Narcissa
Oil on Board
May 2013
3’ x 2.5’
Experience: Glass Spot Demo
About a month ago, the Art Club did its annual trip to the Scholastic Art Exhibit at the VMFA along with a trip to a glass-blowing shop on Lombardy called Glass Spot for a demonstration. This demonstration was really interesting (especially in light of the Chihuly show at the VMFA, which I unfortunately missed, though I got to see pictures). One of the portions of the demonstration that really interested me was the teamwork required to safely make the pieces of glassware. It reminded me a lot of Ai Weiwei’s methods, where he’s not the only one with a hand in his artwork, or Chihuly himself, who, due to the nature of glass-working, has many people working on any given piece at one time. Ultimately, we got to see two pieces made, start to finish, which was really amazing. I’m still amazed that neither of the people demonstrating burned themselves with so much molten glass around!
Curiosity: Photography and Painting
I talked in my sketchbook this round about how different art movements acted as reactions to the advent of photography, especially Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Photorealism, and I’m wondering now what the general attitude in the art world is toward the relationship between painting and photography. It feels like for a long time, the use of reference photographs and especially tracing techniques was seen as a kind of “cheating” in painting. As I heavily use reference photos in my own paintings, I don’t really think this is accurate. If your goal is realism, why limit yourself so much by completely foregoing references? But I can also see the argument of, “if you’re going for realism, why paint at all—use a photograph.” So, what do you all think? What should the relationship between painting and photography be?
sexyimpala asked: also the butterfly effect you did is really amazing.
Thanks! I’m working on it and a few other paintings for my Senior show in June. Between that and APs I’m starting to feel the time crunch—so much for being a second semester senior! :)
Butterfly Effect
Oil Paint on Board
March 2013
2’ x 3’
Matej Košir - Arthistory
“Focus of this series of photographs is our contradictory relationship to the violence, namely the use of violence in order to control it (either to stop it or to prevent its reappearing). History shows that the winner of the violent conflict always has justified reasons to be violent, because he uses his dominance to (re)write the history. Art is, more often than not, instrumentalised, depicting winners as idealised heroes while the loser’s depictions are exposed to iconoclasm. The main problems are that we are always able to justify any kind of violence; that too often only the use of violence is effective in controlling it and that it is immposible to control the violence used to control the violence. Photographic series documents the consequences of violence to censor the depiction of violence and points out our contradictory notion of its use. The original paintings have been subject to censorship and iconoclasm. They depict violent revolutions or events in 19.century, that in today’s terms justify or condemn the use of violence to achieve their aims; judged according to the values that are today most highly appreciated: freedom and democracy.”
Image descriptions from top to bottom:
- Eugène Delacroix - Liberty leading the People
- Eugène Delacroix - Liberty leading the People (detail)
- Jacques-Louis David - The Death of Marat
- Édouard Manet - The Execution of Emperor Maximilian
- Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes - The Third of May 1808
- Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes - The Disasters of War
I’m a sucker for art history.
Artist Statement Spring 2013
The human experience is inherently subjective.
It is a set of moments, feelings, and details that can’t really be encompassed totally or objectively. And from that perspective, all human creation hold inherent bias and distortion—but it is also the only truth and reality that we can experience. This paradox is where I like to make my work: I distort realistic images and create realistic images from distortions, I paint moments in time and in painting them add my own bias. In making art, I distort reality—but I also attempt to understand it.
Last year through my paintings, I began to examine separate interpretations of life: as a game, as a succession of singular moments, or a reflection of the past. This exploration eventually has grown to include the philosophies of the ancients as a means of better explaining the incommensurability of these concepts. In recent paintings, I have addressed Heraclitus’ belief that neither absolute identity nor reality exists from one second to the next—rather, that they flow like a river; Plato’s claim that perception is only a shadow of reality; and Protagoras’ assertion that “man is the measure of all things” and that all people stand at the center of their own universes of irrefutable perceptions that constitute individual realities. With each new painting, I added a layer of my own interpretation to further separate my viewer from the “reality” of the original subject. Finally, my realistic style further blurs the line between reality and perception.
That is because for me, the question is not ultimately one of bias destroying objective reality. It is one of truth arising from that distortion.
Figure Drawing
White Charcoal Pencil on Paper
March 2013
12” x 9”
Pomme
charcoal on paper with cylinder mirror
January 2013
