The Trophy

oil on canvas

114"x78"

Hung Liu is a Chinese-American contemporary artist.  Much of her paintings deal with Chinese history and philosophy, as she was trained in the Chinese Socialist Realist style.  She combines realism with abstract, in a non surrealist fashion, which really highlights the emotion in her pieces.  Devoid of typical backgrounds and negative spaces associated with her subject's backgrounds, the subjects are set free within the pieces and shine as main actors, if not heroes.  I enjoy her style because it really blends two opposite techniques in a way that feels natural an unobtrusive.

collage

this is a project for surface research. the assignment was to take multiple pictures of a place or an object of our choice and collage them together.  after this step, we were told to paint the collage in acrylics.  the place i chose is under a bridge leaving richmond, which supports the foot bridge to belle isle.  i didn't want the composition to be a replication of the actual scene, but i wanted the viewer to be able to know that they were looking at the underside of a bridge.
this is my first time painting since high school, and the piece still needs a lot of work, i'm going to add more values and a little more detail.

final surface project

for our final surface project we were told we could do anything we wanted.  i was working with $0, but had a panel that my roommate found in the trash at the fine arts building and papier mache supplies left over from my space research project.  my initial plan was to build textures and different levels off of the panel with the mache and paint on top of the mache.  however, as i was testing this out, the paper folded over like fabric.  this gave me the idea to make the piece above.  i applied a layer of mache, and then added the folding fabric-esque paper on top of it.  i charcoaled the edges and inside the folds to accentuate them.

surface research/book/untitled

we were given an assignment to make a book documenting a week in our lives.  we could make the book as realistic or abstract as we wanted, as long as it captured seven days of time.
i took a picture each day (sometimes multiple) and the pictures on transparencies.  i then matted each one and bound them together into an accordion style book.  the images don't have backs on them so you can see through them. you can close two together at once to combine them.  the book has no front or back cover, so when it is closed, all of the pictures combine to create a dreamy mixture of colors and pictures.

Julie Mehretu

Stadia III (2004)

Julia Mehretu

ink and acrylic on canvas

This piece is meant to depict how the news and media made the Iraq war feel more like a video game than a real current event.  Subtle explosions, building diagrams, and geometric shapes are subtly drawn in ink in the background, while bright, geometric acrylic shapes are painted in the foreground.  The sporadic nature of the shapes offset the action in the background, and leave the viewer slightly confused without a focal point.  Here is a closer view of the ink in the background:

Charles Sheeler

Steel-Croton (1953)

Charles Sheeler

oil on canvas

Charles Sheeler is among a group of artists known as precisionists, who depict machine-age monuments of America in their art.  The piece is a layered, dizzied depiction of a steel-span bridge, with a composition based on French cubism.  This layering, almost like a multiple exposure, creates a feeling of fluidity, which was largely influenced by the mindset of the time it was created - as the country's industrial growth was exponential.

artist John Sloan

Stein at Window, Sixth Avenue (1918)

John Sloan

oil on canvas

Our Surface Research class went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA) to gain inspiration for our final projects, which are free of constraints or assigned concepts - we can do anything we want to.  In this piece, artist John Sloan painted the traditional, familiar model in the studio.  What is different, however, is that she isn't the typical object of beauty you find in classical paintings.  She's his sitter, Efzenka Stein, an immigrant from Bohemia.  She gazes out the window at the newly industrialized city, dressed in her working clothes.  This portrayal of simplicity, realism, and truth is beauty within itself. 

The Coming Insurrection

if you are interested in anarcho-communism (which is in no way linked to the communism your grandparents talk about), read this book:

it makes a lot of sense.  part "political" philosophy, eye-opening prose, and motivation for action. you can read the entire book online, here: http://tarnac9.wordpress.com/texts/the-coming-insurrection/

Jill Zevenbergen

i saw my professor's art for the first time today, i love it:

   

Test Site

2007

giclee print, screenprint, lithography, acrylic, gouche

 Fluo (#36 of 40)

2006 

digital print, screenprint, painters’ tape

Moments Ago I Lost It 

 2008

accordion book: archival ink jet and screenprint 

see more here (site is under construction): jillzevenbergen.com

surface research/facade

materials: watercolor and block printing ink on watercolor paper, plexiglass, scrap birch and pine.
for this assignment we made stamps combining our three previous projects out of linocut blocks. we were instructed to print them any way we wanted on paper, and then somehow make these printed images into a three dimensional piece.  i wanted to make the papers i made (which resembled wallpaper) to look as though they were scraps from a destroyed home.  i held the scraps off of the wall using plexiglass (also printed), and held the plexiglass to the wall using scraps of plywood that i snapped into strips instead of using a saw to give a broken feel.  the plexiglass is also intentionally hard to see from a distance, but intricately stamped so when discovered it adds a few extra layers of depth.

