Overtime that I go to a city, I always end up looking down every alleyway and side street that I come upon. I love the architecture, the lines, and the fact that they're different and you never know what will be found. I have wanted to do a series on alleyways for years but still do not feel confident enough in my portrayal of architecture to do the images that I have in my head justice, so every drawing or painting that I have done of them so far (and most likely will do for a while longer), is preparatory.
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I think that it is safe to say that my best evaluative criteria for my current paintings would be through expressionism. I am studying realism in my classes and I think that moves towards expressionist works are a way to counteract that. I am currently doing a lot of landscape paintings for this class, and I think that it is a direct result of my need for an outlet to express my stress and anxiety as both a meditative experience and as a way to create places where I can escape from the daily grind.
That is not to say that I dislike realism- I think it’s awesome and I feel accomplished when I am finally able to negotiate a tough subject- I simply mean that it provides relief from what I have been studying for the past 4 years. However, I have older works which most definitely could be evaluated through instrumentalism. When I first entered art school, I wanted to concentrate on environmental issues and later social issues. I don’t necessarily think that this type of art is behind me either. I agree that art is a powerful tool for informing the public- if it is done correctly, and I think that expressionism can either strengthen or weaken the message. The reading discusses works by artist Sue Coe, and while her works are clearly meant to argue a point, I think that her style is, in fact, excessive and overwhelms the viewer. The more successful propaganda art pieces often let the viewers come to their own conclusions and I feel that her aggressive way of communicating with the viewers will end up having the opposite effect on some. I guess I've gotten on another landscape kick. I have a tendency to paint them when I feel overwhelmed, and since I haven't had access to my anti-anxiety meds these past few weeks I guess it isn't that surprising. I know that it's not exactly a new concept, these landscapes- and I'm not doing them in any groundbreaking new way.... but I like them. I guess they can become an escape for me- both visually and through the process of actually painting them. They give me an opportunity to experiment with different techniques and I like to play with unconventional colors and see how realistic I can make them. It helps that they tend to turn out pretty impressionistic- one of my classmates told me that they disliked how the picture is lost when they look closely at it. But that's what I like. Painting is important to me because it helps me express myself without having to use words- or even be literal. I guess I see these as a reflection of how I view myself.....somewhat: looking somewhat put-together from afar, but much more chaotic when seen close up. I used to try and copy some of Van Gogh's landscapes from his time in Arles and I definitely have found those paintings (his, not my copies) to be very large influences. To a smaller extent, I guess I try to emulate Cezanne's color theory- specifically his ideals of how cooler colors retreat and warmer ones stand out. I tried doing that with the individual blades of grass in my larger painting, gradually getting warmer and larger as I moved to the bottom of the canvas. That was lost when I went back in tonight though. I've never been to the places which they painted, but viewing their works is able to make me feel as though I am standing in the painting- not because they look real (they do not), but because the brushstrokes used are so enticing and make me feel like there is more happening behind each one. I want to be able to capture that kind of feeling. I know that they were masters of their crafts and were actually painting en plain air, whereas I am working on top of a dirty sheet within my apartment and don't even have photo references...... but Iwant each of these places to be real so badly that I think I may ve able to one day give them the lives that they have in my head.
I started a new piece for my Portfolio class. I usually never do things like this, but I was not sure what else to do and I had been ,mentioning artist Hajin Bae to a classmate a few weeks ago and I got to thinking about how she pays attention to hair. She uses a lot of intricate line work to communicate hair styles- and coupled with her minimalist approach to the rest of her portraits, I think that it creates an interesting effect. I have also been recently mourning Carrie Fisher's death, as I have had a great respect for her openness about her own battles with manic depression. I wanted to experiment with her iconic Star Wars bun-do and Hajon Bae's specific portraiture. I didn't have any paint available to me at the time, so I decided to use ballpoint pen on canvas, a combination which I have never done before.Of course, the drawing got away from me as I continued to channel Hajin Bae's pop-art style and the end result was a drawing of a young girl looking down, with her ballerina bun as the focal point. I forgot to take a photograph of the drawing after showing it in class- but I went back over it with acrylic paint- initially intending to only add color to a couple of spots, but eventually covering the entire canvas. I have included shots of the current progress of the painting- which I am not very satisfied with and intend to continue to work into- as well as some screenshots of Hajon Bae's work which I had used as inspiration. I feel very bad because I have had multiple blog assignments for my current Portfolio Exhibition class which I have not posted. I am going to try and get better, as this is a weekly assignment and I do not want to fail one of the last classes that I need to graduate.
