Helen Frankenthaler In Her Studio
Images from The Art Zoo
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Site Specific Installation
Tombstones
Dimensions & Materials : (5) 18"x12" Foam Blocks, Acrylic Paint
Site: Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, Florida
Research for Site Specific Installation can be found HERE
Artist Statement:
As an artist I feel it is important to have a voice, and even more so to have a voice that is heard, with Tombstones I am able to do just that.
For this installation I was motivated by Donald Trump's 2018 Budget Plan and my personal stance against it. For this piece I created five tombstones, made from foam blocks and painted them with acrylic paint. The five tombstones represent the death of just a few of the important programs and organizations Trump plans to completely eliminate next year; The National Endowment for The Arts, The National Endowment of Humanities, The United States Institute of Peace, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and The Global Climate Change Initiative.
The money, taken from decreased funding and the totally eliminated programs (approximately $54 billion), will according to the budget, be put towards our massive military, bringing its total budget up to a whopping $654 billion. With this budget increase, the United States' military budget alone will equal the size of the next 8 largest military budgets around the world combined. I felt it was important to bring these tombstones to one of the places Trump has frequently visited during his time as President, that being Trump International Golf Club located in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Site Specific Research
Site Specific Research
Issac Cordal- Cement Eclipses
Issac Cordal Artist Statement:
With the simple act of miniaturization and thoughtful placement, Isaac Cordal magically expands the imagination of pedestrians finding his sculptures on the street.
Cement Eclipses is a critical definition of our behavior as a social mass. The art work intends to catch the attention on our devalued relation with the nature through a critical look to the collateral effects of our evolution. With the master touch of a stage director, the figures are placed in locations that quickly open doors to other worlds. The scenes zoom in the routine tasks of the contemporary human being.
Men and women are suspended and isolated in a motion or pose that can take on multiple meanings. The sympathetic figures are easy to relate to and to laugh with. They present fragments in which the nature, still present, maintains encouraging symptoms of survival. The precariousness of these anonymous statuettes, at the height of the sole of the passers, represents the nomadic remainders of an imperfect construction of our society. These small sculptures contemplate the demolition and reconstruction of everything around us. They catch the attention of the absurdity of our existence.
Isaac Cordal is sympathetic toward his little people and you can empathize with their situations, their leisure time, their waiting for buses and even their more tragic moments such as accidental death, suicide or family funerals. The sculptures can be found in gutters, on top of buildings, on top of bus shelters; in many unusual and unlikely places.
Cases for Political Art- PBS
America First: A Budget to Make America Great Again
The Spell of The Sensuous
Reading #5
Materials: acrylic paint on canvas
Dimensions: 13"x18"
"There is no element of the landscape that is definitively void of expressive resonance and power: any movement may be a gesture, any sound may be a voice, a meaningful utterance."- pg.117
For this reading and piece I really wanted to focus on the idea of any movement being a gesture. So, I attempted to translate that movement and gesture on to a piece of canvas by first cutting and ripping it, and then painting it. What I love about this piece that everywhere you look there are small glimpses of movement and gesture, be it in the cut marks, the way the canvas twists and turns and folds, the way it makes shadows and even how its panted.
For this reading and piece I really wanted to focus on the idea of any movement being a gesture. So, I attempted to translate that movement and gesture on to a piece of canvas by first cutting and ripping it, and then painting it. What I love about this piece that everywhere you look there are small glimpses of movement and gesture, be it in the cut marks, the way the canvas twists and turns and folds, the way it makes shadows and even how its panted.
Reading #6
Materials: acrylic paint on canvas
Dimensions: (2) 15"x15"
"The experiencing body is not a self-enclosed object, but an open, incomplete entity."- pg.125
I was really drawn to this small portion of the reading and how it described the body as an "incomplete" entity rather than a self enclosed object. With this fascination, I decided to do a similar piece to the one I did for Reading #5. I really enjoy making these strange, movement filled canvas pieces, even more so I really felt they have taken a on a sort of gestural/ oddly figurative nature, or animism. With that, I wanted this piece to slightly reference the body. I also decided on two separate parts that make the one piece to emphasize this idea of the incomplete entity.
Reading #7
Materials: joint compound, acrylic on canvas
Dimensions:16"x20"
"In the absence of writing, we find ourselves situated in the field of discourse as we are embedded in the natural landscape; indeed, the two matrices are not separable. We can no more stabilize the language and render its meanings determinate than we can freeze all motion and metamorphosis within the land"-pg.140
With this reading was really fascinated by the concept of the language of landscape. With that I decided to use joint compound which has a"language" of its own....it makes its own movements, its malleable so gravity has a lot to do with the final dry product. After my joint compound took its shape I painted the canvas with "earthy" colors to try produce a landscape-esq feeling.
Indoor Installation
Headspace (After Helen)
Research for Indoor Installation can be found HERE
Materials: Muslin, Acrylic Paint, Wooden Stretcher Bars, Wooden Stool, Fishing Line
Artist Statement: My inspiration for this piece was an image of Helen Frankenthaler sitting in her studio. After first seeing the image, I was completely in awe of how her studio space became a piece and an environment of its own. I began to think about the idea of being able to be completely engulfed by a piece of art- more specifically a 2-D image, something artists like Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko were able to do. These artists were able to make works of art that were so large and captivating, they could make their audience feel like they were being consumed it. With my installation I wanted to try to achieve the same effect, while at the same time drawing from the role of the studio space, and maintaining the concept that my audience is experiencing something that is 2-D even though it may not look and feel like it. I covered the floor and wall in muslin and painted it with acrylic paint, referencing the image of Frankenthaler with the prominence of the color blue. The stool allows my audience to sit and become absorbed in and by the piece. Finally the hanging stretcher bars reference the concept of the traditional 2-D painting in the sense that it frames the piece, but also it notes the idea of removal from tradition because the "canvas" is not attached to it- rather they are existing as separate entities, that are able to come together to function as one.
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