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.

3/23 Anderson Gallery

3/11 Sanford Biggers

http://www.sanfordbiggers.com/

http://www.rovetv.net/sb-press.html

http://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/visualarts/sanford_biggers.php

Lotus

Blossom

Cheshire (sculpture)

Prayer Rug

One of the first things that stuck out about Sanford Biggers work was the similarities with the previous artist to lecture Hank Willis Thomas. They both made work that focused on race in American culture and both used popular iconic imagery in there work. Both Artists also used the haunting image of the slave ship in there work.

Biggers who spent a sometime in Japan is inspired by the different cities around the world. He hopes to show less cultural differences and more similarities between families all over. He links Japanese culture to African American Culture in much of his work. Since his work is so multicultural he allows his formal art training to be the translation for his work. Different aspects in the works speak to different people depending on there background. He works with symbols that contradict and that offer a dialogue/ conversation. Symbols that allow for questions that open up the work. For example by mixing Hip Hop culture with Buddhist thinking the work becomes more complicated and avoids the labeling of Hip Hop. His work and himself as an artist is always changing and evolving to avoid such compartmentalizing of himself and his work. Biggers was a great speaker and was really inspirational to listen too. He was down to earth about recycling ideas and reusing past projects to contribute to new ideas.

3/11 thats bs

As I am pulling imagery in for my second movie a few things have crossed my mind as far as subjects go. The nighttime drama that I shot last year was not as well defined as I had hoped when I was thinking of ideas this time around for my films. There are a million night time dramas. But what in reality makes up those dramas. The girl fights. That is the most exciting part of those shows. Reality isn't as much fun without them. So this got me thinking about the rest of my imagery. What about the shows, is so important and what in them is the core, that makes them interesting.
This relationship between imagery and sounds, this is where it can be interesting. This is where I can play with the Moment. That moment of peaked interest and excitement. This is where I can begin to start a conversation.

3/8 Pipilotti Rist

Swiss artist and filmmaker, Pipilotti Rist is a video artist, musician, and professor who's work focuses on the unpredictable, the fantastic and the surreal. Rist focuses her attention on work that invokes audience interaction and reaction. She often encourages viewer response in hopes of creating a conversation.
I first discovered Rist 3 years ago, but to be honest I did not look very hard to far into her work. I came across something that I had written about her recently. It was a very shallow semi review of her work. Looking at it now the only thing I had nailed about her was her name. Her work with video is unlike anything I have come across to date. It is fun, and full of humor. She works around the taboos of what is appropriate and shatters all premeditated thought.
Her work is often full of vibrant color and upbeat music which seperates her from many of the contemporary artists I have reviewed to date. Especially her recent film Pepperminta.

Selbstlos im Lavabad (Selfless In The Bath Of Lava), 1994

Closet Circuit, 2000

Himalaya Goldsteins Stube, (Himalaya Goldstein's Living Room), 1999

http://www.pipilottirist.net/

http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=68

3/4 : relevancy

As I progress further into my work and research I am really starting to question how relevant my work is. For me it is current and not dated, but I am a college student with a old standard television. Most of the work that I am doing I feel like has been done before. Frankly in the late 80's and all through the 90's. I feel connected with my work, but part of me feels like I am in the wrong decade. Television is not what it was and broadcast has become something completely different.

Large heavy TV's have now become something of a relic, something to put in your basement, or give away to the neighbor next door going off to college. TV's now are things you hang above your fireplace or at the end of your bed. They keep you company in the bathroom, and help you cook in the kitchen. These are not your 60-70 pound mammoth screens. Television has evolved into something that is almost a part of us. It is on your mantle because you look up to it. It has replaced the scenic photographs and paintings with Dancing with the Stars and House.
My parents house 2/10

3/1 Orlan

http://www.orlan.net/

http://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ecook/courses/eng114em/surgeries.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jul/01/orlan-performance-artist-carnal-art

