Dose Nation - 3-D: A Vicariously Trippy Experience

This article was the inspiration towards shooting a 3D image for the backdrop of my thesis installation. This article explains that, “The very act of putting on the glasses and seeing things differently is like passing through a gateway, or cleansing doors of perception.” With this in mind, wearing 3D glasses could be seen as a metaphor for lucid dreaming. This is the feeling I would like my audience to take away from interacting with my piece.

Link to article - http://www.dosenation.com/listing.php?id=7447

Mark Jenkins, Nature - Studio Journal

Washington, DC

      Mark Jenkins is an American artist who is known for his street installations. Jenkins creates sculptures out of box sealing tape then puts them on display outside where there is foot traffic. Like Jenkins, I will be creating street art, but it will not be up long enough for people to interact with it. I will most likely be photographing my sculptures, then removing them from the environment they are shot in and placing them in the gallery. I like Jenkins use of sealing tape so I would like to try and manipulate the material for my piece as well. 

Alice in Wonderland Sculpture, Central Park NY - Studio Journal

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Hideo Sasaki and Fernando Texidor

     Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has always been one of my favorite sculptures in Central Park. Seeing the characters of Alice in Wonderland in a natural, outside setting inspired me to shoot my sculptures in an outdoor forest-like environment. I could also manipulate my photography to look like there is a repetition of my sculptures using Photoshop.   

Cecilia Edefalk, "Weeping Birch" - Studio Journal

Installation view of Edefalk's work at Gladstone

Cecilia Edefalk’s bronze works encompass themes of personal, historical, and cultural feelings of knowledge and meaning in everyday life. Molded from one branch, Edefalk creates a repetition of these sculptures to create motions of the natural world.  These bronze works gave me inspiration towards creating repetition in my installation. It may be overwhelming to see and interact with many of one type of sculpture, but I would like to explore this idea of repetition more within my piece.

WHURL, 3D Gallery - Studio Journal

3D Gallery 3: Terrains

After working in 3D last year, in Photo 2, I decided that I would like to incorporate this modern day perspective into my thesis installation. Whether I decide to create an enclosed space or shoot my sculptures in an outdoor environment, I will incorporate a 3D landscape into my piece. If I am able to print a life-size photo, it would further explore my theme of lucid dreaming by incorporating the audience in becoming one with my installation.

Link toWHURL:

http://www.whurl.net/pages/gallery03/4_terrain.php

Alice in Wonderland, Quote - Studio Journal

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"

- Alice in Wonderland

Pogo, "Alice" - Studio Journal

Screen Shot

     This screen shot, taken from the music video for Pogo’s song, “Alice”, was composed using vocal samples and different chords recorded from the Disney film, Alice In Wonderland. The jumbled and incoherent sounds give this video a very unusual, strange, and whimsical feeling. This beautifully remixed song brought me to the idea of adding sound to my installation. Using some type of garbled sounds may add to the dream-like experience I would like my audience to take away from seeing my piece.

Link to Pogo's "Alice": 

http://www.yooouuutuuube.com/v/?width=80&height=80&yt=pAwR6w2TgxY&flux=0&direction=bottom_left

Anthropologie, Clothing Store Display - Studio Journal

Floor Display

                  The floor display at a clothing store called Anthropologie, was exactly the kind of inspiration I needed to start looking into other objects I can create in nature. I really liked the contrast of the wood with the cardboard and fabrics. The “nature like“ print on the fabric keeps the environment intact, but it may be interesting to try the same idea with some bright colored fabric and painted cardboard. I also want to see if I am able to find some bark of a tree to manipulate and coincide with the cardboard. In our dreams nothing is usually what it seems to be and things are usually “outta wack” so I think this idea would work well with lucid dreaming as well.

Airan Kang, Light Reading - Studio Journal

Airan Kang's Digital Book Project

     The other week, when I got a chance to walk the galleries in Chelsea, I found myself drawn to these book - shaped sculptures by artist, Airan Kang. Kang's book sculptures are made of resin and LEDs (light emitting diodes.) The books in the exhibition are made to represent depictions of knowledge that realize the pluralistic spaces of our imagination. Kang visited and photographed many libraries and bookstores to recreate these environments.

