The primary purpose of this course is to present and examine contemporary critical issues, concepts and language with a view towards aiding the student to understand and define their own role as a working artist in the contemporary art arena.
Hello All, Please post drafts of your Artist Statements by clicking on the comments link below. Please post all drafts by Midnight,Wednesday, October 13, 2010.
My artistic endeavors are rooted in my interest in recent history and location. I have always been drawn to things that have happened in the past that are completely intangible. The idea of how time changes people, places or things has informed my interest in location. Specifically, locations of homes are at the center of my paintings. My interests are in families, neighborhoods, communities and how they can shift over time. With my most recent work, I wanted to explore the bizarre phenomena of living life in suburban America. I am fascinated by the generic quality of life, commercial sprawl, and mass traffic. Growing up in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, I have nostalgic attachment to strip malls, highways, and housing subdivisions. With all of these elements, I want to create a visual language that illuminates a sprawling movement as well as the tension between the city, the suburb and natural undeveloped landscape.
I am very passionate about Jewelry Designing. I am often inspired by history: shapes, colors, textures, and nature. Lately I have been really into mixed media art, which has built more structure and theme to my work. I have done a lot of research of Tribal Art and have become very interested in their styles, colors, and techniques. Besides creating tribal inspired jewelry, I enjoy enameling, wire-work, as well as adding texture to my work by etching, sandblasting, stamping, etc. I apply both traditional and contemporary methods to make Jewelry. I do not restrict myself with what materials I use to make jewelry; i am experimenting with many kinds of medium.
In five years, I see myself working for a distinguished Jewelry company, working hard on perfecting my craft, as well as starting a small business. I would love to make my own line of Jewelry that allows the world to see how I express myself through the medium of small metals. I know this will take hard work and dedication, but I am ready for the challenge.
As a mixed media artist and a student I explore different areas of art. I have recently started to find a focus that I’m interested into exploring, such as the figure and manipulating it. Recently I have explored the figure as a subject matter for my work. The figure is a subject matter that is constantly being investigated. I started out with abstract drawings of these emotional looking figures; then through time started to elongate them. I took one of the images and translated it onto wood and cute and sanded it down. I them took that figure and laminated it onto a collaged board; which was mounted on a flange and pipe to make the piece come off of the wall. From this piece I have embarked on several other figure pieces using mostly carving instead of sanding to get the shape I hope for. I believe that making these figures will help me develop them into becoming more then just figure studies. I plan on adding different materials to these pieces and making them more dimensional. With this new direction that I am planning on taking I feeling compelled to bring these figures to life.
I am inspired by the natural world like nothing else – and through my respect for it, I attempt to give back to the Earth a beauty that comes from the motions of my hands. As forces of globalization, capitalism, and industrialization grow rapidly, we continue to lose touch of the necessary relationships all species once had with the Earth to function in perfect symbiosis. My work is focused on the examination of our relationship to the natural world.
Installation or sculpture is my outlet for these perceptions. I use materials I gather from outside: vines, branches, trash, leaves, mud, stones, concrete – whatever appeals to me, and create an object or an addition to an environment. Locations with an abundance of beauty and awe compel me to give part of myself to the space. I don’t want my creations to interfere with the landscape, but to add to it. I want for my materials the possibility of decay so they can return to their natural surroundings.
The ephemeral quality of my work is important because I believe nothing is permanent, but rather in a constant state of evolution. To alter what is already in a landscape by rearranging its form, but still allowing the ability to decompose makes my work as fluid as everything in existence without trying to delay an inevitable degradation. My process is just as important as my outcome. I relish in the motions of cutting and wrestling materials, and limit my tools as much as possible. When my hands are aching and I am dirty, I feel satisfied.
II have been a part of the Philadelphia arts community my entire life. My father, Domingo Negron is a graphic designer and artist working out of North Philadelphia, he is the source of much inspiration. His Puerto Rican and Taino roots have paved a path for my new age interpretation and perception on familial identity, and my Puerto Rican- Irish American roots. I refere to my work as an urban jungle. I see many similarities between a dense jungle and the city in which I grew up.