For me, Orlan represents the extreme. There is the obvious with the reconstruction of herself through plastic surgery in the 1990's, but its what she did with the surgeries that strikes me the most interesting. Orlan taped and broadcast her surgeries live to institutions throughout the world. She used the surgeries to sculpt her image into classical ideals of women according to the canon of art history. Orlan picked these women not because of their beauty but for the stories.. the anti-beauty- Diana because she is inferior to the gods and men but is leader of the goddesses and women; Mona Lisa because of the standard of beauty, or anti-beauty, she represents; Psyche because of her fragility and vulnerability within the soul; Venus for carnal beauty; Europa for her adventurous outlook to the horizon, the future.
These images of what it takes to be beautiful, or the idea or ideal beauty are gory and "carnal". Orlan uses this, she sees the whole process as a performance, or as a stage. She uses elaborate costumes to present a scene. Although this work was done in the 1990's, it for me represents the extreme of what can be and is transmitted on the Television.

2/25 AFHV

This is the movie that I have been working on lately. It is my first attempt with working with sound and I am not sure how I feel about it. I think it works as far as capturing the overall feeling of kind of an anxious frantic feeling but I'm not sold that that is what I want. These are shots of online and televised babies. From Americas funniest home videos and from Youtube-- some of the more popular clips like "serious baby" and "charlie bit me". There are also a series of different clips of babies on the toilet and in the toilet. I find it so interesting that parents want everyone on the internet and those who watch television to see their child in the bathroom. The sound is a mix of laugh tracks (which I find terrifying) and sound taken from the montaged clips from AFHV.

2/22 James Turrell

http://greenmuseum.org/content/artist_index/artist_id-11.html

http://www.pacewildenstein.com/Artists/ViewArtist.aspx?guid=05c48019-2fde-4e3b-be25-56419dcc2729

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/turrell/

I first learned about James Turrell On the PBS series ART 21. It was the episode was Spirituality. I was surprised at the reaction that I had to his work through the Television. Even without being in the spaces he has masterly created, I felt an atmospheric involvement. Turrell's use of light is captivating. Without the experience of being within the space of installation I find all his spaces to be especially ethereal. Focused on self awareness and meditation.

Turrell talks about the qualities of light in relation to life. In death, he explains, things are always explained in terms of the quality of the light. Bright, dark, white, black. His work focuses on those aspects of light. How it can alter perspective, allow you to look inward. Meditation is a large part of Turrells work.

"The Light Inside"
1999

Skyspace at Live Oak Friends Meeting House, Houston, Texas
2000

"Roden Crater," East Portal Entryway
2000

2/18 YOUTUBE

Cat and Tv

little girl watching tv

cat and birds

all the single babies

news and health

4kids on tv

Spongebob

2/16 Hank Willis Thomas

http://hankwillisthomas.com/splash.html

http://www.artnet.com/artist/424601654/hank-willis-thomas.html

http://www.nyartbeat.com/nyablog/2009/03/unbranded-an-interview-with-hank-willis-thomas/
Opportunity Knocks

It Didn't Just Grow by Itself

Now that's funny!

Hank Willis Thomas is an artist who's work deals with the complex underlining issues in popular culture particularly in advertisements. The idea of the 'Other' came up quite a few times in his lecture, speckled throughout his work. "A person's definition of the 'Other' is part of what defines or even constitutes the self and other phenomena and cultural units." according to Wikipedia. This is often referred to as the Self/Other Dichotomy. By sectioning off a part of someone/something/cultures and compare them to yourself you end up defining yourself by what you are not. Social conditioning and Political norms is constantly evolving, but the need for the 'Other' remains. Thomas deals with the shift in the otherness from early 20th century advertisements using African Americans for their 'Otherness' the the now Middle Eastern caricature's that people now are barley blinking a eye at. Thomas highlights the branded conscienceness that people have programed into their heads, and asks the viewer to think twice.

