HOAI-MY TRAN

Candy Problems

My project is based on illnesses caused by high concentrations of sugar (not chocolate). When candy is mentioned, its first relation is to sugar. As children, parents are likely to limit our consumption of candy because children are prone to eat an unhealthy amounts of sugar. As we age, we understand that there are many illnesses associated to sugar consumption such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. However, people still consume more than the necessary amount not realizing that high amounts of sugar can cause irreversible damage to the body. I decided to address the issue by recreating well known candy bars warning about health problems through overconsumption. I started my process by researching the different styles and flavors of candy bars, as well as meanings and relation of sugar and illnesses. After deciding to use the well known Hershey’s candy bars, I recreated the wrapping from scratch. To keep the wrappers as similar as it can be to the original, for each candy I researched all the different fonts, sizes, color, and nutrition facts. I changed the titles “HERSHEY’S" and “mr. Goodbar” on the wrapper to different illnesses. On the back under the nutrition facts, I included the percentage of risk due to high consumption of sugar depending on each illness. In a box below the nutrition facts, I added additional information on what the illness is and how sugar causes the illness labeled. Beside the information, I added a warning specifically for each illness, and added “Questions, comments, or potential lawsuits?” with the company’s contact information. Through the series of three, all the candy bars are produced from the same company and lists the illnesses caused by high sugar consumption. For presentation of my project, I wrapped the Hershey’s bars in silver foil wrapping and my custom wrappers, recreating how the bars are put together. In a way, my project is intended to make the custom wrappers into simple pamphlets on illnesses caused by high sugar consumption.

Houses

This project is based on the exploration of the familiar yet ordinary scenes through its transformation into a stylistic hard edged version with its inverted color palette. The image is made to be seen online through the the web where you can zoom in closer and explore the details of the scene. Even though it is opposite in style and color palette to the original scene, the image should evoke a sense of familiarity towards scenes found around the home. The different sizes and colors of triangles mocks the movement of the leaves in the trees in the foreground. The image is composed of repetitions in shape and color in order to focus on the subject within the image rather than the realism within the image. Despite the different style and inverted colors, the scene should still be recognizable. These images are created through photoshop and placed on the web to be explored through use of a laptop or computer by zooming into the image.

Nighthawk vs. Super Mario Bros

I merged Edward Hopper’s painting, Nighthawks and the video game series, Mario. Originally, Hopper’s painting has a grip on isolation emphasized by the large empty space, dark color palette, and few focusing characters. The Mario series consists of a collection of video games by Nintendo with a wide variety of characters. Noting that Hopper modeled the figures on he and his wife, Josephine, I decided to merge the two ideas by stylizing Nighthawks’ background as well as integrating context of his life as well as informative parts of the Mario series. I substituted the couple on the right with images of Mario and Princess Peach, a couple from the Mario series. Considering Josephine was his muse, Hopper and his wife spent day and night together. Although they had a strong bond, the constant time together caused them to have mutual domestic violence. In one instance, art historian Gail Levin noted that Josephine “scratched Hopper and bit him to the bone” (“Man and Muse,” The Guardian). As a sort of irony, I included the character Dry Bones to physically represent the instance and to replace the figure that was depicted by Josephine as dark and ominous. I stylized the background to Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks to create a connection for the two subjects, only keeping a similar color palette, and the diner’s tools and tableware in its original painterly form. Through utilizing different layers and masks, the original format of the background and figures within the diner are kept the same. Although the cigar is detrimental to one’s health, I replaced it with my drawing of a mushroom the video game uses to restore a player’s health. Beside the mushroom, the sign displays “Toad Town Cafe” and “Mushroom Kingdom” in a similar font Hopper employed referencing the area Princess Peach oversees and Mario travels through. Below, Luigi is positioned near Mario and Princess Peach representing that he is always ready to aide his older brother. To the left, there are additional characters set up in the background within the darkness of the windows representing more often than not that they are the minor characters from the video games. They are place further away in order to retain the feeling of isolation from the original painting. On the other hand, Bowser, the main antagonist in the Mario series, is set up behind the diner with one clawed hand reaching out ready to capture Princess Peach and wreck havoc yet again. His addition is to provide a dash of the Mario plot into the scene. With the stylized background and the positioning of the characters, I was able to integrate parts from the life of Edward Hopper and of the Mario series.