingly used to protect against the spread of the virus. My searching then lead me to various famous prints/posters, predominantly music based, where the face is the prominent feature. However the one which stood out to me the most, and I feel can be used as part of a successful pastiche is the below Nirvana poster:

Although the true origin of the ‘x-eyed smiley’ motif are unclear, the generally accepted consensus is that the group’s iconic frontman Kurt Cobain drew it. The meaning behind it is also not defined, but again is generally accepted to be a symbol of defiance against the manufactured music of the time – “But what was the significance of the smiley face? Obviously based on the black and yellow smiley logo that had become popular in the 1970s, then became subtly subverted by the acid house craze in the late 80s, the image was obviously a comment on the inane, manufactured pop music that Nirvana and other grunge bands were kicking against.” – https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/nirvana/what-does-the-nirvana-smiley-face-logo-mean/

Above, you can see my thought process into how I could develop the existing icon into my own pastiche, using the face mask as one of the key features to give perhaps the most obvious visual change. Other tweaks I thought of included visually demonstrating the 2m rule, as well as a clever play on words with ‘NERVEANA’. Below you can see the finished outcome: