I am finally getting around to scanning more of my film from Italy last year. The first two images are from Venice and the last from the tower in Verona. It is nice to see where my style began to really come into its own, since I feel photographing so much while studying abroad really helped me be more decisive with my pictures.
I feel it ruins the aesthetics of the room, as well as the cohesiveness that the curators were trying to establish despite the challenge of having no coherent theme, but also, it is difficult to read and has a glare obstructing its view from many angles. It is a bold political statement about the issue of immigration and illegal invasion, which is not only reinforced by its size, but the way that it interrupts the entire space. However, that may not necessarily be a bad thing because it makes it stand out, but then again it can also allow for its neighboring pieces to be overlooked. Perhaps this is exactly what the artist intended--to spark discussion about his piece. Otherwise, in the first room, I feel that the pieces work fairly well together as a group, but are stronger if you view them in terms of each wall. For example the first wall on the left when you enter the gallery contains 4 paintings. One that stood out was ...on the grass, by Eileen Behnke.
The similarity on that wall is that each painting possesses some type of abstraction of space. The two outside paintings are the most abstract because they consist of a series of lines, while the inside two are abstracting life like Behnke’s abstracted composition of people lying on grass. I love the bold colors and the bright highlights in the flesh tones, as well as the perspective, which messes with your mind slightly. It appears normal when analyzing each figure individually, but when I assess the painting as a whole I find myself somewhat confused as to where I am viewing this from. It addresses the edges extremely well, allowing your eyes to move through the painting and I am very interested by the framing.
In the first room to the right from walking into the gallery, I was very attracted to the series of 4 photographs by Tyson Washburn titled Centennial Towers, Four Floors.
The space appears abandoned and eerie, especially with the dim lighting, the dark shadows, and the nighttime, which seeps in through the ‘windows’ in the background of the very industrial looking spaces. There are remnants of people’s presence there that make you wonder where the place is and what is going on there. It is a space I would love to explore myself. The four photographs work together in their divisions of space and the edges almost line up creating a cohesive view and in each photograph the darker spaces are surrounded by a sea of brightness--the lighter portions connect floors and ceilings to the photo next to it and you get the idea that there are different floors. Adjacent to this piece is a series of 2 portraits of a painted face. They are exactly the same picture, except for the addition of a neon green accent on the woman’s face--it is essentially a cropped faced surrounded, or enveloped by darkness. The stark contrast of color and darkness in these photographs makes the two pieces work well close to each other because although different in subject, they share the formal element of darkness enveloping the scene and high contrasts.
In the adjacent room there is a delicate, dream-like quality that pervades the works. There is an illustrated book of poems by Richard Tuttle and John Yau titled The Missing Portrait.
The book seems fragile and as you turn the pages, the play between the way that the text is printed and the simple illustrations of shapes, string, and cut out paper, works extremely well together. In the picture I chose, I love way that the text fades near the end of the sentence “...between light window closed,” and I feel it is a very good use of typology in helping to convey meaning through words. Also, the illustration calls to mind the Dadaist use of chance to form collages--it seems random and abstract in its use of shapes. To add to the dream-like state, the book even rests on a pillow--it is as if the thoughts are resting upon the pedestal it is displayed on. Next to this piece is a photograph that really emphasizes a nostalgic and dream-like quality called Double Vision #2 by Annie Hogan.
It is a layered image of the empty interior of a house with beautiful light cascading through its windows in a delicate matter that adds a stillness to the room, with the image of a small house, or shed that appears to be in the woods. Despite the action of splicing two different images together, you are able to distinguish the two pictures and I find that the images do not clash, or distract each other. The house, or shed that appears off center is extremely bright and appears to almost project from the windows in the room. It calls to mind the idea of memories and the home and feels as lucid as the imagery of dreams. Putting these two very different pieces together in the gallery space works extremely well together due to their relation to the state or act of dreaming and nostalgic qualities.
Overall, the show was put together very well despite the variety of works that were submitted and the limitations of not having a common theme.
In addition to the WLCM BCK show at the Mason Gross galleries, there were two separate shows divided amongst other rooms. In one, a tribute to the Mason Gross alumnus Lyda Craig. Consisted of a series of paintings, drawings, collages, and a few figures out of clay, which all seemed to pertain to the human form whether it be through the use of self portraiture, or simply studying the human body. The pieces vary in scale from bigger paintings and drawings to small works where you must get very close to fully experience the work--it creates a very intimate setting, like in Oregon, which is mixed media on panel.
