Making Your Own Work: Reading 2

 FIGURATIVE ART VERSUS ABSTRACT ART:LEVELS OF CONNECTIVITY
 By: Tsion Avital

"Although abstract does not represent, it symbolizes through metaphorical exemplification, or expression....Beside representation and readability there are many more fundamental differences between these two kinds of art which strengthen the doubt as to whether abstract art is indeed art, or perhaps something else."

Abstract and figurative art differ in many ways. Figurative art contains recognizable images of objects while abstract art typically has not symbols system. Abstract paintings communicate through expression rather than representations. In a way abstract and figurative art are opposite yet they serve the same purpose in communicating a message through different vehicles. Through this essay the authors approaches the idea that art has this level of being legible that is mainly perceived in figurative art although abstract is read in its own way. With my own work, I approached this conversation between the abstract and the figurative by placing a representational figure with in the abstract though it is hidden. This then gives the readability of the abstracted a new level of legibility by also containing the representational. The viewer makes the connection with the painting in two different ways. From a distance they connect with it on the level of an abstracted painting producing their own imagery they see with in it. As the move closer and examine it more, the representational image is revealed giving more imagery and meaning to the viewer. 

Making Your Own Work: Reading 1

ART VIEW; HUMAN FIGURE IS BACK IN UNLIKELY GUISES

By MICHAEL BRENSON

 In Michael Brenson's article he states how the human figure cuts through all nations and cultures. The human figure through out every culture and artistic style is seen as an icon and symbol. Any viewer of an art work can look at a painting and recognize the figure as a representation of a person. The human figure has been used throughout many different cultures as a way to represent and humanize certain aspects of life not completely understood by the human psyche; such gods, changing of the seasons or even emotional states. One particular statement he makes that pertains to my paintings is how he notice in the new human landscape the human figure tends to float. With my first few painting, the figure I placed within them are floating with no indication as to a ground. The last few of my painting I changed this by leaving some white space against the colors. In doing so it gives the painting a sense of grounds while still some what floating with in the colors.

Making Your Own Work: week 15

Finishing up with this part of the semester of creating our own work, I continued following Gerhard Ritcher's process of scrapping away with the squeegee. I also have continued with scratching in the human figure in order to move forward with the conversation between the abstract and the representational. In my work I encompassed the representational figure with the abstract as a way to hide the image. With the last few pieces I left a portion of the campus white as a way to create a sense of grounding. The first paintings I didn't do this which gave the figure I placed with in it the feeling that the figure is floating rather than being anchored down to a ground. My use in the human figure (male and female) was a way to take a concrete representational form and contradict it against the abstract. Hiding the figure with in the painting allows me to express how typically people hide their true selves to others. With my paintings, the viewer has to get up close in order to see the figure. This can be taking as a metaphor that one has to get close to someone before they reveal their true self.

Making Your Own Work: Week 14

This week I am stilling working on the third painting. With the way I have been applying and scrapping the paint is creating linear lines of colors giving it a geometric feel. I don't have much reflection on this one as it is still in the beginning stages. I'm still not exactly sure the outcome for this one and just allowing each step and layer to guide me as to what to do next. I do however plan to continue with scratching on a figure on the final layer to keep with the hidden image of the figure seen in the previous one.

Making Your Own Work: Week 13

The top photo is of the second painting I've been working on with the hidden figure within the abstract. I'm taking a break from this one as I'm not sure whether or not I want to add more hidden information to it. The bottom photo is a new painting started this week. With this one I want to start the process of the abstract differently than the others to see whether the abstracted marks would come out differently. I started with mixing colors and scooping globs of them on to the surface. Then took the squeegee and scrapped the globs around allowing the squeegee to pick up the paint and making the marks across the surface. This resulted in more lines of colors.

Making Your Own Work: Week 12

This week I wanted to continue with a conversation between representation and the abstracted. I began a new painting similarly to the other one. I created an abstract by still adding paint to the canvas and using a squeegee to wipe it away. I continued doing this in three layers. The final layer ( not shown above yet) I will draw on a male figure with a pencil cutting into to the paint leaving a mark that is legible yet is hide within the abstract. I choose to do a figure on top because to me the human figure is a concrete form that can contradict with the abstract already produced.  