We Both is Glad

2/15 Paul Pfeiffer

Pure Products Go Crazy, 1998

Caryatid Red Yellow Blue, 2008

Live Evil (Auckland), 2002

Morning after the Deluge,2003

Most of the notes that I took in this lecture are almost illegible. They are sporadic and should probably be approached like deciphering brainstorm on paper. This is from my memory kinda how this artist talked about his work. Most of what I took from this lecture, was the way that Pfeiffer talked about his work in relation to his audience. He enjoyed the power and control that the viewer had once his work was up. They had the option to stay and spend time with the piece, or they could pass over it. This is much like the conversation between and person and a painting. Often in his work the viewer is subjective-- this idea of complete obscurity.
Something that really stuck with me was how he talked about his work. He didn't call them art, or work, or pieces but referred to them as experiments. It was as though he was not even sure as to what they did himself. This again leads back to the total control that the audience has in his work. They are the common denominator within all his work.Human Behavior--Animal behavior-- observations within his work. He talked of race and sexual identity and how time changes the conversation of his work constantly. It changes meaning. As time changes so does the audience-- to they will forever be the protagonists, not the work itself.

Another quote that stood out for me was the idea of the moving image become still. The transformation of something moving in real time to a moment in time. At this point then viewer again or like always has the option.. to sit with the piece as time passes or move on, and take away only that moment.

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/paul-pfeiffer/

http://www.thomasdane.com/artist.php?artist_id=12

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/pfeiffer/index.html

2/15 Harry Gruyaert

Floor Excercise

"TV Shots" from Media Series, 1974

"TV Shots" from Media Series, 1972

Diving

"Do Not Adjust Your Set"

Harry Gruyaert is a Belgian artist who photographs popular culture and news as it is shown on the television screen. Playing with the antenna he manipulates the color saturation. He is probably most known from his series from the 1970's Munich Olympic Games which he considers his most pure adaptation of journalistic photography.

"At the heart of Gruyaert’s work is his affinity to structuring the intense nature of color. His images are beautiful in terms of life, luminosity and the people in relation to their situations. A contrast of elements assembled into refined graphics of shadows, hue, light and atmosphere."fototv.com

I stumbled across in a happy accident. This semester I am a T.A. for a sophomore seminar class, and as I was putting together a class lecture on the importance of research and the used of "Artstor" I began searching for artists that might pertain to the work I have been doing. As I was looking through his imagery, I was very surprised to see that his work, looked a lot like mine. In fact, his work was probably the closest to all other artists that I have looked up to date.

http://www.steidlville.com/artists/368-Harry-Gruyaert.html

http://www.artnet.com/artist/618119/harry-gruyaert.html

http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/photographer/Harry__Gruyaert/A/

2/11: the Unexcpected

I'm sure I am not unlike most people my age.
I get a cold, I take some medicine. Not a big deal.
But it is the unexpected, the truthfully unheard of until this moment that I would have never thought possible. While I was at work, I noticed that I was not blinking my left eye. Ok-maybe pink eye. Not horrible. As the day progressed I also noticed that I was half smiling, have raising my eyebrows. In fact I had no normal function of the left side of my face. This gave me cause for some concern. Student health here I come.

Prognosis- Bells Palsy, a paralyses of one side of the face. For some people this is a minor bump. For some people you give them 3 weeks and they are back to normal. For others it is permanent, and due to its effects on nerves can become life threatening. For me its dangerous. At 3 mos. my parents were told that I had strabismus most commonly known as lazy eye. 22 years, 2 surgeries and about 50 pairs of glasses later, it was pretty much under control. Now I face a sever back tracking. Since the palsy effects the muscular strength of the left side, it effect my very weak eye- which if long enough and persistent enough may take my sight. With a cold and 24 hours, everything has changed. This is something I never thought could happen to me. As much as I try to stay positive about the situation it is hard not to think about becoming a walking camera. I like most people my age just don't think about stuff like this. You don't think anything like this could happen to you.