Artist In Residence Project

This project was a huge jump for me in terms of solidifying my artistic voice and finding a certain way I like to work. It was one of my favorite projects this year and I found it exciting to work on everyday. Having a partner definitely helped and both 5am and I were able to collaborate together really well and build off of each other. Working abstractly and presenting a situation in which the materials and (paint and ink)  devices we used to spread the materials did most of the work was a fun new way to play with our art. The sense of freedom and movement we had in the project was also invigorating. Everything felt very natural which made it a lot of fun. In terms of our intentions, we changed our expectations a little bit as the project went on, but it was mostly about experimenting on different surfaces. We wound up incorporating a certain amount of detail and the idea of reconstruction/deconstruction in our work which also made our pieces more intriguing. In our first two, we captured a sense of cosmic life as well and tiny, bacterial life. Adding fine detail to those really helped bring them out and create a path for the viewer to follow. Our deconstruction/reconstruction pieces originated from rejected pieces where we had fooled around with color and texture. Yet when we took the most interesting parts and smashed them together, we came up with two coherent pieces. We really only used one or two different inks and paint, but using both a little water and different spreading devices, we captured a great array of different textures and outcomes. It was fairly simple but it was exciting to challenge each other to come up with the next cool idea. This project will provide me with some great guidance moving forward as this type of work really resonated with me.

FOR LUKE:

Working with Luke helped out a ton and it was nice being able to run our ideas by him and get quality feedback. He provided good insight for us and really propelled up into our reconstruction/deconstruction pieces. Once we fleshed out our ideas with him and got his honest feedback, we were able to dive in completely to the project and enjoy ourselves.

Our Final Works:

Picturing Places

Maggie and I started out this project with a vision of creating a jungle-like atmosphere with lots of greens, yellows and other vibrant colors. We wanted to create a scene that was serene and felt very peaceful, but as the project went on, we managed to do this in a much different way than we intended. We wound up creating a piece that did have a sense of peace, but also something mystifying as a result of the darker colors and the fog. Our scene became almost swampy as we did not anticipate how dark the photos would be. Personally, I think this project really reflected my artistic voice, yet it did so in a way that I had not experimented with before. Incorporating photography in the project offered me a new medium to play with and learn about, while I also kept some of my abstract tendencies. It was interesting to spend so much time working on how we wanted our piece to come out and having it take a very different turn than what we anticipated when everything was put together. In the beginning, we did not have much that was specific or detail in our work, but as we added a third dimension to the project, we ventured into some previously unexplored territory. Once we got to play around with the camera and the fog, our work took on a whole new life and though we did not intend to get the result we did, we wound up creating arguably a much more interesting piece than we had dreamed up originally. Going forward, I am excited to continue experimenting with newer mediums and pushing myself to try new and unorthodox techniques like I was able to do in this project.

Here is our final piece:

Here is our work while in progress:

Artist In Residence Preliminary Reflection

I really enjoyed the experimental nature of this project. Though my group was given very few materials to work with, I found that creating something from what we were given was easier in a sense than creating something ourselves. It was nice to just be handed materials and let loose. Obviously we had to use what was in front of us, but there was still a sense of freedom to do whatever we wanted with our materials. It was interesting to see not only what we came up with , but also what everyone else made because it was such a short time period, yet everyone came up with great ideas. My group wound up making a "bridge to the heavens" a subject (in keeping with the theme of mythology) that would theoretically demonstrate the treacherous path on would have to take in order to reach the heavens in the after life.

My favorite piece of Luke's was this one:

The aspect I liked the the most about this this piece is its sheer randomness. It is very random, but in a much different sense than the project we just completed. In this piece, the material (silver) is doing most of the work. Luke poured it into the metal sheet himself but the silver moved and solidified on its own accord. I'm not sure how I would like to incorporate this idea into my work, but I really like the idea of the materials creating the own entity.

I actually would love to use Tara Donovan and Mark Bradford as inspirations for the next project. They each have very interesting works that I would like to explore further.
Tara's work is cleaner and leans more towards the sculptural aspect of art. The texture she employs in this piece below helps to bring out and distinguish a very monotonous white color. I am most intrigued by how she works with texture and I would love to incorporate some of that into whatever I make next.

Mark's work incorporates more of the "randomness" I was just referring to. Using his work as inspiration, I can see myself aiming to create something like Luke where I let the materials do most of the work. I like the idea of splattering paint on to some very texture sculpture and seeing where that goes. Mark's painting I liked the most is the one below because he uses his space very well and his colors all seem to work together to really bring out the piece.

I am excited to go crazy with this project. Like I mentioned, I want to take a very texture base and then go wild with color and see where that takes me. Using a mythological subject sort of appeals to me but I would only use such a subject as a base that would direct me into the rest of the project. In terms of specific ideas, I am not quite sure where I am going yet. I really want to embrace Luke's "randomness" and start with a base and see where that takes me. I know that I want to work both sculpturally (for the textured base) and painterly (for the surface) to create a complete piece. Other than that, I am open to anything and would love to experiment a lot during this project. I don't have any real concerns because just like in Luke's work, sometimes unexpected mistakes can lead to a great piece of art.

Freedom Project

The sense of complete freedom and control I had over this project really helped me to enjoy it a lot. As this was our first ever project that was left entirely up to us, I found that it was a great time to move back to more travelled territory for me. Throughout this year, I have strayed away from painting and more towards sculpture and three-dimensional projects. I took this project as my opportunity to go back to painting and work on something that I am used to. With that in mind, I did not just mindlessly paint, but I looked to better my understanding of painting and bring in qualities and knowledge that I have accumulated over a lot of time and many projects. I feel like my artistic voice is finally starting to show itself a little bit and I seem to be moving towards painting.
My intentions for this project only ever shifted a little bit. Originally, as I have talked about, I wanted to emulate Lisa Escherick's work by adding some detail but not too much. Also, my fresh, new, not Branson subject matter made me enthusiastic about my work. As my piece progressed, I wound up actually not including all that much detail. I was able to get across my feeling more by working with the textures and colors of the paint. I really would not have changed anything in my process except for hopefully for the next project, have some more time. I used a lot of my previous knowledge about painting in order to work with underlying colors and textures, but in this specific project I was able to add to that by using the matt medium for the first time. It helped tremendously with my work and it was a lot of fun to work with. I was very pleased with my final piece but I hope to be able to work on it more in the future in order to perfect a few things.
This project was a big leap for me and my understanding of myself of an artist. As I previously mentioned, I believe that my artistic voice began to peak its head out during this process. I am really drawn to using color and texture to convey an emotional feeling in my work. I think that details can take away from the flowing nature of my work where there aren't many harsh changes in scenery. Overall, I am excited to now be able to delve into and explore my new found artistic voice maybe not in the upcoming resident artistic project, but in whatever comes next.

In Progress Critique

As of right now I don't have anything solid to document but I was able to run my idea by my group. I am following in the footsteps of Lisa Escherik for this project. I want to make a realist painting but not with a lot of details. I really like how Escherik's lines are somewhat hazy and don't have a set boundary. The color shifts maintain the "boundaries" of each different part. I have been taking a lot of pictures at school to practice and get an idea for color and contrast again but I'm going to use a picture from a field by my house to model my work after. It'll offer new subject matter for me to work on and the spot I am using has lots of different aspects to it that will make my painting more interesting. My critique group members didn't have much to critique me on because I didn't have anything to show yet but they liked the direction in which I was going.