Walking around Queens, I found the objects/fragments below that I considered to have either an ambiguous or obvious figure/ground relationship.

1. Ambiguous
2. Obvious
3. Ambiguous

We live in a world of tidiness. Homes are tidy, the people in the homes are tidy, the streets surrounding are gleaming. The year is 2030, and the trash and recycling bins they’ve placed on all the corners are finally doing their jobs. When we walk down the streets there’s no litter or marks in sight… Until we come across this estranged stain on a particular corner of a particular street. They must have missed a spot. Or maybe they left it there because it was too difficult to remove.4. Obvious

I’ve lived here for two seasons of spring and the purple plastic remains. The leaves sprout and inevitably fall off again, and still it stays, as if it’s a neighborhood resident too. No matter the weather it’s frayed limbs catch the air. It’s color is bright and cheery but it’s current state makes it dark and dreary.5. Ambiguous 6. Obvious

 

Obvious Image #1

Walls of the dirty subway station

The stains of sea salt drip down

leaving marks from the salty sidewalks

Dirt, layer upon of layer

Leaving the debris thickening

To make the project a little more fun, I wrote a free verse poem of how I thought the organic drips of white salt got to where it is, displayed in the picture above. It is obvious in the top half of the image is on a flat surface. There are no shadows along the white stains that affect the relationship the relationship of the figure to the ground.

Obvious Image #2

Layered in Lacquer

Shattered by a mean thump

Did someone bang the table?

Or was it the decay of some cheap paint,

that no one cared for?

I really like this image due to the organic lines that spread out through the whole image. The cracks along the painted surface reminds me of ice beginning to melt after the winter cold. I also did not notice at first, but the two “dot” figures on the left appear to look like eyes; eyes giving a side look of curiosity.

Obvious Image #3

Splat on the ground

Worn away from wonderers

It appears ghostly

This obvious image is in a sort of geometric-organic shape. One can see that it is in a circular shape, but it is also not a perfect circle/oval. This stain on the ground is probably from a piece of gum left on the floor and all the dirt probably did not get removed. The relationship of the figure to ground is very apparent and clear. It does not confuse the eyes with the different shades in the photo.

Ambiguous #1

This image in color appears to be obvious, but I know once I start to transfer this image it will become ambiguous to the eyes due to the binary colors used for the project. The colors used in the project will make the figure to ground relationship very ambiguous to what the figure truly is.

This image shows a left over piece of gum left on the subway grounds. It also looks like a dead butterfly on the ground.

 

Ambiguous #2

This is obviously an ambiguous image due to the relationship of colors. It is 50/50 in both white and black, making the figure here very ambiguous to viewers.