I use bold colors within my creations as I develop layers. Multiple ideas and concepts including Latino culture, graffiti/street art, universal imagery of animals and nature frequently show up in my work. I use technoliogical advances such as Photoshop to make compositions then combine them with hand painting and collage.
I use a range of media such as, oil pastels, paint markers, spray paint, glitter, oil and acrylic paint. I have also begun using mirrors and other three dimensional objects, molding past or glass beads to give my work some texture and depth.
I make large, colorful abstract drawings with collage and painting. My methodical process involves disassembling drawings and piecing them back together to get a new image, which I then embellish. I have begun working on shaped canvases such as triangle and circles and large cut out drawing creating new boundaries because I have the resources and materials to make new and exciting compositions and steer away from typical geometric shapes. In the future I plan to move more towards painting on new surfaces, such as wood, or steel and combining it with lights and sculpture. I am very interested in becoming more developed as an installation artist in conjunction with my drawings and paintings.
Sophie Strachan I think I’ve always known the fragmented and hypocritical. Somewhat like my thought processes my art is fragmented and distorted. My art is memories. Whether I want to create a world in which to retreat or if I want to recall a dream world that I have visited, both involve memory in one way or another. We attach ourselves to memories, but they aren’t to be trusted because they are not eternal or stable. Memories, like most other things, are constantly changing, shifting and blurring. With my work I want to convey a feeling of instability, through images derived from memories, dreams and altered states of consciousness.
Brianna Barton Jack Maloney October 6, 2010 Critical Discourse
Fill in Later is a continuation of a collaborative experiment intended to discover what is possible when the creative process becomes a shared experience.
It is an exploration of the viewer’s relationship to a work and how one might react when gallery etiquette is challenged.
We don’t like how the artist always gets to make the stuff, and the viewer always views it. We want to share, so everyone does a little making and everyone does a little looking.
Fill in Later is a reverting back to the simplicities of childhood, when being a good artist meant successfully coloring within the lines.
Fill in Later might catalyze new friendships and worldviews.
Fill in Later observes what this world is, what it isn’t, and what it could be, which is all a matter of individual opinion.
It is possible for you to make Fill in Later ugly (ugly is in the eye of the beholder), but it is not possible for you to screw it up.
What a funny surprise to find in a space where one is typically told, “look don’t touch.”
Fill in Later is an inside joke that we would like to share.
I am fascinated by the relationship created between the industrial and natural worlds. I find myself in awe of some of the simplest forms I encounter on a daily basis, finding beauty in everything. I transform that fascination into sculpture, while incorporating traditionally formal aesthetics in a stimulating way. The materials I use are the driving force behind my work and they are my primary inspiration. Steel is my medium of choice. When I see a piece of steel my mind races with the possibilities, I dream of the ways it can be manipulated or paired with other materials. Although materials are the life force of my work, form is what keeps it thriving. The forms I construct obligate the viewer to focus on the actual forms and the materials that create them. My goal as an artist is to promote the admiration I feel towards sculpture, materials and form.
Sculpture is about the materiality of the world. I take everyday objects and resources so that I may translate these forms into sculptural facsimiles. I communicate this through my interpretation of the familiar object itself with the unfamiliar manipulation of material. As a result, the pre-existing and created become a singular fusion. The execution of these objectives has evoked my view of the proverbial objectivity of my environment and in turn given me the opportunity to create a new paradigm of ideals. By subverting function I am able to create a sense of control for myself. My purpose is to induce evaluation and to reinterpret the identity of form.
