Emergence of the Internal

About a week ago, I had my first solo exhibition, Emergence of the Internal, which featured new works based on narratives. It turned out to be a great success and I'm looking forward to having another one at the end of the Spring semester. It gave me not only a feeling of accomplishment, but made me realize that I have a lot of supportive people who care about the work I produce. 

Postcard from show

Gratitude, 2013

Patriarchy, 2013

Perpetual Insanity, 2013

Untitled, still from video, 2013

Video Installation

Lately, I have been very intrigued by performance art and wanted to investigate it more thoroughly. I looked at and studied Ann Hamilton's video work for inspiration. I had developed a concept that dealt with the feeling of loosing control over my own body and feeling forced into situations. While I don't want to post the entire video on here for various reasons, I will include stills that I took from it. 

As shown, a male figure stands shadowing over top of me as I kneel down in front of him. He forces these paper slips into my mouth until he can't fit anymore in. An audio track played phrases every time a paper slip was force fed into my mouth.  

At the end of the video, I regain control and use my arm/hand as a parallel to remove the slips of paper from my mouth. 

Overall my experimentation proved to be very successful. My professor and colleagues all agreed that it was my most resolved and interesting piece. I am currently entering it into various juried exhibitions. 

Week Seven and Eight

"Repressive Hypothesis"

"Repressive Hypothesis" Detail

"Repressive Hypothesis" Detail

Janine Antoni

One of my greatest influences has always been sculpture/installation artist, Janine Antoni. She specializes in photography and conceptual performance pieces. The main reason she is such an inspiration to me is because she relies mostly her own body to do the work within the piece. Antoni's work concentrates on the process of creating her pieces rather than just the finished product. I enjoy this aspect because artists, like myself, spend weeks and even months creating something that the audience only focuses on for a brief amount of time; the process behind the work is almost "implied" rather than celebrated. 

She pushes the boundary of "what is art?" by constructing works that are almost ambiguous in a way; the materials she uses are representative of particular elements and it is left up to the viewer to make the connection between the two. My art consists of this very idea; I want the audience to have to think about the relationship I'm fabricating, not just look at a piece and understand it right away. Antoni is also renowned for incorporating issues such as femininity and the female body within her work, which are subjects that I am interested in. 

Gnaw    1992
Chocolate and Lard

The piece that first familiarized me with Antoni was her piece entitled, "Touch". In the performance, she acts as a tightrope walker, balancing her weight to make sure she doesn't fall. The backdrop is the horizon on a beach scene which represents The Bahamas, her birthplace. The message Antoni conveys is one of anxiety and maintaining composure. She alludes to the ever impending doom of falling and a "shipwreck" of human existence. 

Touch   2011

Writing Five

As I have mentioned in my previous posts, I am working with the idea of dreams for my body of work this semester in sculpture. I will be putting together a series of sculptures/installations based on individual dreams I have had, to become one big installation at the end of the class. 

Upon researching dreams and artwork dealing with them, I discovered one particular work found on this site: http://www.melafoundation.org/dream02.htm 
I would very much like to visit this exhibit sometime; it is a reoccurring work, that different artists take part in every year.

Their concept is somewhat different than mine, focusing more on light and sound to give off the illusion of a dream-like state. However, I definitely want to incorporate these elements in my work to produce the same effects. 

The following is a picture of the current exhibition that recently opened in September in NYC. 

Writing Four

This snippet from my video projection includes both the artwork and the aura of the work. It was my first time experimenting with both video and stop motion animation. Stop motion animation is essentially a bunch of pictures strung together with elements moving little by little in each to create the illusion of an actual video.

It was very difficult to continue taking individual pictures while trying to move the mice ever so slightly. I have worked with Flash before to create vector images and turn them into animations, but I had never actually used three-dimensional objects. It was a fun experience, but also nerve-racking. I hope to better verse myself in it so I can include more film into my installation in the future.

Writing Three

As I discussed within my response to the reading, my work serves as an argument for the use of the theories we have learned about thus far. They are more than relevant in our visual culture and define my work, as well as many other modern day conceptual artists.

The sculptures that I create are based mostly upon representation and symbolism. Interpellation also plays a role in the understanding of one's work; I want the viewer to connect with my pieces in some way.