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.