ART is a symbolic expression of which I am where I come from, and where I’ve been. Art can also be a n expressions of your experiences.Art gives a mental way out regardless what the situation. That is how I approach my art As a means of escape in reverse its meaning and emotion is captivating. Art also shows realistic emotion, hint, I am a realist artist, why? My concept of my paintings is the models them language. Their facial features who they are. What do they look like in side?, meaning can you feel the personality threw my painting of the model. I want to try an capture the Essences of the individual. Guiding a person towards unthinkable realism is like showing people the naked truth, which in some cases people don’t really know how to handle the truth. I am more and more interested in the many qualities and traditions of figure / portrait painting. When my work is going well I feel a major sense of accomplishment. This sense of accomplishment,comes from progress, understanding my medium and the brushes I use to create masterpieces. A lot of what I do as an artist connects with concepts and ideas the “why” in art. What is the master plan as a whole? I ask my self this question to generate my creations. I love to work in series and I enjoy working big. Working on a large scale allows me to use the paint along with music my experiences is clam, serene , even heavenly. Because artistic expression has been the bases of my life I have grown accustom to the essence of creating a work of art. My work may appear to be warm and colorful these patterns over the course of me painting has increased to the love of color. Now every painting I create has extreme amounts of ranging from warm reds to the coolest blues. This pattern of color has shaped my artistic personality visually wanting to explore the possibilities of abstraction. How colors work in relationship to one another. In the future I will merge other material to advance special relationships with in a work of art. My main attraction of being an artist is people. One can say “your inner personality is the key to your art expression”. Its how I am as an artist inside that creates my work of art. My work can be described as soulful, rich in color and bold. I believe those are attributes of how I am as a person. In the process of creating art I enjoy using the brushes and oil paint. The brushes gives me a sense of control. I paint with oils ,I use oil because of the color and conversation between the oil, brush and surface. Looking at my prior work verses my current work I haven’t changed much conceptually. I have changed by exploring abstraction of the figure, not to the extreme of cubism but amplifying the plans of the figure that emphasizes shape. I am now challenging my self to explore from traditional art to contemporary. This journey will lead me to endless possibilities.
The work I made last year was beneficial in helping my painting skills grow, and in helping me explore more complex ideas, however at this point, I feel the need to shift directions with my work slightly so as to continue on a path of growth. The things I would like to continue working with are the vibrant color palette I’ve adopted, the concept of scarification and the continued painting of large-scale figures. New things I would like to incorporate are a layering of various patterns (scarification, patterns on figure’s clothing, traditional toile patterns as a basis or part of compositions/backgrounds), and a more complex, dynamic background to situate my figures in. I would also consider more diversity of palette and playing more with cool/warm relationships. Currently I am looking to artists like Jeff Wall and Hieronymous Bosch to develop concepts for backgrounds to place my figures in while continuing to look at Goya, Bacon and contemporary artists Natalia Fabia, Kehinde Wiley and Cecily Brown to inform my handling of the actual figures. I am, as always, interested aesthetically in traditional posing of religious figures from Renaissance work (ecstasy and posing of the Christ in particular) as a way to inform my own choice of figure poses, though this is just my personal nod of the head to the long history of painting and my personal interest in Renaissance work.
I want to take the intangible and make it tangible. I want to create windows to alternate worlds, as if you could find these places if you looked for them. My inspiration lies mainly in my inability to adequately describe why I create. I can only make more, in hopes it’ll spell itself out. Language is a huge theme. Originally inspired by analog objects used for communication, I quickly realized you can only get so far with an object until it needs context, so I began to create the worlds they live in. My current and up and coming work is installation that uses the body as an installation site for my created objects, I have always taken a strong interest in the body and art, but never found much use in building it. it wasn’t until recently I realized the body is a perfect place for an installation site. The body is a generator of creation, a perfect place to give each strange object I create its own home, age and circumstance.
I am very interested with the human figure and how everyone is unique and different. Last semester I painted the figure on mirrors so the viewer can see themselves on another persons body and get a sense of "what its like to be in someone else's shoes." During the summer I did wedding photography and fell in love with it and wanted to incorporate it somehow with painting this semester. My main goal is photo realism. i want to take photographs of a few different people and portray each individuals personality and edit these photos and print them out on large scale. After I printed them out I am incorporating painting into them. I also feel like doing it in this process will help me with composition and painting the figure more realistically.
