Friday, February 18, 2011

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

Thursday, February 3, 2011

"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?