Lecture 1-28-08

Alix Pearlstein

Between tallying how many times she said "um" (over 80 times in less than four min), I had time to be very confused as to the point of her videos. The first one, "Two Women", made me feel a little motion-sick, which I'm not sure was one of the goals of the video. They seemed like bad experimental high school student films. The sounds seemed to serve no purpose other than to fill in space that the visuals left. There was really nothing visually or aurally appealing or even interesting about these videos. The video "Episode" seemed to be nearing some success with sounds, when the boy is imitating the father, but it all still seemed to be unfocused, awkward, and pointless. When she spoke about her videos I found it very hard to pay attention through how annoying it was that every three words out of her mouth "um" or "uh". I guess the best I got out of this lecture was how not to make performance art.

Thursday Post 1-29-08

abstract

How many people make themselves abstract to appear profound. The most useful part of abstract terms are the shadows they create to hide a vacuum.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist

Hahn, Harley. "Understanding Abstract Art". Harley Hahn Art Center. 28 Jan. 2009.

This article gave a bit of history behind the build up toward the onset of purely abstract painting. Here are some quotes I pulled from the article that I think most relate to my work.

"Until the 20th century, artists had to be content with merely grazing the surface of consciousness. Try as they might, their ability to penetrate to the heart of what it means to be human was limited by their tools. When the brain processes a recognizable image, a mental barrier is erected that prevents significant entry into the processes of the unconscious. Thus, representational art, by its very nature, imposes limits on how deeply an artist is able to insinuate him- or herself into the unconscious processes of the observer.
However, with the coming of abstraction, artists had, for the first time, a powerful tool that would allow them to bypass literal perception and reach into this otherwise impenetrable world of unconscious emotion. This was possible because, the more abstract a work of art, the less preconceptions it evokes in the mind of the beholder."

It is in this gap between the recognizable and the unrecognizable that I wish to work. I want my images to hang somewhere that causes the viewer to keep looking because they might see something representational, but maybe not. It is changed enough that it is not immediately noticeable but needs to be further analyzed. I had a piece that was very successful in this that I called "Hurricane" in my solo show. It had one of the best responses among my images, second to the image of the red burned book. Everyone was dying to know what it was, because they could tell from the photographic quality that it was not an image created solely from the imagination but based somewhere in the reality. I've been continuing to work in this dimension, playing with colors and values to trick the eye into not knowing what it's looking at, but I've been struggling to come up with a hard concept behind why I'm doing this, other than making "cool" sort of "hippy-trippy" images. This article helped me by explaining the method behind the madness, the reason that painters choose to paint abstractions - to get beyond the preconceived and reach a new level of emotion. I feel that somewhere in this idea lies my concept, though I haven't been able to fully hammer it out in words yet, I can feel it bubbling in my mind. I want to create this pull between preconceived recognition and unconscious emotions, where my images act as competing magnets swinging the mind between both ends.
"There are a number of straightforward reasons why human beings create art: to make a decoration, to tell a story, to capture or preserve an image, or to illustrate an idea. However, there is another, more subtle, but far more important reason why art is important to us. The need to reach inside ourselves and manipulate our unconscious feelings is universal. We all do it to some degree, although most of the time we are blind to what we are doing. The reason abstract art has the potential to be so powerful is that it keeps the conscious distractions to a minimum. When you look at, say, the apples and pears of Cézanne, your mental energy mostly goes to processing the images: the fruit, the plate, the table, and the background. However, when you look at "Lavender Mist", you are not distracted by meaningful images, so virtually all of your brain power is devoted to feeling. You can open yourself, let in the energy and spirit of the painting, and allow it to dance with your psyche."



"Hurricane"

Monday Post 1-26-09

Matt Brown

Matt Brown has been a professional artist since 1997 and has been producing fine art full-time since 2005. He qualified in animation at Lough House Animation Studios where he worked as a 2D animator, a 3D animator and learned about other areas of the production cycle. He earned his living as a graphic and web designer, doing art and animation on the side until the internet matured. He makes digital paintings and prints them on canvasses coated with clear acrylic. Since I began this project, I have been operating under the idea that I may be printing the final images on canvass to further reference the painterly styles that I am emulating. His bright colors, rich textures, and graphic line work attracted me to his work, and I hope to achieve some of these effects in my work. While his work that more computer-like and flat is very interesting, the more textured works are more appealing to me. His works have inspired me to attempt to combine some of my images to make more intricate designs or adding in computer generated design elements to enhance the images.