It is a great example of Craig’s use of the human figure and her depiction of it using a combination of drawing and cut outs. There is a lot going on in the piece compositionally, with the overlapping of torsos and human figures creating space with such flat figures. I also enjoyed the pairings that were made, such as The Thinker, which appeared as a painting of a nude male from side profile sitting on a chair in a pensive position. It appears again as a miniature clay model and as a small scale cut out using paper. Having such variety not only made the piece more interesting, but it allowed for emphasis on the pondering figure, as well as different ways of looking at it. The painting emphasized lighting and color, which created tensions, while the clay figure lacked a similar detail, and the cut out became merely a silhouette of the man.
In the other room there was work by Jim Toia called Dissolving Gardens, which was being shown at Mason Gross in association with the Zimmerli Museum. On two opposite walls there were projections. One consisted of a frame built into the wall that displayed two overlapping videos of waves breaking on the shoreline and a mountain. The other consisted of an array of leaves and other pieces of outdoor objects on the wall with a video of leaves falling, which you must watch for a few minutes in order to actually catch because the action isn’t very consistent--it is like actually watching leaves fall off a tree. The entire room possesses an aura of tranquility, especially due to the sound of the ocean pervading the room, as well as the meditative quality of witnessing nature. It is an attempt to recreate a wholesome and peaceful experience that we can find in nature, through the manipulation of our senses of sight and sound.
I interviewed Jesse VandenBergh who is working on a concentration in Video. I watched one video entitledYanks, Sox, and Ground Zero Mosques, was a short, comedic video relating the Yankees and Sox rivalry to, the heated debate around the construction of a Mosque near Ground Zero. Also, I watched Bad News, a lighter work, which he created for fun where a newscaster stuck in character breaks up with his girlfriend.
KM: How would you say you go about your process of coming up with ideas?
Usually I’ll think of a funny idea or concept and build it off that. For example in Bad News, I thought it would be funny if there was a newscaster that was stuck as a newscaster all the time. Then, I thought of where I could go from there and write a little skit.
KM: What would you say is important about your work? Are there any goals you ultimately like to reach with each project?
Sometimes I’ll do things for fun, like Bad News, which was just for fun, there’s nothing really important about that. And other times I like to do some form of political or social commentary and make it kind of funny. Sometimes I just aim for some type of satirical comedy and other times it’s just for fun.
KM: How do you decide who to use in your videos?
It used to use anyone I could find in the beginning and now we’re seniors and now we know who is in their element for one. Now I have a select group of people that I usually choose from. If I see that someone can act really well, or is really funny I’ll approach them about being in a video.
So at this point you know exactly what you’re looking for the kind of videos you want to do.
KM: Do you feel like your process for each video is the same every time, or does it change depending on the project?
It’s generally the same I mean the only thing that’s different is the content of the script. I usually have the same process: write a quick outline, storyboard it, shoot it, edit it.
KM: How did you get into video?
My dad is a freelance editor and he worked for this company called Framerunner, and he was laid off conveniently when I had the idea for my first video. So I wrote that and he was editing from home, so it was easy for him to help me edit that, as opposed to being out working in the city, so that kinda got me into that.
KM: Did you know you wanted to do video when you came to school?
When I came to school yes. I guess I’ve wanted to do it since I was really young.
KM: What would you say your inspirations are? Whether it has to do with video or just art and life in general.
For the comedy aspect I would say my main influence is my grandfather because he was one of the founders of MAD magazine. I guess I get my sense of humor from him, and he taught me how to draw, which comes in handy for story boards. Other than that, from a video standpoint I love directors like Stanley Kubrick, Scorsese, Tarantino, Hitchcock, and Christopher Nolan are my top.
KM: Do you find that your work is influenced by them directly, or are there any connections?
I did a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey, so I guess I was mimicking some directing styles, but from a parody or satirical standpoint, I just adapt that style to reference or make fun of it.
KM: What are your thoughts on Thesis? Ideas, qualms, etc.
I’m not really sure what I wanna do just yet, now, but hopefully just doing more stuff like this and going to class and seeing what happens I’ll kinda come up with something. To just keep doing what I am doing maybe I’ll find something that I can do a little differently, maybe things I can find that I’m comfortable with that I can do the same.