Art is an exploration into the unknown; highlighting what the artists feels to be most important. It aids in the quest for knowledge and reasoning and answers questions by visually explaining a concept. Explorations in art have lead through the physical, delusional, and emotional dimensions that dictate life. The most intriguing results are anomalies and mysteries because their absurd reality is conceivable.
The reason for making etchings and engravings is the indirect way to create an image. The process is one of structure and tradition, two things that do not come easily. The medium of etching also helps with the notion of a specimen or examination. A quiet moment of clarity in a chaotic world. The cabinet holds the entire progression of change and not just the final product. By placing emphasizing on the development true reasoning is established.
As a 3 dimensional artist, my work is often based off the principle of functional sculpture. Humor and quirkiness is often worked into the conception of many of my pieces. The start of my career was with ceramic clay, and even though I am interested in many different materials, I always revert to my first love of mud.
Subconsciously I have been building a portfolio of work relating to the human body. Recently I have decided to embrace this happy accident which has inspired my recent work. Having a difficult time deciding whether I wanted to work on pottery, or work more into the discovery of the body, I settled on both. Bodery. I always discover new reasons to be excited and anxious to work in my studio, and Bodery is the newest adventure on my creative path.
Courtney Coolbaugh Most of my work is a personal narrative. I like to use symbolism and metaphor to translate my memories and experiences. I use a lot of bird imagery in both painting and sculpture. The birds represent a dichotomy between freedom and imprisonment, life and death. I often juxtapose bright colors with a stark black background to express and emphasize an emergence from darkness. I like to use many different materials – usually small things that need to be manipulated by hand in a process which is repeated to show the evidence of time. I create minute details that will draw the viewer in to take a closer more intimate look that will enable them to see the true broken surface underneath, focusing on a dichotomy between beauty and ugliness. My favorite medium is glass, which can represent so many things – fragility, vulnerability, danger, violence, and chance. The broken paintings encapsulate all of the above metaphors and also beg the question – what does it mean to be broken and what does it mean to be whole? The process of destroying something beautiful only so it can be put back together again deals with the idea of rehabilitation and recovery.
My recent work deals with two recurring general themes, mortality and human relationships. In today’s modern society, days are numbed by technology and overwhelmed by massive amounts of media that we are exposed to and over stimulated by. Time is the most valuable thing we have and is the one aspect of daily life that we cannot get back once it has passed. My work is an exploration into the deterioration of crucial things such as human connection, intimacy, sexuality, natural environment, and language in response to this technology. I am interested in the pertinence of true human connection and language versus the new overwhelming phenomenon of dependence on social networking services to sustain relationships. This new level of "connection" is transforming the way that we communicate with each other and causing an alarming loss of communication skills on a personal level. On a daily basis I find myself struggling to communicate my ideas and emotions with peers because I am one of the victims of this culture shift. If future generations continue down this dangerous path, true human connection will be non-existent. I am also influenced by how we as humans psychologically identify ourselves based on the social context that we are placed in through categories such as gender and religion. My work is an exploration in to these ideas and the anxiety it instills in me. I work with imagery such as skulls, human figures, and abstraction to express the imbalance of modern societal priorities.
I have always been inspired by science and nature and have continuously drawn my inspiration from the two. I plan on continuing to explore patterning and line found in natural materials such as wood grain, stones, and shells, and experimenting way to produce similar line qualities. In addition to drawing I also plan to create a series of prints that are carved to mimic natural phenomena such as stretches of beach marked by tidal waves, or the depictions of shockwaves, and sound waves. My goal as an artist is to create an experience in which the viewer can get lost in the intricate details of the piece and to and provide a place for reflection and contemplation.
My jewelry is inspired by my fascination with medicine and contagious diseases. Coming from a family of nurses I was brought up learning about medicine, death, and hospital horror stories whether I wanted to or not. My goal is to not only create amusement at illnesses and viruses but to also bring awareness. I take pride in my collection and expect nothing but perfection from my work.