Making Your Own Work: Week 11

 While working on this painting this week, it developed into a conversation between form and non form. I began the painting with no forms at all and focused primarily on the colors. Placing images of flowers on top of an abstracted background began this conversation of the representational and the abstracted. Scrapping away this image thus abstracted it and took away its form. I further broke this rule of the abstract by placing another representational image and leaving it.

Making Your Own Work: Week 9

As a way to start the process of creating my own work, I first decided on the palette colors I was going to use in the first step of making a scrapping painting. For the first one I went with vary hues of blue. Once I was satisfied with the color I produced, I applied them to the surface with the palette knife and scraped with a squeegee. When I took a step back from the painting, I realize the the colors I mixed were to dark and blended into each, thus leading me to mix lighter blues and applying those to the painting.

Artist???

Painting II proposal: week 8

For the next half of the semester, to create my own body of work I would like to continue producing scraping painting. In doing so, I am aiming to explore the idea of adding and subtracting from a painting. I would also like to experiment with different techniques in scraping away paint and adding more to the paintings. It is my goal to complete at least 8 painting varying in size during this part of the semester.
One influential artist on this semesters work is Gerhard Richter. In his works he uses a squeegee to move the paint around the canvas. In this process and technique allows for spontaneous and reactive gestures of adding, moving, and subtracting of the paint.

     

B.A Portfolio: critique

During my critique with Laura Mongiovi we focused mostly on how my works were gonna be displayed. We discussed the option of framing them. She stated that because my images have a feminine aspect to them that adding frames would give them a sensual feeling. Adding frames to them would also make them precious objects which illustrates how we turn photographs into precious objects in order to immortalize our beauty through photos. She also mentioned the possibility of not framing them and having them coming slightly from the wall creating a space between the wall and the images as to see through the burned whole. By doing this it would give my work more of a human aspect.

B.A Portfolio: week 13 works

This weeks works I'm still getting the progression if decay in the flowers and the graininess of the photo. Once I have gotten to the end result with these I will begin going back and start burning them. I'm really pleased with the way the image is degrading with the repeated process of copying the photo over and over. I would like the image to eventually be unrecognizable with the continuation of copying the image.

B.A Portfolio: week 12 works

In this weeks works I've just been building on to what I've been doing for the past few weeks. With these ones I've started to show the progression of decay with the flowers in the beginning stages of wilting. I also started to use photo copies of the photo in order to get the image to become grainier in its progression of deterioration.

B.A Portfolio: week 12 critique

In the short critique for this week, I heard a lot of comments that I heard during the big critique of invited people. This week I only showed a few of the ones I have done that would show what direction I was going in as I have done several images in the past few weeks. A few comments were about showing the stages of decay with the flowers which I fully intend on doing in future images. Some also were not sure how the burning fit in to the pieces. It was stated that this is because I'm showing aging and decay over time where as the destruction from fire is immediate and rapid.

B.A Portfolio: week 11 works

These images for this week, along with last weeks, are going to be for beginning of the linear progress showing decay and degrading of youth and beauty. This is why none have been burned so as to start the narrative with the peak of youth and beauty.

B.A Portfolio: week 11 reading

On Photography by Susan Sontag

"In photography's early decades, photographs were expect to be idealized images. This is still the aim of most amateur photographers, for whom a beautiful photograph is a photograph of something beautiful. In recent decades, photography has succeeded in somewhat revising, for everybody, the definitions of what is beautiful and ugly." pg 28

Photography has always been used to showcase the beauty of the one photographed. In a way it was used to establish evidence of ones beauty in a youth and beauty obsessed culture. Even in today's society photography is used in magazines to show the readers what the idealized beauty is that society has created.  Photography allows someone to encapsulate ones beauty for as long as the photo last. This grants the photographed person to memorialize their beauty and youth as both begin to fade with age. This ideal is ironic as photograph, eventually too, deteriorate and fade defeating the purpose of photographing oneself. This, I feel, definatly relates to my work as Im using photographs of a beautiful figure but destroying it as to ruin the purpose of the photos. This as allows me to dismantle the importance of beauty and youth by taking away the figure beauty.

B.A Portfolio: week 10 works

This weeks work I'm continuing the idea of exploring our cultures obsession with youth and beauty with more of the same technique as lasts weeks. I have decided in order to show that eventually the beauty will fade with a progression of the photos starting with none burn and ending with nothing but ashes. I also want to keep photo copying the figure over and over so as the image itself will eventually become degraded.