Albercht Durer

On Wednesday Feb 25th 2009, I went to the MFA in St. Pete to see the Albercht Durer Exhibit. Albercht Durer was a German artist in the 1500. This particular exhibit displayed his very detailed etchings, woodcuts, and a few of his paintings. The exhibit as a whole was absoultly amazing. The amount of detail he put into his etchings is mind boggling. He's techinque was seriously just meticulous hatching and cross hatching. What was truely impressive was the scale in which he did he work. Some of the etchings were as small as a half dollor and had to be seen with a magnifying glass in hand, but still the work was incredibly complex. Other pieces were chaotic in the hatching and cross hatching but in all that chaos there were angels and devils and movement. There were series from the bible such as Revelations, and the moments leading up to the birth of Christ. There were also genre etchings depicting peasant life. It was a truely impressive exhibition. I had the opportunity to go with my intermediate drawing class therefore I was able to do studies of his work. Here is one of my studies: ( Satyr and Nymph )

Contemporary Artists for consideration

Jenny Saville is an English painter. She gained her degree at Glasgow School of Art. She is influenced by large women, plastic surgery, and the transformation of men into women and vice versa.

Jenny Saville: " I want people to know what it is they're looking at. But at the same time, the closer they get to the painting, it's like going back into childhood. And it's like an abstract piece-- it becomes the landscape of the brush marks rather than just sort of an intellectual landscape."

Jenny Saville on her approach to the process of painting: : "I tend to think about each section of a painting in terms of musical passages. I work on areas like one meter by one meter, so I'll think, I've got to get across the nose or the stomach of the pig or whatever; how am I going to play it? So I mix up all the colors and think of them as if they were tones. And then I think, How am I going to play that brush mark? Am I going to play it hard, next to some fiddly brush marks? I think of it like that."

Jean- Michel Basquiat was an American artist, gaining popularity first as a graffiti artist in NYC, then became popluar for his Neo-expressionist art. He was friends and worked with Andy Warhol.

Basquiat used painterly gestures on canvas, often depicting skeletal figures and mask-like faces that expressed his obsession with mortality. Other frequently depicted imagery such as automobiles, buildings, police, children's sidewalk games, and graffiti came from his experience painting on the city streets. A middle period from late 1982 to 1985 featured multi-panel paintings and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surface dense with writing, collage, and unrelated imagery.

These works reveal a strong interest in Basquiat's black identity and his identification with historical and contemporary black figures and events.

Ernest Ruckle is an American artist known for his elaborately structured paintings.

This specific painting is called "The EuroDisney Triptych"

Ruckles work process: "The EuroDisney Triptych was painted on Strathmore illustration board, using ink and a mixture of Winsor and Newton watercolors and Liquitex acrylic medium, which also served as the final varnish. The painting is an elaborate comment on the juggernaut of American popluar culture that's homogenizing the world. The EuroDisney theme park is the perfect symbol of this phenomenon. The painting shows the park being destroyed by a huge crowd of violent demonstrators. The structure of the painting is like that of a comic strip, moving chronologically from left to right, the action becoming more and more violent. The style reflects this change and turns gradually from a 1930 newpaper-cartoon style on the left to a more realistic style in the center to the expressionist- cubist style on the right. The demonstrators bring with them signs, floats, and giant ballons that grotesquely parody the Disney images. Ultimately, the demonstrators prove themselves more imaginative and relevant than the designers of the park. The theme of the painting is not an attack on Disney. Instead, it's a challenge to Europe and the rest of the world, not to put up barriers to keep out American popular culture, but to create and update their own."

The Leslie Shows Lecture

I attended the Leslie Shows Lecture on Feb 6th 2009. Leslie Shows's work is exhibited in the San Franscisco and the Bay Area. Leslie Shows works with micro and macro detailing by doing extensive yet sophisticate collaging but still maintaining a sense of subtleness throughout her work. She is also drawn to minerals especially salt and uses techniques and a variety of material to imitate the seperation and compostion of minerals. She mainly paints/collages obscure landscapes with rollercoasters diving into black holes; along with mountains that show significate separations in the rock. Although her pieces are large and may seem abstract, she still pays great detail in her seamless collaging work in which she shapes the landscape. Seeing her work through photo does it no justice, to truly experience her artwork you have to see it in all its grand detail in person.

Here is an example of her work:

Come see whats going on!

Come and have fun @ USF Fine Arts Building Courtyard

Feb. 11th 2009

5-7pm

"The Cat that caught the canary"

Agnes Denes- Wheatfield

When Agnes Denes ended her statement with, “the power of paradox,” she meant that planting wheatfields in the middle of Manhattan was a contrast between nature and industry. I think her statement is strong in defining her main thesis. Planting that wheat certainly did open people’s eyes to the simplicities of nature which often become showed by the complexities of industry. Although Agnes received mixed emotions about her Wheatfield experiment, she forever left an imprint in the minds of those she affected with her art. Applying a paradox like that to an event seems to help people remember the basic elements of being alive. The public has an opportunity to reexamine life and reprioritize.
Agnes’s writing style is pretty straight forward. She explained her intent, the process, the difficulties in which she endured the finished product, and the final reaction. She made it seem as if she touched a lot of people with just simply planting something as simple as wheat in an area that is the complete opposite of what nature symbolizes. I think that the overall concept stands out. Her event was a complete success. She successfully harvested wheat in central Manhattan while exposing people to the simplicities of growth and nature.
Some similar challenges that I have had when discussing my artwork is trying to express the deep down meaning of it all while also trying to bring my art to a whole. I haven’t made such an impact on society or people’s lives that was so profound like Agnes Denes. When discussing my artwork I feel as if I cannot speak for my art, I must let it speak for itself. I have yet to successfully impact people with my art and it seems like there is a lack of meaning behind my art or at least I’m having trouble trying to express it.
Three necessary elements to formulate a project must start with an overall thesis. What is the artist trying to tell the audience? Another element might be the execution, where will this event take place? What supplies will be needed to achieve success? Another element would be location. In Agnes’s Wheatfield, she was able to find an area that was close to her audience although the area was a dump beforehand she was able to change the ecosystem so that she could make her project successful. All these elements are fundamental to trying to achieve a successful work of art that has both substance and meaning.

Concepts & Practices II

(Heartless)

I am a BFA Art Studio student majoring in photography. I don't limit myself to just photography. I also paint, sculpt, and draw. I take a lot of my inspiration from books and videogames. I have weird obsessions with taboos. I have several weaknesses when it comes to the creative process. I work by the seat of my pants. I definatly don't plan that much when I start shooting. I think it henders me a bit and definatly stops me from achieving the best quality photo. Another weakness would probably be my lack of practice. I procrastinate way too much. My last weakness as a photographer is that I don't have proper lighting equipment for studio shots, so I depend on flood lamps which often washout my subjects. Its a lot of trial and error on my part.