One of Kang's "hyper books"

     Like Kang, I will be photographing many outdoor environments, to be able to recreate and get inspiration for the installation I will be creating for my senior thesis. I also like the idea of adding LED lights to my sculptures. I am thinking that I could somehow place the lights under some of the mushroom caps that I will be making. Seeing Kang's sculptures brought me inspiration on projecting some kind of video content onto my piece as well. I think that the media will contrast well with the organic beauty I want to convey with my thesis.

"hyper books"

Tetsumi Kudo, Cubes and Gardens - Studio Journal

"I now prophesy the growth of the new ecology in the swamp of "poluted nature" and "decomposing humanity."
-Tetsumi Kudo, 1971

Garden of the Metamorphosis in the Space Capsule, 1968

    A few weekends ago, on my way home from the gallery I work at on 25th street, I took a walk around the galleries in Chelsea. One of the galleries I went to was the Andrea Rosen Gallery where I got a chance to see work from a very innovative artist named Tetsumi Kudo. Tetsumi Kudo is an artist from Japan who works around the themes of humanity in a polluted, consumption- driven world. Kudo's centerpiece in the exhibition titled, Garden of the Metamorphosis in the Space Capsule, 1968, gave me some new ideas for my thesis. This cube sized room was made up of black lights, which played off the colors of the large flowers and hanging cages. These sculptures are made to represent "obsolete Humanist values."

Garden of the Metamorphosis in the Space Capsule, inside view

     Kudo's Space Capsule got me thinking of space. First, I need to remember the fact that I will be sharing the gallery space with the rest of my senior class. I started to come up with some new ways in which I will be able to put my installation in the space. Rather than place my installation up against a wall (where projecting may become an issue with other artists' work), what if I were to make some kind of enclosed space  that people would be able to interact with? Most of my sculptures will be durable for people to touch  so why not create a space where the audience can become apart of my piece.

Thesis Idea - Studio Journal

     The summer of 2007 I studied at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), as a sculpture major, in their pre- college program. For their end of the summer exhibition, I created a sculpture of a mushroom made of foam insulation, wax and mesh wire. The night I finished the piece, I apparently set it down near a trash can and it was discarded the next morning. I was very upset but really enjoyed making the piece, so I decided to look on the bright side and make an even better one.

Final Mushroom Piece

     I always felt this piece had more potential, so last year for my Video 1 B final, I created a video and projected it onto the mushroom. The projection was of a music video by artist, Aphex Twins titled Window Licker, overlaid onto clips from videos I had edited. I decided to choose this music video because of the strange and obscure things going on throughout it. I spliced it with clips I had edited of spirals of color and other "trippy" things I could find. Im really drawn to imaginative and whimsical themes  that are just out of the ordinary. 

Video Projection on Mushroom

     For my thesis, Im thinking of bringing Mushroom back to the public. I want to create a large installation including sculpture, video, and photography. I will create a series of things found in nature, made from man made objects, and have them on display in front of a large photograph I will shoot in the woods. I then want to project a video, that I will record in the destination I choose for the photograph, onto my installation. These are not definite plans, but just thoughts going through my head. I think this would create an interesting and interactive  piece so I'm excited to get the ball rolling on any new ideas I will come up with throughout my senior year.

Recent Photo 3 Series

My Artist Statement

     At the age of 13 I began capturing images, aiming not to shoot the objects themselves but their essence. I was drawn to the medium of photography because I believe that photographs are never what they seem; not moments frozen in time, but ones that are forever living and moving. I try to see my photographs as living entities.

     Growing up on the Hudson River played a large part in my work, since most of my work incorporates elements of nature. I enjoy shooting people who are close to me in familiar places that are abstract and undefined yet reflective of how I see their connection to the world. I am able to explore these ambiguities through the camera’s lens. In essence, I shoot wide expansive spaces that reflect the journey of the individual through the moving experiences that are formative in their relationships and perspectives with the environment.