Mallory Lawson:
ReplyDeleteMy artistic endeavors are rooted in my interest in recent history and location. I have always been drawn to things that have happened in the past that are completely intangible. The idea of how time changes people, places or things has informed my interest in location. Specifically, locations of homes are at the center of my paintings. My interests are in families, neighborhoods, communities and how they can shift over time. With my most recent work, I wanted to explore the bizarre phenomena of living life in suburban America. I am fascinated by the generic quality of life, commercial sprawl, and mass traffic. Growing up in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, I have nostalgic attachment to strip malls, highways, and housing subdivisions. With all of these elements, I want to create a visual language that illuminates a sprawling movement as well as the tension between the city, the suburb and natural undeveloped landscape.
I am very passionate about Jewelry Designing. I am often inspired by history: shapes, colors, textures, and nature. Lately I have been really into mixed media art, which has built more structure and theme to my work. I have done a lot of research of Tribal Art and have become very interested in their styles, colors, and techniques. Besides creating tribal inspired jewelry, I enjoy enameling, wire-work, as well as adding texture to my work by etching, sandblasting, stamping, etc. I apply both traditional and contemporary methods to make Jewelry. I do not restrict myself with what materials I use to make jewelry; i am experimenting with many kinds of medium.
ReplyDeleteIn five years, I see myself working for a distinguished Jewelry company, working hard on perfecting my craft, as well as starting a small business. I would love to make my own line of Jewelry that allows the world to see how I express myself through the medium of small metals. I know this will take hard work and dedication, but I am ready for the challenge.
As a mixed media artist and a student I explore different areas of art. I have recently started to find a focus that I’m interested into exploring, such as the figure and manipulating it.
ReplyDeleteRecently I have explored the figure as a subject matter for my work. The figure is a subject matter that is constantly being investigated. I started out with abstract drawings of these emotional looking figures; then through time started to elongate them. I took one of the images and translated it onto wood and cute and sanded it down. I them took that figure and laminated it onto a collaged board; which was mounted on a flange and pipe to make the piece come off of the wall. From this piece I have embarked on several other figure pieces using mostly carving instead of sanding to get the shape I hope for.
I believe that making these figures will help me develop them into becoming more then just figure studies. I plan on adding different materials to these pieces and making them more dimensional. With this new direction that I am planning on taking I feeling compelled to bring these figures to life.
Brit Brennan
ReplyDeleteI am inspired by the natural world like nothing else – and through my respect for it, I attempt to give back to the Earth a beauty that comes from the motions of my hands. As forces of globalization, capitalism, and industrialization grow rapidly, we continue to lose touch of the necessary relationships all species once had with the Earth to function in perfect symbiosis. My work is focused on the examination of our relationship to the natural world.
Installation or sculpture is my outlet for these perceptions. I use materials I gather from outside: vines, branches, trash, leaves, mud, stones, concrete – whatever appeals to me, and create an object or an addition to an environment. Locations with an abundance of beauty and awe compel me to give part of myself to the space. I don’t want my creations to interfere with the landscape, but to add to it. I want for my materials the possibility of decay so they can return to their natural surroundings.
The ephemeral quality of my work is important because I believe nothing is permanent, but rather in a constant state of evolution. To alter what is already in a landscape by rearranging its form, but still allowing the ability to decompose makes my work as fluid as everything in existence without trying to delay an inevitable degradation. My process is just as important as my outcome. I relish in the motions of cutting and wrestling materials, and limit my tools as much as possible. When my hands are aching and I am dirty, I feel satisfied.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteII have been a part of the Philadelphia arts community my entire life. My father, Domingo Negron is a graphic designer and artist working out of North Philadelphia, he is the source of much inspiration. His Puerto Rican and Taino roots have paved a path for my new age interpretation and perception on familial identity, and my Puerto Rican- Irish American roots. I refere to my work as an urban jungle. I see many similarities between a dense jungle and the city in which I grew up.
ReplyDeleteI use bold colors within my creations as I develop layers. Multiple ideas and concepts including Latino culture, graffiti/street art, universal imagery of animals and nature frequently show up in my work. I use technoliogical advances such as Photoshop to make compositions then combine them with hand painting and collage.
