Thesis Exhibition

With the pressure of thesis pushing down on me I found it very difficult to produce a completed painting. I continuously forced things to happen within the painting out of fear they wouldn’t happen on there own in time. Because of this inability to produce work my desired thesis project continued to shrink. The ideal 5 piece series was downsized to a measly three. I was very nervous that my small body of work was going to be lost on my 15 foot wall as well as within the show. i had concerns about color that nearly drove me insane. If two of my paintings use the same color palette will the third be out of place if I deviate? If I stick to the same colors will it be too much of the same thing?

Thanks to Caetlynn Booth and the gift of Pema Chodron, I was able to relax, reassess my situation, and regain trust in myself and my process.

My third painting was finished the day of installation. To my delight the painting fit well with the other two paintings I was showing. Thier was a definite progression evident within it, however it also made references to the discoveries made in the two paintings hanging with it. My concern of the wall space was also put to rest during installation. The wall allowed for each painting to have its own space and allowed me to hang them at desired intervals. Hanneline felt the installation suggested seriality, each space almost could be read as another painting. Hanneline as well as the critic, Beth, both discussed my presentation in terms alluding to its honesty. Beth also addressed the relationship of paintings to its presentation, suggesting they go hand and hand, reinforcing eachother. how my paintings are obviouvsly ply wood glued and nailed to more wood. its about process.

Meeting with the critic, Beth, was an amazing experience. She was a very intelligent woman and it was such a pleasure to speak with her. She was able to identify important points within my work and experienced my work in the way I hoped.

Beth began by analyzing the formal aspects of the paintings. She felt the interaction of layer, line, shape and color were effective. She felt the limited color pallete was successful, describing my off compliments as “sophisticated”. Beth found the relationship between form and space interesting. Hanneline referred to  this same relationship as a chess game, identifying my process of going back and forth between image and space.

Beth recognized the degenerative aspect of the image, sensed they were crops of larger images, and most importantly that these have a strong reference to my process. She also discussed how the paintings offer wide possibility of paint. As expressed through excerpts from my written thesis, these were all main points within my written thesis.

"The figures in my paintings are described in terms of fragments, the body is considered as “parts” out of context of the whole. The result this philosophy imbues is a series of visual representations of the “body” deconstructed from its formal conventions, and recreated anew with imaginative and defamiliarized qualities."

"explore psychological exposition and physical deterioration"

"My paintings are constructed through an active dialogue of observation and interpretation of the subject. My paintings record my visual and thought processes, allowing each painting to develop from the active engagement and conversation with the paint. Without a preconceived notion, each mark, color, or gesture informs the next, building up and scraping away until arriving at a place that feels right. I activate the paintings surfaces by employing a wide painterly  vocabulary through creating contradictions in the paint, and juxtaposing different types of representations, i.e. pairing strong textures with smooth surfaces, allowing flat color felids to interrupt receding planes, and collapsing three dimensional forms into a two dimensional contour. By limiting space, and pushing imagery against the picture plane, the paintings project into the viewers space, forcing the painting to confront the viewer. Vibrant colors often paired with their compliment create surfaces charged with energy."

Beth, Hanneline, and my peers were able to interact with my paintings in different ways.
implications/interpretations of shape/image:

• post industrial 
  
• futuristic 
• submerged object
• machine formed/ man vs. machine
• growing-expansive
• molded plastic
• joints/ desire to move

The following passage is from my written thesis. It describes the desired interaction between the paintings and the veiwer.
"These paintings are not easily read, they require the viewers active engagement, looking and deciphering."

“The illegibility of the subject will ideally allow the viewer to contemplate, absorb and experience the painting in its entirety, in efforts that the expression of the whole will add up to more than the sum of its parts. While enhancing the importance of the paint and process this also will allow the painting to take on ambiguity from which viewers are encouraged to construct there own reality.”

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work… if the artist carries through his idea and makes it into visible form, all the steps in the process are of importance. The idea itself even if it is not made visible, is as much a work of art as any finished product. All intervening steps - scribbles, sketches, drawings, filed works, models, studies, thoughts conversations- are of interest. Those that show the thought process of the artist are sometimes more interesting than the final product.

Sol  LeWitt, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art

Dear Melissa Torro,

I tried to comment on your blog, however, you dont seem to have that feature. I just remembered an artist i saw a while back in Chelsea. Leonardo Drew. He shows at Sikkema Jenkins. Look at his work.

Love,
Nicole

"A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations:
The earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a think crust over fluid; one second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced."

Charles Darwin, after experiencing an earthquake in Chile 1835

can you have your cake and eat it too?

 

I brought these two paintings to the semesters first crit. My crit group didn't have much

feedback regarding the paintings themselves, however an issue necessary of further thought was addressed.

The imagery of these paintings are derived from the reduction and reinterpretation of the figure.On the topic of titles, it was suggested that the knowledge of subject will heighten the interest of the viewer. My concern lies with in how the viewer experiences the paintings. Because my paintings are not easily read, will knowing these are figural images turn my paintings into a game of Where's Waldo?

By taking emphasis off the subject, i would leave the paintings as an open-ended experience. It has been my belief that illegibility of the subject will allow the viewer to contemplate, absorb and experience the painting in its entirety, in efforts that the expression of the whole will add up to more than the sum of its parts.

Because these paintings are constructed through an active dialogue with the painting and celebrate paint as paint, would diminishing importance of subject enhance the importance of the paint and process? Would the ambiguity encourage the viewer to construct their own reality? Which does more for the paintings?