     I am usually drawn to taking photographs with a 35mm camera and developing them in a darkroom, but more recently I began working in a digital medium to manipulate photos in an attempt to draw out the metaphysical elements of existence and the relationships that compose it. In the process, I have become fluent in a number of digital editing programs. Because I studied at SVA as a graphic designer, it is very fascinating to me to combine the skills I have learned on the computer with my photography skills.

     In the summer of 2007 and again in the fall of 2009 I had the opportunity to take classes in sculpting at RISD and Mason Gross respectively. These experiences broadened my field of interests and since played a role in my blending of mediums. I have found the environment to be a theme throughout my installations of the permeating nature it has in my life.

2010 WLCM BCK SHOW

This past Friday I got the chance to walk around the Mason Gross WLCM BCK exhibition with 2^nd year MFA graduate, Caetlyn Booth. I was able to hear about all the challenges that came across during the curating and how successful it was to work in a group and put this show together. Working as a group, some of the things they had to prepare were, collecting, curating, and installing of the work, food & drinks, and setting up an auction of some pieces.

The works in the exhibition consisted of both grad students and faculty. Each artist was told there was no specific theme throughout the show, so many of the pieces didn’t work well together. The artists were simply told just to submit a small/medium piece yet some of the artists’ smaller pieces were huge compared to others. I choose 4 works from the show that I felt were extremely interesting to discuss in this weeks blog entry.

WLCM BCK

The first piece that caught my attention as soon as I walked in the room was Alan Prazniak’s, “Dreamgirl.” Set in the middle of the room on a pedestal, was a sculpture made from a puzzle and covered with oil paint. Not only does the puzzle alone have great texture, but the splattered oil paints also give the piece great dimension. I really enjoyed his use of bright colors and overall cheesiness of the cheap earrings placed in the hair of this Egyptian head. I felt this piece worked very well in the middle of the room because of Prazniak’s use of color with the other bright pieces throughout the room.

Next, I found Richard Tuttle & John Yao’s homemade book with poems to be a really fun, interactive part of the show. The piece entitled, “ The Missing Portrait” was illustrated by Tuttle and consisted of some of John Yao’s poems.  The typography along with the different shapes and mixed media really worked with this piece. The fact that this piece was interactive really drew me to it. It was very nice to be able to flip through these abstract and very unique pages. The placement of this piece bothered me because it was next to a hallway that led through to another showing room. I found that even though I was very into checking out the book, that the hallway was distracting.

The next piece that I really liked was Anna Bushman’s untitled, interactive wall sculpture. While the piece was very nauseating to look at, I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. Because the piece was marked as mixed media I don’t know the exact material used but the piece was of a mirror with some kind of metal, mesh, piece on top. Trying to look at yourself in the mirror made your eyes and brain go nuts. I also really liked how the mesh material cast shadows on the wall. Because this piece was in the same room as the book, I liked how the two interactive pieces worked together on opposite sides of the room.

My last and favorite piece of the show was Erin Dunn’s paintings entitled, “Whoops.” This three-piece installation was very interesting with its use of mixed media and some kind of resin coating the pieces and dripping to the floor. Dunn likes to bring things from her studio to interact with her pieces and I really liked this idea while looking at the piece. The way Dunn decided to leave the scuffmarks on the pedestal was a very bold decision but I felt it worked very well with her pieces.  The coral like shapes of the piece worked well with the other pieces in this smaller room. I also really liked that you could see this piece from the main viewing room because it was placed in the middle of one of the smaller ones.

A Thesis Interview With Artist, Lauren Morich

This week I got the chance to interview Lauren Morich, a senior at Mason Gross, the art school of Rutgers University. Lauren is a graphic design student who is talented in painting and mixed media. I had an opportunity to sit down with Lauren in her home/workspace and learn a little more about her.

Lauren Morich
Graphic Design

Berger – What’s your favorite medium to work in? You seem to have a wide variety of different works.

Morich – I actually really like to work with markers. Let me show you.

(Lauren pulls out a large plastic container full of colorful markers and says, “ I have a problem!” We both burst out laughing.)

Berger – So, who is your favorite artist?

Morich – I don’t have one. Haha is that bad? I have different phases of artists I like. At the moment I am really into the work of Iggy J. Nunez.

Berger – Do you relate your work to his at all?