I use a range of media such as, oil pastels, paint markers, spray paint, glitter, oil and acrylic paint. I have also begun using mirrors and other three dimensional objects, molding past or glass beads to give my work some texture and depth.
I make large, colorful abstract drawings with collage and painting. My methodical process involves disassembling drawings and piecing them back together to get a new image, which I then embellish. I have begun working on shaped canvases such as triangle and circles and large cut out drawing creating new boundaries because I have the resources and materials to make new and exciting compositions and steer away from typical geometric shapes. In the future I plan to move more towards painting on new surfaces, such as wood, or steel and combining it with lights and sculpture. I am very interested in becoming more developed as an installation artist in conjunction with my drawings and paintings.
Sophie Strachan
ReplyDeleteI think I’ve always known the fragmented and hypocritical. Somewhat like my thought processes my art is fragmented and distorted. My art is memories. Whether I want to create a world in which to retreat or if I want to recall a dream world that I have visited, both involve memory in one way or another. We attach ourselves to memories, but they aren’t to be trusted because they are not eternal or stable. Memories, like most other things, are constantly changing, shifting and blurring. With my work I want to convey a feeling of instability, through images derived from memories, dreams and altered states of consciousness.
Brianna Barton
ReplyDeleteJack Maloney
October 6, 2010
Critical Discourse
Fill in Later is a continuation of a collaborative experiment intended to discover what is possible when the creative process becomes a shared experience.
It is an exploration of the viewer’s relationship to a work and how one might react when gallery etiquette is challenged.
We don’t like how the artist always gets to make the stuff, and the viewer always views it. We want to share, so everyone does a little making and everyone does a little looking.
Fill in Later is a reverting back to the simplicities of childhood, when being a good artist meant successfully coloring within the lines.
Fill in Later might catalyze new friendships and worldviews.
Fill in Later observes what this world is, what it isn’t, and what it could be, which is all a matter of individual opinion.
It is possible for you to make Fill in Later ugly (ugly is in the eye of the beholder), but it is not possible for you to screw it up.
What a funny surprise to find in a space where one is typically told, “look don’t touch.”
Fill in Later is an inside joke that we would like to share.
I am fascinated by the relationship created between the industrial and natural worlds. I find myself in awe of some of the simplest forms I encounter on a daily basis, finding beauty in everything. I transform that fascination into sculpture, while incorporating traditionally formal aesthetics in a stimulating way. The materials I use are the driving force behind my work and they are my primary inspiration. Steel is my medium of choice. When I see a piece of steel my mind races with the possibilities, I dream of the ways it can be manipulated or paired with other materials. Although materials are the life force of my work, form is what keeps it thriving. The forms I construct obligate the viewer to focus on the actual forms and the materials that create them. My goal as an artist is to promote the admiration I feel towards sculpture, materials and form.
ReplyDeleteLaurel Patterson
ReplyDeleteArtist Statement, Fall 2010
Sculpture is about the materiality of the world. I take everyday objects and resources so that I may translate these forms into sculptural facsimiles. I communicate this through my interpretation of the familiar object itself with the unfamiliar manipulation of material. As a result, the pre-existing and created become a singular fusion. The execution of these objectives has evoked my view of the proverbial objectivity of my environment and in turn given me the opportunity to create a new paradigm of ideals. By subverting function I am able to create a sense of control for myself. My purpose is to induce evaluation and to reinterpret the identity of form.
ART is a symbolic expression of which I am where I come from, and where I’ve been. Art can also be a n expressions of your experiences.Art gives a mental way out regardless what the situation. That is how I approach my art As a means of escape in reverse its meaning and emotion is captivating. Art also shows realistic emotion, hint, I am a realist artist, why? My concept of my paintings is the models them language. Their facial features who they are. What do they look like in side?, meaning can you feel the personality threw my painting of the model. I want to try an capture the Essences of the individual. Guiding a person towards unthinkable realism is like showing people the naked truth, which in some cases people don’t really know how to handle the truth. I am more and more interested in the many qualities and traditions of figure / portrait painting.
