Angela Wang

The inspiration for this piece of work was Dancing Mutants (1965) by the artist Hernando R. Ocampo (1911-1978, aged 67). Ocampo was a Filipino leading radical modernist artist. His works often reflected the harsh realities of World War II. He is very adept at depicting abstract sceneries using fierce and bold colours. The original painting of the dancing mutants was actually about the two nuclear bombs that America dropped on Japan during World War II, the green leaf like shapes representing the mutant figures swaying alongside nature.

However, when I saw the painting at the national art gallery, the first thing that came to my mind is that the colours and the shapes made it look like a ripe dragon fruit. Our teacher told us to draw thumbnails of our ideas. There were many variations of the same idea that I produced, however I liked this big dragonfruit composition the best… so that is what I painted. I made the background a really dark shade of green with a big white triangle in the top right corner to give it a contrast.

Then, I drew a red six in the middle. I marked out where the leaves would go and then detailed it a bit. I chose the number six because it is the month when the dragon fruit is the ripest. I really enjoyed planning this painting in my book and I really think the version in my book look better, even though this final painting is closer to the inspirational artwork. I really enjoyed trying to make the painting realistic.