Morich – His work is really mixed media – ish and that’s what I have in mind for my thesis.

Morich's mixed media 

Berger – Can you elaborate on some of these ideas you may have already for thesis?

Morich – Well, at this point I came up with the concept that one medium shouldn’t dominate the piece.

Berger – So what mediums do you plan on working in?

Morich – I started collecting tags from clothes. I have so many that its getting ridiculous. I started making mobiles and drawings incorporating these tags. I started thinking, what if the Mona Lisa was created in modern times and in more of a graphic medium. This got me questioning, should art be based on the medium or of what it actually is.

Berger – That’s a really interesting concept to come from clothing tags. How do you interpret yourself as an artist?

Morich – I don’t want my art to be bound by parameters that other people intreprete.

Berger – Your paintings look a lot like the marker drawings you showed me earlier. I see a big connection between the two.

Morich – Well, for this series I interpreted the seven deadly sins through painting. The painting on the wall is something I created based off one of the deadly sins, so there is definitely a connection between the two.

Morich's Seven Deadly Sins

Berger – Do you see any other themes or connections throughout your work?

Morich – When I work with markers I can see similarities in shapes and colors I choose.

Berger – Yes I agree and can totally see the similarities between your pieces. What is this?

Morich – For a class I recently took, we had to choose someone to follow on Twitter. I choose Oprah Winfrey. I then created a book of her more inspiring tweets and put it together for middle age women to have on their desk or library.

Berger – This is amazing! What made you choose to pick Oprah as your person to follow?

Morich – I wanted to pick someone people could relate to and many women see Oprah as a great role model.

Berger – I think it’s a great idea and I think many women would buy it!

Zimmerli Art Museum - Water

Review/ Critique:

The current exhibit at the Zimmerli Art Museum, Water, displays an interesting balance between literal and symbolic representations of water. The theme of water is interpreted through sculpture, painting, and mixed media. Whether it is a landscape of a river or a cube filled with distilled water droplets, the exhibition shows a wide variety of how water can be interpreted.  A strong aspect of this exhibition is the amount of different artists used.  From painters such as Milton Avery and Albert Bierstadt, to the photographs of Phyllis Galembo, water is interpreted in as many ways imaginable.

When you first walk down the stairs to the show, suspended from the ceiling is a large net filled with water bottles. This representation of water sets the tone for the exhibition you are about to enter. In the main viewing room, you see a strong pairing of many works of art. Diagonal from each other, are two sculptures both portraying strong characteristics of water. One, a plexiglass cube filled with distilled water droplets and the other, blown glass made to look like dewdrops on the floor. The two pieces nicely complement each other in the room, which is filled with other water related works. Walking through the other rooms I find that there are other works paired well together, such as a painting of the Hudson River and a sculpture of nails in the wall placed in the shape of the Hudson River. The two shapes of the vertical river compliment each other from across the room. In one of the rooms was a small cluster of about five paintings on the wall. This pairing of works did not work well together and was unflattering to the room entirely. The blue walls worked well with the overall theme of water also. I think that the show might have flowed better if all the frames on the works matched or if they didn’t have them at all. All the video art interpreted very literal meanings of water in general. The video taken from the back of a boat was very nauseating and I felt it did no justice to the show. While many works were as literal, if not more literal, I don’t think this piece belonged in the show.

On the whole, the exhibit demonstrated the theme of water very well. While it may not have been the artists’ intentions to be in an exhibit based around the theme of water, I feel the curator’s intentions worked well with the work shown.                                                                                                                

My Water Exhibition

April Gornik, Charente

twenty-eight block color woodcut

middle of room

Atul Bhalla, Immersions

cubes with water and cast sand

far left of room

Maya Lin, Dew Point

blown glass

top right corner of room

Hans Haacke, Condensation Cube

clear plexiglas and distilled water

bottom right corner of room

Statement: 

           The reason I decided to curate these pieces for my version of the Water exhibition is because I feel these pieces would flow well together and give a good representation of what the show is about. The three sculptures would complement the woodcut and look aesthetically nice in a room together. I choose these three sculptures to surround the woodcut because they all literally contain water or look like they do (the dewdrops).