ReplyDeleteWhen my work is going well I feel a major sense of accomplishment. This sense of accomplishment,comes from progress, understanding my medium and the brushes I use to create masterpieces. A lot of what I do as an artist connects with concepts and ideas the “why” in art. What is the master plan as a whole? I ask my self this question to generate my creations. I love to work in series and I enjoy working big. Working on a large scale allows me to use the paint along with music my experiences is clam, serene , even heavenly. Because artistic expression has been the bases of my life I have grown accustom to the essence of creating a work of art. My work may appear to be warm and colorful these patterns over the course of me painting has increased to the love of color. Now every painting I create has extreme amounts of ranging from warm reds to the coolest blues. This pattern of color has shaped my artistic personality visually wanting to explore the possibilities of abstraction. How colors work in relationship to one another. In the future I will merge other material to advance special relationships with in a work of art.
My main attraction of being an artist is people. One can say “your inner personality is the key to your art expression”. Its how I am as an artist inside that creates my work of art. My work can be described as soulful, rich in color and bold. I believe those are attributes of how I am as a person. In the process of creating art I enjoy using the brushes and oil paint. The brushes gives me a sense of control. I paint with oils ,I use oil because of the color and conversation between the oil, brush and surface. Looking at my prior work verses my current work I haven’t changed much conceptually. I have changed by exploring abstraction of the figure, not to the extreme of cubism but amplifying the plans of the figure that emphasizes shape. I am now challenging my self to explore from traditional art to contemporary. This journey will lead me to endless possibilities.
Caitlin Tucker
ReplyDeleteThe work I made last year was beneficial in helping my painting skills grow, and in helping me explore more complex ideas, however at this point, I feel the need to shift directions with my work slightly so as to continue on a path of growth. The things I would like to continue working with are the vibrant color palette I’ve adopted, the concept of scarification and the continued painting of large-scale figures. New things I would like to incorporate are a layering of various patterns (scarification, patterns on figure’s clothing, traditional toile patterns as a basis or part of compositions/backgrounds), and a more complex, dynamic background to situate my figures in. I would also consider more diversity of palette and playing more with cool/warm relationships. Currently I am looking to artists like Jeff Wall and Hieronymous Bosch to develop concepts for backgrounds to place my figures in while continuing to look at Goya, Bacon and contemporary artists Natalia Fabia, Kehinde Wiley and Cecily Brown to inform my handling of the actual figures. I am, as always, interested aesthetically in traditional posing of religious figures from Renaissance work (ecstasy and posing of the Christ in particular) as a way to inform my own choice of figure poses, though this is just my personal nod of the head to the long history of painting and my personal interest in Renaissance work.
kellymcgovern
ReplyDeleteI want to take the intangible and make it tangible. I want to create windows to alternate worlds, as if you could find these places if you looked for them.
My inspiration lies mainly in my inability to adequately describe why I create. I can only make more, in hopes it’ll spell itself out. Language is a huge theme. Originally inspired by analog objects used for communication, I quickly realized you can only get so far with an object until it needs context, so I began to create the worlds they live in.
My current and up and coming work is installation that uses the body as an installation site for my created objects, I have always taken a strong interest in the body and art, but never found much use in building it. it wasn’t until recently I realized the body is a perfect place for an installation site. The body is a generator of creation, a perfect place to give each strange object I create its own home, age and circumstance.
Jamiee Cruz:
ReplyDeleteI am very interested with the human figure and how everyone is unique and different. Last semester I painted the figure on mirrors so the viewer can see themselves on another persons body and get a sense of "what its like to be in someone else's shoes." During the summer I did wedding photography and fell in love with it and wanted to incorporate it somehow with painting this semester. My main goal is photo realism. i want to take photographs of a few different people and portray each individuals personality and edit these photos and print them out on large scale. After I printed them out I am incorporating painting into them. I also feel like doing it in this process will help me with composition and painting the figure more realistically.