Website:
http://www.mattbrownart.com/

Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTNrsE5NZso

Gallery:
http://www.onekind.co.uk/

Thursday Post 1-22-09

Painterly

"Digital art software has empowered both the painterly side of photographers, and the photographer side of painters."
Buffy Sainte-Marie

Elliot, Virgil. "The Painterly Effect a Lesson by Virgil Elliot". The Modern Illusionists Advanced Classical Painting. Geocities. 21 Jan. 2009.

According to Virgil, painterly styles originated incidentally from sketches and studies that were used as aids to create more refined works, works that were not painterly. Franz Hals, though very capable of painting in a linear, refined style, often employed painterly techniques when doing faster "all prima" paintings of his more light-hearted subjects such as friends or interesting tavern-folk. John Singer helped popularize the painterly style. He would scrape away layers and paint over them until he achieved the effect he wanted. Fortunately he was able to render these works in a way that prevented them from appearing sloppy. Virgil suggests that every painter should master the full range of brush-stroke disguising abilities, so that they can use them with purpose.

I also found an article on "painterly" on Wikipedia. The following passages I found relates most to the work I want to do.

"Painterly" art makes strong coloristic use of the many visual effects produced by paint on canvas such as chromatic progression, warm and cool tones, chiaroscuro, complementary and contrasting colors, broken tones, broad brushstrokes, impressionism, and impasto. Jackson Pollock's action paintings of the 1940s and 1950s are more "painterly" than Frank Stella's Hard-edge paintings of the 1960s.

Finally, "painterly" refers to paint, though some forms of sculpture make such use of surface texture resembling brushstrokes that they could almost be called painterly (see Wood as a medium). The application of the term outside painting is a little self-conscious, and may not genuinely help the reader experience the character of Auguste Rodin's surfaces or Richard Strauss's flow of chromatic harmonies. Photography can also be described as painterly.

In my work, I want to use paint to bring unnatural color to the textured surfaces of nature. I may also use other methods of applying color, such as fabric, duct tape, or paper, but I'm going to start with paint, because I want to achieve a combination of painting, installation, and photography. As an artist I started as a painter, I've grown into a photographer, but though I often think in terms of installation, I have rarely ever worked in that fashion.

Monday Post 1-18-09

Viktor Kopasz

Viktor Kopasz was born in 1973 in Kralovsky Chlmec, Slovakia. He teaches photography at the Middle School of Graphic Design and at The Film Academy (FAMU). He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Kosice, Slovakia, then from 1992-97 at the Film Academy (FAMU), Prague (department of photography), then he spent a year at Middlesex University in London. He has been recognized as a singular talent and, in addition to many solo shows in Central Europe, he has also been included in a number of group shows showcasing the most outstanding names in contemporary photography from the region. For his work, he creates what he refers to as "diaries" with analog photographs that he hand tints with aniline dyes. He also adds text (notes in pencil and rubber-stamped slogans in Hungarian, English and Slovak), clippings, tickets, and other things related to certain events, feelings, or thoughts. His diaries, substantial volumes in themselves, are then assembled into projects, some of which have been printed as "autobiographies". The series "Solid Painter" is what caught my eye as something similar to what I'm considering doing. The way he tints the negatives is reminiscent of the way I want to manipulate my images on the computer or in the physical world by applying paint to the elements I am going to photograph. Some of the pictures of trees in this series look as though he may have painted them before taking the picture.

Website:
http://www.kopasz.cz/

Gallery:
http://www.futuraproject.cz/en/exhibitions/kopasz/index.htm

Interview: (video)
http://mikaeli.mikkeliamk.fi/mikaeli/arkisto/kulttuuri/kopasz/index.htm