Fall 17 Graduate Drawing/Painting ARTS 6033/6133

I forget how time moves. It was yesterday when I was wearing shorts and drinking beers with my studio mates at Chautauqua School of Art. Friday I had my final critique for the semester. it was strange listening to the feedback from the 10 faculty members in the room. The strangeness comes from looking at my work as incomplete but not unfinished. The work is finished but I have more to do before they are "complete." "they feel vacant of the soul.   When getting them from magazines, the likelihood of you experiencing them is null.   You are almost playing an athletic game.  College against high school.  You know you can win.  Hopping that you would elaborate where you are specifically in the paintings.   Where are you?"" This observation from the critique came from the harshest professor in the room. I needed this kind of commentary to remind me of my place. The strength of this graduate program is the breadth of the fac...

So a few days ago, I think I finally came up with the question I've been asking myself since February of this year...and it all happened with the help of a dumb facebook article! Below is a segment from draft two of my Thesis Paper. Michael Chabon, American novelist and short story writer, describes the underlying purpose of Wes Anderson’s film-making when he writes: The most we can hope to accomplish with our handfuls of salvaged bits --the bittersweet harvest of observation and experience --is to build a little world of our own. A scale model of that mysterious original, unbroken, half-remembered. Of course the worlds we build out of our store of fragments can be only approximations, partial and inaccurate. As representations of the vanished hole that haunts us, they must be accounted failures. And yet in that very failure, in their gaps and inaccuracies, they may yet be faithful maps, accurate scale models, of this beautiful and broken world. We call these scale modes ‘wo...

Climate Change Denial This is me talking through my convictions, while holding on to the doubt that many have against climate change. Trying to pull back from declarative statements into the territory of my personal opinion and observations. The work I make is often confusing because I am often confused about my intentions. I wish it weren’t so, but it simply is. My work reflects me. So here I am, stuck between action and inaction. That is to say, the in-action of a reclusive painter or action of an activist (or Socially Engaged Artist). In my belief of a changing environment, is it enough for me to simply document the destruction. I have accepted for a long time that the only way to correct the trajectory, that I believe our civilization is heading towards, is through political reform. However, the fact that I accept this as the only true answer absolves me any responsibility. Is that fair to the beliefs that I hold? Is my desire to retreat into painting a form of denial? How can I...

 At the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, where the international sculpture conference took place, the current featured exhibition, “Through the Eyes of Picasso” was an excellent example of cultural appropriation of African Art by western culture. This exhibition starts out in the, “free,” area where African art is displayed. The labels on each of the pieces gave the context and location that each piece including where it was cultural from, however this was overshadowed by the advertisement sticker stuck to the glass cases of the African art, “Creative Connection: See a similar work in Through the Eyes of Picasso.” The addition of the advertisement sticker rubbed me the wrong way, it made created an atmosphere that the African art only existed in this space to place Picasso’s work up on this hierarchy pedistool. To me this translated as there is an ascribed vale to Picasso’s work over the African art because it is of a western view, otherwise why would you have to pay $18 to see P...

Four Parts There is a quietude to my paintings. They have a horizontal and vertical-based, calm composition. There is a politeness in the framing and cutting off of objects. I’ve aimed to build a suite of paintings which the viewer can feel comfortable staying in for a longer amount of time. There are subtle details, shifts of hue and styles of painting, and nuggets of repeated objects from one painting to the next, but with the calm, stable composition, I leave the viewer room to contemplate and breathe. In the paintings there are several cues for a constructed reality. The framing of the character and scene paintings become a cue for a constructed reality. The stuffed, stitched, transparent lion does the same using a variability of the painting language. The space is often ambiguous. In the diptych, the viewer cannot be certain as to whether the scene is inside or outdoors. In Chairs , the chairs almost seem to float in a sea of green grass. The window of For Walter is vague, ...

New Artist Statement: My work is are about my transitioning body and the static relationship with my family in and outside of a space. I define space as the immediate felt, both physical and emotional. For this series, I am exploring the physical environment of an ideal home.   I am interested in showing the issues and intricacies in a living space through the depictions of collaged interiors. By stitching canvas together, I begin to mend the distance between body and family. This is a symbolic effort to merge my current life with the one I have left behind. The paintings present the complications of defining spaces of home, gender, and body. There's not a lot going on except being in the studio when I'm able. Graduate school requires papers and tests to be finished and passed. I'm working on getting back into journaling because that feeds into how I'm seeing my work. I don't see it as self narrative which is different. I'm wondering mor...