Summer 2014 - Festivals, Galaxy Pink Jewelry, and New Collage Work

I took part in my first festivals this year. Milwaukee Ave. Arts Festival and Wicker Park Arts Fest.
I brought along new Galaxy Pink jewelry designs and prints of photo montages and collages. These events were different from my experience in a gallery setting.

Galaxy Pink Jewelry

The designs in the collection come with a "Space Blurb" which tells the owner of the piece the meaning behind the specific design [Because Outer Space is Amazing]. The designs without an attributed meaning are called UFOs, and they are not yet released online.

It was great getting to discuss and explain my concepts one-on-one with people, as this is the core reason behind all the art-making. I've been generating ideas relating to man vs. nature for pieces such as...

Highways and Wonderbread
Oil pastel on paper

The loud colors represent the immediacy of the subject. I believe humanity is meant to work in harmony with nature instead of against it, for the simple reason that the quality and ease of life is easier when we do. This picture represents the idealism that moved American culture away from those ideas.
ushistory.org

What it means to add jewelry making to my practice

It happened on a whim, but all the best things do. I have been experimenting with laser cutting. The image actually begins as a digital file. There are many possibilities with it because there is a sculptural element to the creation of laser cut objects, even though they start as flat images. I think that is my favorite thing about it.
It started with a series of ripped tape drawings, so basically the pieces manifested themselves as giant wood replicas of tape.

On the side, I was making little geometric gestures and imagining how many I could make with a sheet of wood. It's like rolling out a sheet of dough and breaking out the cookie cutter. Really, the possibilities are endless and you can make as many objects as you want from one image, which is great for jewelry. It is cool to see these designs that I create come to life.

Multiplicity Art Opening

Last Thursday, I went to the opening night of the exhibition Multiplicity at the Virginia MOCA. It was great to see editions of prints by artists who I primarily think of as painters. I had the chance to get a look at the works of John Cage, Barbara Kruger, John Baldessari, and David Hockney that I had never seen in person before. There were screen prints, woodcut prints, and lithographs. All I can say is, online photos don't do much justice to the impact that most artwork can have in person--in beautiful frames, and as part of a curated show. 

http://www.virginiamoca.org/exhibitions

Strangers

Motives

16"x22"x1.5"

Oil on canvas

February 2014

So much of our identities are sculpted by others' opinions. We are what we are permitted to be. We are taught what is socially acceptable in the society in which we live. Our personalities are filtered by a screen and we act how we are taught to act in public. These screens filter out what makes us different and it is so easy to lose sight of the quirks that set us apart. Commercial society constantly has us thinking about ourselves, selling products that claim to cater to our individuality. What exactly is this paradox doing to the cores of our personality? Do we actually even have personalities at all? Is it possible that we are we all merely reflections of people in our lives collaged together?

Real Glitch Painting Experiments

I'm drawn intensely to vibrant neon colors at this point and time. The instinct to combine unusual colors is very strong, [especially if there is a chance they will look horrible next to each other]. Once that is done, I proceed to find a color that will make the color combination okay again. The repetition is enjoyable, and it is satisfying to reveal a stenciled perfect line. I plan to screen print on canvas sometime soon, and then paint on that. I've been trying to think of ideas to paint, but it seems as though it's better to imagine the second step after completing the first rather than to idealize a masterpiece. That could be one reason why my recent work leans towards abstraction.

Glitch Painting Experiments

Contrasting Spectacles: Show Installation

I'm going to be installing my work at Next Door on the 9th; my work will be along one [giant!] wall and I'll be showing with Jillian Schiavi. The closing reception will be sometime in January or February. I plan to show my work in a new way with the montages I have made. The montages will be presented alongside the painting in order for the viewer to seek out ways in which the paintings deviated from the sources. The montages provide a starting point for a dialogue, and it'll be interesting to see how the conversation changes with them presented as prints in floating frames on the wall. 

Next Door on Artslant

Work-Related Research

Carnivalesque by Bakhtin
This is a bit of a starting point for research for my [historical] investigation of indulgence. This explains a bit about the concepts of the carnival found in the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin. This writing was referenced in Television Cultures by John Fiske.


       

Simulation Installation

Waiting Room Simulation "A painting itself can contribute to [this] decorating." -Excerpt from artist statement

File>Duplicate

I feel a pull in my practice. The digital influences are changing the arts vernacular, and changing it while I try to carve out what is my practice and what is not. Going back to the Orchestra of Overkill series, which in all honesty, right now consists of one painting. Which is okay. The means of which this project requires are extenuating, but the obligation to myself to finish, or at least gain a substantial amount of headway on it, is the fuel.
Meanwhile, I make photomontages as a tool to contemplate the content of the final works. I am inclined to refer to these photomontages as sketches. What is interesting, though, is that they cannot quite exist as an original, and when grouped with my painting process, I feel this is gravely problematic. These montages have the capability to exist on millions of screens if posted online, or millions of editions as a print, and yet not one of those images is the original.

"An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the "authentic" print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed." -Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

RAW:Chicago 2013 Interview

Visual Statements

Formalities, Oil on canvas

The advantages and disadvantages of being a woman are made a subject of controversy every day. Women are dynamic. I know that every woman has it in her to be independent, strong, and respectable. Sexist talk is what it is, merely talk. There is no way to stop every hurtful word and ill-formed opinion. A form of degradation is sexual objectification, but that role can lend itself to the revelation of serious and stunning truths about what it is to be female, and with it the light sting of humor that accompanies lingering stereotypes.

Addiction Machine

Addiction Machine, Oil on canvas

The digital age is changing society in ways yet to be seen. Is it good or bad change? Maybe it’s both. Regardless, I miss the days where it would be special to send a picture message of a finished work to my friends and family. It was intimate. Now it goes out to a vat of virtual opinions. The bigger the audience, the harder it is to be honest. I want art to speak the truth because truth is the only thing we have, and art has the potential to do this. I don’t edit a work based on the amount of people who are going to see it. It simply is what it is. It takes courage to tell the truth rather than to say what people want to hear. I believe that art is called to react to this distorted virtual reality with a relentless and unconcealed truth.

Finicky Materials

Final Test. Latex, enamel, and gesso on wood. March 2013.

I LOVE new and foreign materials. Unfortunately, my favorites always happen to be hazardous or ephemeral. For instance, one of my tests that included latex will start to wilt and disintegrate in six months, and I’m looking for a material that could stick around in a gallery for a while.

I have been using, and will continue to use traditional painting materials in conventional ways so that I will have brought tradition into the conversation; and with that, the rest of the work functions to 'push up' against these formal qualities. Four bars, stretched canvas, gesso, oil ground, etc. I will paint an abstracted image onto the canvas to my full ability with oil, spray, and enamel paints. This sets the stage for future material experimentation, which I have done before, but this time I will go way too far.