Fall Research Statement

In my senior year at DAAP, I am enrolled in Senior Thesis, a class that will be my capstone of my college experience and guide me as an artist entering the contemporary art world. Below is my fall research statement.  My main focus and concept is still in the works as I continue to search how I can meld makeup into my art beyond my photography.

I am interested in the fragility of human life; how short or long a person’s life, how many live mundane lives when yet they only have one life and they are wasting it away.  Some people die very young where as others live to be over one hundred.  Some people waste their lives with drugs, alcohol, and meaningless jobs or within a prison cell. The human life is fragile and delicate thing in the existence of the world.  I wish to explore the complex nature of a lifespan within my work; Make the audience feel for their mortal soul.  My audience is everyone because everyone has an expiration date.  I wish to bring mortality into recognition for them so that they might live a more full life.  I will accomplish this by sculpting the human figure out a various materials that express human mortality and the vulnerability of the human body.

            I plan to use sculptural materials that are uncommon in sculpture but help build on the concept of the vulnerability of human life.  I would like to experiment with ice and nature but I do not necessarily want my thesis work to be a time sensitive piece.  Other materials I intend to build with include thin plaster, wax and fabric.  My goal is to experiment with working away from realism and trying to be more expressive and abstract with the human figure.  I want my intentions to be clear to my audience and I believe that the right materials can achieve this.  For example, I plan to carve human figures of all stages of life from candles, some of them packed neatly in little boxes while others are on display and even some have already been used.  The concept is that each candle has a determined amount of time to burn before it becomes melted and can be used no more.  The wick is symbolic for a person’s lifespan and the variety of people carved into the candles will represent how everyone has a set amount of time on this earth.

            The majority of my past work includes the human figure and the skeletal structure.  I have worked mostly in sculpting bronze, clay and steel but I have also completed art in drawing, photography and printmaking.  In all of those mediums I have made art about the human figure.  Therefore, I have a very detailed and definite understanding of portraying the human figure, which is a great strength for my thesis work.  I have learned that my best work is done when I can use my bare hands to mold the medium, such as with clay and wax.

            My goal for the fall semester is to make as many sculpture pieces as possible.  I want to push the limits for myself and make sculptures of various sizes and mediums.  This way I can find what I’m most comfortable with or possibly discover something new that works best for me and allow my thesis artwork to be the best that it can possibly be.  I want my audience to connect with the figures I sculpt and see their lives represented for them.  

Foundry: In Progress

 I took Foundry in the Spring Quarter of 2012 and I have the privilege to take it a second time at DAAP.  This course teaches how to create bronze and aluminum sculptures. We learn how to vent our wax pieces, create the molds, assist in the pour, grind the metal pieces and use patinas.  I will be posting   a "How To" guide for the ways of the Foundry because I often get so many questions about the process when I tell people I'm in the class.  But before I post the full guide, I wanted to share my first piece that will soon become bronze! I have several narrative concepts for my art in this class. The first is the story of the iconic super hero and the child who looks up to him.

Here is the wax sculpture, which is the first step in Foundry. 

For over a year, I have been fascinated by society's obsession with superheroes.  The super hero character seems ultimately flawless in skills, intelligence and resources. Unlike every single person on this planet.  There is no real super hero in the way that Superman, Batman and the like are depicted. Like boys grow up reading and watching superhero comics, wear the underwear with the superheroes emblems and play with the action figures.  These heroes are depicted as flawless to children.  As an adult, I read a comic that took place many years after the typical Batman and Superman scenarios and both protagonists were older, with grey hairs and imperfect morals.  It was shocking to see these infamous heroes with traits of mortality and humanity about them.  This piece is my tribute to this idea of imperfect heroes.  When this piece is finished, the "superhero" will be wearing a blindfold as well as a cape.  I am unsure about what colored patinas I will use but I am very excited to begin this process and will be sharing with you very soon.

Displaying Van Gogh

For the first field trip in one of my classes, known as Visual Art Concepts 2, we attended the Cincinnati Art Museum to experience beauty.  The beauty could be found in anything, from the paintings on the walls to the exit sign by the door.  I happened upon my favorite painter, Vincent van Gogh and that became my experience of beauty.  It was so because of the way the painting was displayed.

Undergrowth with Two Figures
Vincent Van Gogh
1890

The painting above was displayed in an alcove made up of floor to ceiling black fringe with one lone spot light fixed on the painting.  As I stood there, gazing at one of the last pieces Van Gogh painted right before he died, I was transported to that forest with the two figures.  I do not believe I would have had that same experience if the piece had been shown in a different setting; especially a setting such as shown below, just on a wall surrounded by other paintings.

The way art work is presented is crucial to the audience's experience of an artists work.  I highly recommend that you go to Cincinnati Art Museum and experience this Van Gogh painting just as I did.  

Here is the link to the Cincinnati Art Museum website:

http://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/