by Mike Bandy

 

Last night on Work of Art: The Next Great Artist, the artists entered the gallery to find judge China Chow standing in front of a bunch of question marks. She produces a suitcase and asks everyone to pick a paint tube out of it. Each paint tube contains a word or phrase: some examples were monster, love, good vs. evil, and time travel. The artists travel to the other side of the question marks and find book covers of six classic novels: Alice in Wonderland, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Pride & Prejudice, The Time Machine, Dracula, and Frankenstein.

This week, each artist must create a cover for a classic book. Kathryn Court, president and publisher at Penguin books, came to talk about how important artwork on a book cover is. The winning design will be published on a penguin book which will be for sale all over America. They have until midnight that night to complete their work.

Based on the words drawn from the paint tubes, Erik & Nicole had Alice in Wonderland; Ryan & Nao had The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Jaclyn & Judith had Pride & Prejudice, John & Peregrine had The Time Machine, Abdi & Miles had Frankenstein, and Mark & Jamie Lynn had Dracula.

In the work room, Miles felt guilty that he hadn't ever read Frankenstein, so he took the time to read the book before creating his piece. Nao expressed that she didn't like Erik's painting, and Jaclyn decided to make her piece risqué. Judith's attitude rubbed the other artists the wrong way, and Miles expressed that when Judith gets tired, she gets crazy. Abdi had to scrap his original idea of a sculpture and start over again with a painting.

Simon De Pury comes to the workroom to check on the pieces, and thinks John's piece is striking but a little abstract. He thought Peregrine's piece was too complicated and intricate and that Jaclyn's didn't have a lot to do with the story. Simon said that Mark's photo of Ryan for the Dracula cover was too romantic, but his second option was perfect. Judith was working on a fingerprint work in a floral pattern; Simon asked her how it relates to the book, and she had trouble coming up with an answer. He said he thought it was "hasty".

It's gallery time! A breakdown of the pieces:

Abdi's Frankenstein was a spray-painted stencil of a man surrounded by lots of reds, oranges and pinks. The author and title of the book was spray-painted in black to the right.

Miles's Frankenstein was a wooden board which he'd stapled wires to in a DNA sort of pattern, then set on fire.

Erik's Alice in Wonderland had the title in script at the center, with Alice at the top and the Mad Hatter at the bottom. The entire thing had a Queen of Hearts card as the backdrop.

 
Nicole's Alice in Wonderland was a bright blue background with a removal box in the center; inside was a biscuit that said "eat me."

 
Jaclyn's Pride & Prejudice was a black and white, pencil and watercolor drawing of a half naked photo of herself, standing next to a tree.

 
Judith's Pride & Prejudice was pink on one side, black on the other, with her fingerprints surrounding the title, which was written backwards in script at the top center.

 
Jamie Lynn's Dracula was a watercolor landscape of a castle in a forest with a long, winding road leading up to it.

Mark's Dracula was white on the top, with blood dripping down to form the title, and the bottom was black with a shadowy picture of Ryan in the center.

John's The Time Machine was a very bright pink, multi-faceted jewel with a ladder sticking out the bottom end of it.

Peregrine's The Time Machine was all brown, the title in big letters in the center, surrounded by various characters found in the book.

Nao's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was a photo of herself in gothic makeup staring through a glass with ink dripping down into it.

Ryan's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was a photo of a man from three different angles, very gray and shadowy.

Called out were John, Judith, Mark, Jaclyn, and Peregrine.

 
The judges really liked John's piece, they said it was very striking to the eye. Judith's piece made one of the judges feel stupid, they did not enjoy her piece as a whole. Mark's piece was deemed very direct and contemporary, and the judges thought it was the most commercial. Jaclyn's piece was called generic and the judges said that she wanted to show herself, but backed out. Judith was asked what she thought of Jaclyn's piece, as they were assigned the same book, and she said that it didn't look skilled. The judges also didn't like Peregrine's piece, and didn't feel it was relevant for a sci-fi novel.

The top two were John and Mark, with John being the winner of the challenge. The bottom three were Jaclyn, Judith, and Peregrine, with Judith ultimately being eliminated.

 

 

Work of Art: The Next Great Artist airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on Bravo.

 

(Image courtesy of Bravo)

 

 

For more Work of Art links, visit SirLinksALot.net