Deerhunter show

Bradford Cox and his Jazzmaster

i saw Deerhunter last night at the canal club.  it was really great, Ducktails (lead singer of real estate) opened with a hazy, lazy guitar/drum machine set full of nodding rhythms and loops. i feel he could have played a little longer though - his set only lasted about twenty minutes.  Casino vs. Japan was next, playing sleepy, heavy bodied electronic ambient.
Deerhunter played a lot of their new songs, with a few of the old ones. Halcyon Digest, their newest album, is growing on me.  i feel it's significantly happier sounding than their previous releases, which was kind of hard to get used to at first.  hearing the songs played live really made me appreciate the album much more, however.  especially with "Helicopter" (i think that's the title of the song), which they extended for the show.  they also extended "Nothing Ever Happened," adding a crazed experimental guitar solo from Cox, reminiscent of late 80's/early 90's post punk and college rock.  they came back on for an encore and played a variation of "Cryptograms," with their amps turned as loud as they would go...i was standing beside Cox's stack and i still can't hear out of my left ear.  they threw lots of extra energy into an already energetic song, giving it a saturated, obnoxiously loud punk rock feel to make something new yet nostalgic for the fans of their older work.
Deerhunter is one band that really sound like the sources they claim to be influenced by.  i read in an interview recently that Bradford Cox (lead singer/guitarist) pulls a lot of his musical inspiration from spending his entire sixteenth year in a coma.  he was pumped full of morphine and various other narcotic painkillers.  the combination of those two feelings...being lost in sleep and a morphine-induced dreamlike consciousness really come out in Deerhunter's music.  repeating rhythms, wailing guitars, reverb, all tightly wound together and seeming to be coming from the bottom of a dark lake than from your stereo speakers.   Cox was diagnosed at a young age with Marfan Syndrome, a disease of the connective tissue which leaves the sufferer abnormally skinny with extended arms/legs.  it also affects eyesight and many other parts of the body.  due to his disease, he was alienated from other kids, spending a lot of time separated from other people.  this influenced his musical ideas greatly as well, especially with the songs "Hazel St." and "Twilight on Carbon Lake."  Cox's musical influences include the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Stereolab.

abstract surface project

this is an abstract assignment for surface research. we brought objects in that could fit in the palm of our hand, sketched the object in contour multiple times, cut the sketch into eight equal pieces, then rearranged it how we wanted. we then transferred the collaborated sketch onto a new paper and made a work from it.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

a really great musical influence of mine over the years has been the anarchist post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  i just found out that they're reuniting for a tour this Winter, and coming to the 9:30 club in DC next February.
their music is highly orchestrated, it waxes and wanes through different movements, using multiple instruments and samples. Sometimes the music is very minimalistic and at others it has multiple layers of french horns, guitars, violins, and voice samples (the members never actually sing).  their songs are usually about twenty minutes long, but each one is very non-repetitive and moves in and out of different sound scapes.

they are really skilled in my opinion because they give a feeling of uneasy beauty by using only music.  They paint a picture of a broken down, hopeless America without using lyrics and very few words.
the style of music has really influenced my art for the past few years - which is also struggling to portray the "dark shattered underbelly of the american dream." - jello biafra

blogspot won't let me put a video on here from youtube, but here's a link if you're interested.  it's a portion of a song from their album "lift yr skinny fists like antennas to heaven"

fifty characters

our first project for surface research was to create a work utilizing fifty black and white, abstract images that were all related somehow.  i chose to do a set of abstracted door hinges, representing all the paths one goes down in life - it's a little cliche, but those doors of opportunity that open and close all around you couldn't work without the hinges.  these hinges come in all shapes and sizes.

i designed the work to look different from all sides, and even change as the viewer interacts with it.  the viewer can open and close each hinge, revealing the opposite sides of the hinge - which are for the most part aren't symmetric.  the hinges are also very close together, making it impossible to open or close certain hinges when others get it in the way.

which is also a sort of metaphor for life, you have to set everything up as a puzzle in order to make it work.  certain things aren't possible without others being absent or present, in the background and foreground.
i have a better picture with a frontal view of the work that i will post tomorrow.

Karen Garrett

I found a great sculptor today when looking for cardboard sculpting techniques online.  Her name is Karen Garrett, and she uses found materials and "trash" for most of her sculptures that I've seen.  As from what I understand, most of you in your first semester of AFO are doing cardboard sculptures for Space Research, so this might interest you.  Here are a couple of my favorite pieces from her website.
"Trash or Treasure" - made of cardboard, resin, and fiberglass.

Also "The Kiss"

about

hi, i'm jonathon.  just started the arts foundation program at vcu.

there isn't much to know.  i really want to expand my knowledge of different medias and techniques, shapes and voices.
one of my favorite movements is dada.  i love the chaos and rebellion of the works from that period, and their transcendence from a simple canvas or sketchbook to film, theatre, public demonstration, even "readymade" objects.  all to show that art didn't necessarily have to be beautiful or appealing, but was itself a tool for cultural revolt, a stage for your societal aggression.
possibly my favorite work from the period is "dada siegt" by raoul hausmann in 1920:

this weekend i visited the taubman museum of art in roanoke, va.  the museum itself was a little disappointing once inside, but there was a work that really inspired me. the artist is primitivo suarez-wolfe, this work titled "recurring."  the piece questions our comfort zone by giving us a different, yet simple view of a room. the work shows the same room corner on each side, each with the same dimensions and materials, except each one is tilted, upside down, or just a little above eye-level.
when viewed up close, each room gives you the sense that something just isn't right. it's a sinking, uncomfortable feeling, like you're on the edge of a cliff, just before falling.


he pulls this off by giving us very common visual cues - the carpet isn't supposed to be on the wall, the bumps of the ceiling aren't supposed to be beneath us.  if you stripped down each room to the drywall, the piece wouldn't have the same effect.
i admire the power this piece has over you, and the ability of the artist to pull out such a deep, uncomfortable feeling from such a simple layout.
here is suarez's website: http://www.primitivosuarezwolfe.com/