But I digress- this week, we were to read a compilation of excerpts from the book Letters to a Young Artist, in which a number of contemporary artists answer a letter posed by The Young Artist, Elizabeth Murray, asking for advice about maintaining artistic integrity whilst attempting to establish one's self in the workplace. Murray makes a statement about showing art which I have found myself relating to, which is the fact the she does not wish to show how work until she feels that she has gained a true sense of herself and found her own identity within her work. Among many artists instructing Murray to “just keep working” , I enjoyed Lawrence Weiner’s observation about how art must always be questioned- not just by the viewer or the critic, but most importantly by the artist. As a student who is still struggling to decide what she wants to do and how she wants to communicate her ideas to the public, I felt that it was helpful to know that continually asking myself these questions is a good sign. I understand that it is important to just keep working through all of the blocks and obstacles that either I or others have put up, especially with two part-time jobs and an 18 credit hour school schedule. It was helpful to hear that others have been through similar struggles but found a way to make things work for them. I want to continue to make art- especially for an outlet for creative expression. I have ofter wondered how to balance making work for the public vs. making work for myself in a way that can ensure that I could make a living whilst still maintaining my own artistic integrity. I would like to find this balance, but I am aware that I will not be able to begin to officially establish myself as working artist at first and am currently looking to find jobs that I may be able to take in the meantime as a way of making ends meet. I am excited to see what’s in store, but I am also very nervous. A World Apart
approx. 6'x7' I greatly enjoyed working on this project, as I had many opportunities to work with various materials and push the boundaries of what I had already known of each one. I began with cut paper, tea, and wine and created various stains. I then used a bleach pen to create drawings within the stains,a nd often repeated the process multiple times over the same paper to create senses of depth and aquatic scenery. I played with soft pastels and wax, mixing the two over a piece of paper and then dipping it into hot tea to melt the wax. I used wax from different candels, and some had a more oily consistency than others, which had an effect on both the pastels and the paper underneath. As I arranged each piece of paper and found relationships between some, I becan to group them together to create various drawings- either completely abstracted or partially so. The final step was to go into some of the pieces and use fine pens to draw over the stains, often to interact with patterns that had already been created from previous steps. I often work representationally, but wanted to take a more meditative approach to these drawings, so it is mostly mark-making that creates the different effects. After the Storm
57"x39" I used wood that had been collected after Hurricane Matthew for this project, and originally wanted to make a piece about the destruction. That did not last, however, as I becan to draw on a panel one day and fond that I much liked the idea of creating a mutliple panel piece which created a landscape of sorts. Aside from the wood, this piece was created with acrylic paint, black ink, yarn, soft pastel mixed with canola oil, cardboard, and cut paper. I like to create small lines with ink, and found that it related well with the wood grain that was already in the piece naturally. As I moved along, I began to experiment with differnt layering of the wood objects and used white paint to bring out other marks that I had made. I also began to see what I could do with the overall shape of the surface, which I decided needed to escape fromt he typical rectangular place. different shapes of wood and string and cardboard helpd to make this happen. The multiple panel assignment gave me a lot of trouble, as I could not decide what to do. As "luck" would have it (lack of a better term), Hurricane Matthew blew through and created a lot of debris, which I happily collected and began to play with. I knew that I wanted to work with wood. However, I was still unsure of where to go. I did some research and learned about the following artists:
Heather Patterson works with pieces colored wood in all sized and creates pieces that are both intricate and simple. I enjoyed her use of stacking and layericg to create depth in her pieces. It was Orit Hofshi's oddly-shaped panels and intricate ink drawings that drew me to her. I enjoyed her manipulation of the picture plane and the lines that she used in her work/ I felt that the relationship between the wood and the ink was very calming. I was unsure at first what I wanted to do for my drawing collection. It was during a day when Laura had us experimenting with various materials in class that I began to develop an idea- though very vague. I had been very interested in the effects of teas staining and wax coverage on paper, and I knew that I wanted to create some imagery with those two materials.
I did a small bit of research and found some artists that greatly interested me with regards to their mark-making and material use. Josh Gurrie is very interested in minimalist mark-making and color blocking. I liked his use of space and the improvisational aspect of his drawings. Stalla Im Hultberg uses a lot of tea-stained paper in her works, creatign figural illustrations on top that ofter interact with their surface. Alice Fox, like Gurrie, likes to experiment with her materials, though she is a bit less conventional. I liked the way in which she allowed marks that her materials made to be the focal point of her work, rather than those which she had more control over. While listening to a story in class titled "House on Loon Lake," we were to use any drawing materials to create a reactionary illustration of what we listened to. The story is about a boy and his fascination with an old, abandoned house- and the stories of the unknown former inhabitants. After finishing the story, we were instructed to continue to modify the drawings on our own, using our memory of the story to embellish and refine what we had created.
The story conjured up images of dust and grime, of dull colors and broken things. There were letters and small artifacts which created fragmented images of these ghosts, and I wanted to make an image that reflected the difficulty with which the narrator had examined and researched these people, and of the multitude of information lacked. Before we had listened to the story, Mongiovi hd asked us to work in complete darkness for about an hour, and to create a blind drawing of our childhood homes. I often associalte my grandparents' old house with choldhood memories,a nd attempted to make a blueprint of the house from memory. At home, I went back to the drawing and worked into it some more. I tried to refine certain aspects of the house, whilst taking creative liberties to convey the happy and carefree emotions which I attach to the house. I used many different materials, including candle wax and yellow paint. |
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AuthorArt Student at Flagler College. I am frequently instructed to write blog entries about my artistic thoughts and process. Archives
April 2017
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