Lauren Bergrud
ReplyDeleteCabinet of Anomalies:
Art is an exploration into the unknown; highlighting what the artists feels to be most important. It aids in the quest for knowledge and reasoning and answers questions by visually explaining a concept. Explorations in art have lead through the physical, delusional, and emotional dimensions that dictate life. The most intriguing results are anomalies and mysteries because their absurd reality is conceivable.
The reason for making etchings and engravings is the indirect way to create an image. The process is one of structure and tradition, two things that do not come easily. The medium of etching also helps with the notion of a specimen or examination. A quiet moment of clarity in a chaotic world. The cabinet holds the entire progression of change and not just the final product. By placing emphasizing on the development true reasoning is established.
As a 3 dimensional artist, my work is often based off the principle of functional sculpture. Humor and quirkiness is often worked into the conception of many of my pieces. The start of my career was with ceramic clay, and even though I am interested in many different materials, I always revert to my first love of mud.
ReplyDeleteSubconsciously I have been building a portfolio of work relating to the human body. Recently I have decided to embrace this happy accident which has inspired my recent work. Having a difficult time deciding whether I wanted to work on pottery, or work more into the discovery of the body, I settled on both. Bodery. I always discover new reasons to be excited and anxious to work in my studio, and Bodery is the newest adventure on my creative path.
Courtney Coolbaugh
ReplyDeleteMost of my work is a personal narrative. I like to use symbolism and metaphor to translate my memories and experiences. I use a lot of bird imagery in both painting and sculpture. The birds represent a dichotomy between freedom and imprisonment, life and death. I often juxtapose bright colors with a stark black background to express and emphasize an emergence from darkness. I like to use many different materials – usually small things that need to be manipulated by hand in a process which is repeated to show the evidence of time. I create minute details that will draw the viewer in to take a closer more intimate look that will enable them to see the true broken surface underneath, focusing on a dichotomy between beauty and ugliness. My favorite medium is glass, which can represent so many things – fragility, vulnerability, danger, violence, and chance. The broken paintings encapsulate all of the above metaphors and also beg the question – what does it mean to be broken and what does it mean to be whole? The process of destroying something beautiful only so it can be put back together again deals with the idea of rehabilitation and recovery.
Shannon Toale
ReplyDeleteMy recent work deals with two recurring general themes, mortality and human relationships. In today’s modern society, days are numbed by technology and overwhelmed by massive amounts of media that we are exposed to and over stimulated by. Time is the most valuable thing we have and is the one aspect of daily life that we cannot get back once it has passed. My work is an exploration into the deterioration of crucial things such as human connection, intimacy, sexuality, natural environment, and language in response to this technology. I am interested in the pertinence of true human connection and language versus the new overwhelming phenomenon of dependence on social networking services to sustain relationships. This new level of "connection" is transforming the way that we communicate with each other and causing an alarming loss of communication skills on a personal level. On a daily basis I find myself struggling to communicate my ideas and emotions with peers because I am one of the victims of this culture shift. If future generations continue down this dangerous path, true human connection will be non-existent. I am also influenced by how we as humans psychologically identify ourselves based on the social context that we are placed in through categories such as gender and religion. My work is an exploration in to these ideas and the anxiety it instills in me. I work with imagery such as skulls, human figures, and abstraction to express the imbalance of modern societal priorities.
I have always been inspired by science and nature and have continuously drawn my inspiration from the two. I plan on continuing to explore patterning and line found in natural materials such as wood grain, stones, and shells, and experimenting way to produce similar line qualities. In addition to drawing I also plan to create a series of prints that are carved to mimic natural phenomena such as stretches of beach marked by tidal waves, or the depictions of shockwaves, and sound waves. My goal as an artist is to create an experience in which the viewer can get lost in the intricate details of the piece and to and provide a place for reflection and contemplation.
ReplyDeleteMy jewelry is inspired by my fascination with medicine and contagious diseases. Coming from a family of nurses I was brought up learning about medicine, death, and hospital horror stories whether I wanted to or not. My goal is to not only create amusement at illnesses and viruses but to also bring awareness. I take pride in my collection and expect nothing but perfection from my work.