post final crit
so I have missed a couple of weeks of entries here. I always approach final critiques time with tons of work and saying to myself that I will not need to go nuts the closer I get to "the day." however, after my last makeup midterm crit, there were only 2 and a half weeks between that midterm and the final. so what happened in those 2 and a half weeks?
light.
light happened.
one of the things about my work is that it is important to me that each of the individual works not "look" like each other physically. I am not interested in creating 12 or 15 of the same type of paintings. this turns out to be quite a challenge when it comes to a group of people, specifically, a group of professors in a defense-style, reading of the work. such a different experience from the outside world when it comes to how much is needed from the artist for the work to be encountered and pondered and looked at and enjoyed when the work is viewed in a gallery or non-academic setting. anyway, I know that this is where I am so this is the environment that I am having to learn to move around in.
one of the most helpful conversations was one that Dylan and I had in which he said that I have a whole ring full of keys and that I needed to pick a couple of those keys and hand them specifically to the viewer so that they will know where to begin. before bringing literal light into the works, I was just handing the whole bundle of keys to the viewer and saying "here. you decide which ones you want to use." again, a fine way to be... but not for this environment. anyway, one of the things that has been on my mind, and has been extremely important in my work has been the way light interacts with the surface of my paintings.
I was having a conversation with prof. maizels, and he asked me what a painting was. my definition was light interacting with pigment of some sort on a two, sometimes three, dimensional surface. we then had a conversation about how if there is no light, it doesn't matter what color is doing on the surface because it will not be seen. It got me thinking about how important the light that is directed at the object is and how much it influences what is going on on the surface. It also got me thinking about the conversation that I am wanting to have about the history of painting and what I can bring to that conversation. tall order, I know, but I am asking this for my own self and less to part of a history book. I have become fascinated about a painting being reflected back onto itself. this feeds directly into my investigation of the surface and subsurface, both in materials and in the way they behave and speak depending on what kind of light is shown onto them.
I think about why Michelangelo painted his frescos with such bright colors. how candlelight affected how those colors would be seen. this is something that I can duplicate but I will never see that painting, no matter how faithful to the original light, because I am not a 15th century, Italian man. so what is it exactly that I am looking for when I look at the use of candles to illuminate a painting, what is it exactly am I asking when I comment about the restoration of a Rothko, or make a comment on action painting through projection?
light.
light happened.
one of the things about my work is that it is important to me that each of the individual works not "look" like each other physically. I am not interested in creating 12 or 15 of the same type of paintings. this turns out to be quite a challenge when it comes to a group of people, specifically, a group of professors in a defense-style, reading of the work. such a different experience from the outside world when it comes to how much is needed from the artist for the work to be encountered and pondered and looked at and enjoyed when the work is viewed in a gallery or non-academic setting. anyway, I know that this is where I am so this is the environment that I am having to learn to move around in.
one of the most helpful conversations was one that Dylan and I had in which he said that I have a whole ring full of keys and that I needed to pick a couple of those keys and hand them specifically to the viewer so that they will know where to begin. before bringing literal light into the works, I was just handing the whole bundle of keys to the viewer and saying "here. you decide which ones you want to use." again, a fine way to be... but not for this environment. anyway, one of the things that has been on my mind, and has been extremely important in my work has been the way light interacts with the surface of my paintings.
I was having a conversation with prof. maizels, and he asked me what a painting was. my definition was light interacting with pigment of some sort on a two, sometimes three, dimensional surface. we then had a conversation about how if there is no light, it doesn't matter what color is doing on the surface because it will not be seen. It got me thinking about how important the light that is directed at the object is and how much it influences what is going on on the surface. It also got me thinking about the conversation that I am wanting to have about the history of painting and what I can bring to that conversation. tall order, I know, but I am asking this for my own self and less to part of a history book. I have become fascinated about a painting being reflected back onto itself. this feeds directly into my investigation of the surface and subsurface, both in materials and in the way they behave and speak depending on what kind of light is shown onto them.
I think about why Michelangelo painted his frescos with such bright colors. how candlelight affected how those colors would be seen. this is something that I can duplicate but I will never see that painting, no matter how faithful to the original light, because I am not a 15th century, Italian man. so what is it exactly that I am looking for when I look at the use of candles to illuminate a painting, what is it exactly am I asking when I comment about the restoration of a Rothko, or make a comment on action painting through projection?
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