Six Semesters Down, One To Go

I finished out this fall semester in a very busy, but good state. 18 credits is a lot during finals, especially with 4 studio classes and a real nasty final in art history. Ultimately everything came together nicely and I ended up with some nice final projects and a solid final review.

In Drawing into Print my final consisted of a series of three etchings called Marching On, which deals with the concepts of before, during, and after, moments of conflict. I also chose to manufacture a wooden box to hold the prints.

MARCHING ON

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

Etching, with its reliance on dark obsessive line work has a lot of interesting things to contribute to my work, and after after struggling with printmaking all semester this final has made me excited to continue next semester when I take beginning etching. I should also say that Goya's and Kiki Smith's prints were influential in this series and in my enjoyment of printmaking as a whole.

In Digital Drawing we completed two smaller projects for our final. First I made a few new digital works, this time incorporating images from my paintings. This was particularly interesting because I could completely rearrange the narratives and color schemes. I think further mixing of digital techniques will become very important in the my development of both medias.POLITICS

Second I made another short animated film. In this film a I tried to create a more complicated scene both technically, in that characters changed scale and interacted with the environment , and in narrative, in that the film has multiple characters interacting in different ways, and it has a surprise ending.

ROBO INVASION

Finally in my review for painting I put up all my paintings and drawings, including a few new ones I don't have images of yet, some of my prints, and I even showed a couple films. Our visiting reviewers were, John Baker, Nancy Davies, and Laurel Sparks. Overall my crit went very well, people were obviously into the work and interested in spending some time with it, which is always my main goal and is always nice to see. Most people seemed interested in the conceptual issues of my work and the ways I went about framing and composing the narratives, though there was some discussion of enlarging my scope to an actual societal scale instead of focussing on just one or two figures. This is a good point, but I wouldn't want to lose the relatable human element of the works as they are now. I want viewers to be able to interact with the pieces on a personal level, imagining themselves in the paintings. One thing people thought would help draw viewers in was my use of color being both candy coated and neon. This was nice to hear since I feel like I've been struggling with color, but I still think I need more complex combinations and diverse use of tertiary colors. The main suggestion for improvement was that my paint should get physically thinker and more active in-order for it to operate in the same way that my narratives and colors are. I have some mixed feelings about this because a lot of my inspiration comes from art that strictly controls its materials, like comic books, cartoons, and Japanese wood blocks. That being said I defiantly think I need to experiment with it, trying to find finesse in excess. Time to go look at Guston and Basquiat.