painting isn't just for painters.

In an attempt to find something worth working on I've stumbled upon a bit of creative hope. I have not attempted a painting since high school and here I am, three paintings deep, and it's awesome. Being back in Richmond these last few months has not been the fresh start I had once hoped it would become, but it has given me a few good lessons, and a couple real kicks in the ego.

Heres a couple pics of my first finished work, and its progress. More to come!

Tele-scape

This new work is an extension of some of my old work, but I've have decided to move away from the video work and go back to what struck my interest in the first place.

There is something visually captivating about the television. Maybe it is just the deer in headlights phenomenon. Light+movement= attention. This is an almost primal instinct. But I think TV has evolved, it can be beauitful, and frightening and almost real.

Deceptive. Constructed. Engineered for optimum viewing pleasure.

To put it simply, these images are composite illusions of natural imagery.

decisive moments

Installation:

4/13 Art of Photo Show

4/1 Understanding Media - Marshall McLuhan

As a T.A. for the sophomore seminar class I have the opportunity to work with Tom Adair. I have been working on a draft for my artist statement along side the other students in the class. Upon reading my paper, Tom suggested that I look into Marshall McLuhan, someone that we feels is very inspirational and someone that he felt would help to inform my own artist statement.

Here are some quotes I took from the writing that I felt to be particularly poignant.

"We are entering the new age of education that is programmed for discovery rather than instruction."

"Our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot."

"The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance. The serious artist is the only person able to encounter technology with impunity, just because he is an expert aware of the changes in sense perception."

"The effect of electric technology had at first been anxiety. Now it appears to create boredom. "

3/29 Carlos and Jason Sanchez

Carlos and Jason Sanchez live and work out of Montreal, Canada. There use of color saturation and cinematic qualities remind me of works by Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson. There tableau's are at first familiar, but when you look closely there is something almost sinister about them.

The atmospheric elements created are unsettling and in some ways dark. The brothers play with the visual cliches portrayed in there narratives to create a conversation that speaks to such things as homosexuality, family relations, and Christianity. The patterns of key elements in there work helps to key the viewer read and visually unwind the image's questions.

There work seems like fragments of a larger narrative as if they were taken at the decisive moment in a film. There imagery is suggestive of something else that could be or have happend. Nothing is as it seems, or it seems a little off. This ambiguity contributes to the mood that encompasses all there work.

http://www.thesanchezbrothers.com/

http://myartspace.com/artistInfo.do?populatinglist=home&subscriberid=zntvk0ob69r0s951

3/23 Character Value.

In my meeting with Paul we talked about using my videos as a character representation of the American psyche.

The jock
the drama queens
the doctors
the family
the cops

By using the videos in this way they could represent the cultural values that are portrayed in the television that we watch on a daily basis. Since the films are so short, the images and sound has to work in a way that expresses an idea, the moment of peak interest that encompasses the mood of the different genres depicted.

Thinking of these videos as personalities might help to shape the character of the pieces and work as a whole. If presented together they could begin to have a conversation with each other and formulate a discussion about American Culture through the eyes of the television.