March 19th- MFA Visit

At the MFA, I found a piece that was very similar to my work, surprisingly. I thought it would be really difficult to find a piece that connected to mine. The piece I found was titled Folding Screen by Wharton Esherick, from 1927. It is a wooden folding screen made from walnut and ebony. The screen is covered in carvings of patterns. There are also carvings of bare tree limbs and flying blackbirds. I thought this was so cool because it was a work on wood with carvings and carvings of birds! It relates to my work because my work is all done on wood. I incorporate carvings and digging into the wood into my pieces as well. The blackbirds relate to my work as well because I have been focusing on this idea of the mythical bird, connecting my pieces with this idea.

I also found a piece that was different than my work, but still incorporated some of the similar conceptual ideas. This is Freeform (Dinnerware decorated with the primitive pattern) by Viktor Schreckengost from 1955. They are ceramic pieces that include a tea pot, plate, tea cup and saucer, salt & pepper shaker, and a milk/cream holder.

 These ceramic pieces are all connected by the narrative painted on them. This consists of deer and people. It almost has a tribal feel to it. This is different than my work because it is ceramic and really 3D, while my work is on wood and mostly 2D. It does connect to my work in the sense that the narrative or decorations of the dinnerware allow the pieces to connect and flow together. My work has a sense of a narrative having to do with birds that is incorporated in each piece, connecting them together.

Artist Visit #3

I visited a gallery showing “Forms in Flux” at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. This particular show is a collaboration between the SMFA and Aichi Univiversity, located in Nagoya, Japan. The whole idea behind the show was to provide a meeting place for something new to be created from two geographically very distant locations. Working on opposite sides of the world, in different media and in different cultural contexts, these artists address issues of transformation, change and fluidity of perception. The artwork was all very different, but somehow managed to flow all together. The pieces didn’t seem out of place or random even though they weren’t the same media.

When I first walked in the gallery, I was greeted by Nobuyuki Osaki’s  video installation piece titled “Portraits of Mirrors“. I found this piece so interesting because not only were they projected onto the wall, they were projected onto hand mirrors which then projected the image onto the wall. This idea completely serves the concept of transformation because the mirrors warped the images, and the images changed themselves over time.

Moving further into the gallery, there was an interactive piece by Michelle Samour called “Windows“. This piece consisted of a table with several clear tiles containing pigmented abaca designs on them. As long as we were wearing gloves, we were allowed to move them around, stack them, and ultimately transform this piece. It was interesting to layer multiple tiles together and to see what other people had done to the piece before hand. The fact that it was also an interactive piece really made it memorable. Its not too often that you come across art that is meant to be touched and/or moved around. There is something really intriguing about being able to transform a piece of art.  I really enjoyed looking and interacting with these pieces.

Continuation of Phase II Update

Here's some pictures of my piece halfway wood burned and how it is at the moment. I meant to take pictures at stages in between but I completely forgot so this is what I have now. 

Phase III Topic- Final

I was super happy with all of the feedback I got last thursday during our phase II critique. I got some great ideas on how to finish the piece I am currently working on and ideas sparked for the last phase. After looking at Juxtapoz Magazine online- one of the recommendations from class- I found the artist Carsten Witte who I used for my artist statement research as well. He is a photographer from Germany and I am absolutely in love with his newest work. He does these intense black and white photos of women with skulls overlayed on top of their faces. Obviously since it has skulls and bones I am drawn to it! I am completely inspired by his work.

For my photo imagery on fabric final, I have decided to shoot headshots of all of my friends and overlay their faces with skulls. I am either going to print them as cyanotypes or van dyke brown prints, or maybe even combine the two. There is also a possibility that I might try solvent transfers as well.

For Phase lll I want to take a couple of the portraits and wood burn them onto tree stumps- an idea that came up last class. I might overlay some of the faces, I'm not entirely sure yet, but I'll experiment once I have taken the photos. I want to have the faces gradually starting to fade into the skull. I also need to incorporate the birds in some way but I haven't figure that out yet either. I know I still have some planning to do, but I'm really excited to get working on this!

Artist Statement Research

For homework this week, we have to research three artist statements. By doing this, we can compare the statements which will help us when we start to write our own. I wanted to start off this post with the definition of an artist statement just to get a general idea of what is expected of them.

Artist Statement: a short statement of one page or less, written by the artist, that provides background information and influences on the artist’s body of work, overall artistic philosophy, and a brief history of the artist’s development. 
(http://www.crt.state.la.us/arts/grantglossary.aspx)


I looked through a lot of Juxtapoz Magazine online and found a couple new artists that I enjoyed.
The first artist is Iain Macarthur.

 Iain is a surreal artist from Swindon, England. He works mostly with pencil, watercolors and pigment pens. In his work, he focuses on people and creating out of the ordinary portraits. You can find a lot of his work in shirt designs, tattoo designs, posters, album art etc. You can read his entire statement here. I personally love the amount of detail that he puts into each piece. It allows the eye to find something new in the crazy designs, each time you look at it. 


The second artist I found was Timothy Pakron. 

Timothy is a visual artist from Mississippi. He uses different mediums ranging from alternative techniques in the darkroom to medium format color film photography. Timothy is known for painting with the developer in the darkroom so that only parts of his photos are exposed. As far as subject matter goes, Timothy focuses on portraiture. He believes that a portrait has a sense of presence and weight. His goal as an artist is to make the viewer see differently, think differently, and most importantly feel differently. You can read his full statement here and visit his website here. I love the emotion that comes across in his work. The facial expressions and the strokes of the developer really give portaits a whole different feel. It really makes you think about his work and what message he is trying to get across. 




The last artist that I chose is Carsten Witte.

Carsten is a photographer from Germany. He is fascinated by beauty and the beauty that the female body holds. In his statement he says" It's always faces that fascinate me and this mysterious purity of really beautiful people. He photographs the female body focusing on the natural beauty and playing around with shadow and light to create these "icons of beauty". He wants to leave his work up to interpretation of the viewer calling his images "mystery plays" where you never know exactly what is going on. A main idea behind some of his most recent work is the "belief that everything is constantly changing, but photography can preserve the moment. Beauty is almost nothing without the knowledge of how fast it will fade". You can read his entire statement here. And look at his work in Juxtapoz Magazine here. I'm in love with his portraits with the skulls overlapping. The intensity makes the photos absolutely gorgeous. They connect to my work as well, and have inspired my idea for Phase 3.