Presentation Preparation: Mockup

1). This painting was completed to this point in only one day.

2). The next steps will include working in the paint creatures, adding background elements, and expanding beyond the picture plane.

THESIS STATEMENT: ROUND ONE

I am currently in the process of revising my thesis statement because my reading and thinking over Fall Break has (again) helped to make my direction more clear, resulting in some changes. However, below I have included the first draft of my artist statement in order to document my process.

Beyond Vulnerable

To be vulnerable is essentially to be at risk, to be somehow susceptible to physical or emotional harm or ill will. 

What if we could step easily beyond the limitations set by our vulnerabilities? Perhaps we could overcome the disadvantages of social pressure, of self doubt, and even the constraints of our own physical bodies. Perhaps we could shed our fears of exclusion and inadequacy. What if our interpersonal relationships were not stifled by our internal fears?

What if we took the risk?

Embracing vulnerability means accepting a certain level of risk, of sacrificing personal security for the chance at something better than simply safety. There is grace in that. There is grace in finding peace with a purposeful surrender of oneself. There is beauty, grace, and a twinge of discomfort in taking that leap of faith.

My paintings teeter delicately between causing discomfort by means of distortion and inviting the viewer to appreciate the warmth of rich color or beauty of carefully executed details. Depicting this balance through the meeting of contrasting styles carefully respects the complex issue of confronting vulnerability by recognizing the fearful possibility of harm while celebrating the potential for transcending our fear.

The Importance of Beauty

Simply put, I want my thesis to be beautiful. I want people to want to look at it. I want people to enjoy looking at it. However, I do not want to make something that is beautiful for the sake of being beautiful. I want to make something meaningful that people will spend time looking at and thinking about because they enjoy the experience.

There is definitely something to be said for art that visually arrests the viewer, assaults the eyes, and draws out thought through emotional discomfort, but that it not what I want to do.

Thinking about Display: Part 2

While discussing things with Jason, he suggested a variety of ways to think about how to create distance and closeness with an audience. One suggestion I really liked was layering elements with varying degrees of clarity in order to let the audience experience certain elements on a more detailed level and others on a level of impression. If I took this approach, I wouldn't have to break my images into multiple panels; instead, they could be layered on top of one another. 

Thinking About Display

While contemplating the display of the paintings I will produce this year, I was thinking specifically about how a display can reflect what is going on in the actual artworks. I sketched this image to visualize my thinking.

If the paintings on the ends were more closed off imagery (less open to vulnerability), it would make sense not to allow the viewer to become intimate with the paintings by drawing near. By removing distance with the audience in the center, the viewers would be able to be be most intimate with that painting, but would also be forced to be more intimate with one another as they would be funneled into a smaller space.

I don't know if my display would employ a technique like this, but I definitely found the thought appealing, especially for my subject matter.

Exploration: Materials and Theme

This is a recent experimentation mixing used paper paint palettes and gold leaf. The leaf is used as an accent around the dried paint to frame or adorn it. My exploration in thinking here was using a "valuable" material to celebrate the mistakes and happy accidents of painting. Although usually invisible in finished paintings, the artist's palette shows the artist's thoughts, mistakes in mixing, wasted material, and even spills here and there. It's an unapologetic documentation of the process of painting, and to me it's beautiful. This exercise for me was about seeing beauty is something raw or imperfect.

At my advisor's suggestion, I have begun experimenting further with some abstract figures I invented for his Multilevel Figure Drawing course in the Spring of 2016. These forms are made from leftover palettes that have been cut out; arms, legs, and heads made with ink and carsick give the different creatures feeling and action.

This particular composition felt to me to me like a kind of formation of someone. Gestation is also a word that comes to mind as it is set in a shallow box that envelops it slightly in its curled up position. This is a relevant exploration of my theme of vulnerability because people often think of "formative" times in a person's life as the most delicate and arguable most important periods.

I also decided to try mixing in more naturalistic forms to see how the abstractions could interact with them. This composition seems to teeter between anxiousness and hope. Perhaps the abstracted figures could be representation of the man's psyche. Perhaps they are representations of how he sees others. This is a vague train of thought, but it relevant to my interest in using the human figure.

 Timeline: ?

This week we turned in a provisional timeline for the BFA projects. This was enlightening, but not in a good way. More than anything it showed me that I had no idea what this year looks like in the long term.

Basically, I need to find all the specific dates for elements of the BFA projects are due and compile them in a neat and logical manner and tape it to my wall. In my studio. In my room. I need to see it often and let it fuel my progress.