I entered two contests, PDN Student Photo Contest 2011 and Photographer's Forum Best of College Photography 2011.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Sung-Yeol Lee Lecture Question/Response
How do you go about choosing an appropriate metal for your various projects? Do you prefer one, or some, over others?
Do you like to work in other mediums as well? Mixed media? Or do you think that metal is the appropriate medium for your work?
RESPONSE
Do you like to work in other mediums as well? Mixed media? Or do you think that metal is the appropriate medium for your work?
RESPONSE
Sung-Yeoul Lee’s lecture was pretty short but still informant. His initial inspiration comes from his hometown, Seoul, Korea. He showed several images of the city to explain his geometrical way of working. I would explain his early work as geometrical, symmetrical, and sleek. He especially likes silver, and continued to work with that material and also stainless steel, iron, titanium, and plastic. All of the materials have a silvery, shiny finish, which I think goes along with his sleek, perfect outcome. Lee then explained how grad school affected his work. He was forced to work with mixed media and began to pick up more of a conceptual eye to making jewelry and other objects out of metal. I was interested in his discussion about graduate school, as he went to figure out why he was doing what he was doing, and wanted more of a reason behind his technical work. I find that interesting because he is first a technically perfected metalsmith, and then an artist, while at VCU, we learn both at the same time. I find his graduate school work to be the most interesting, since he began dealing with the idea of relationships and feeling like an alien in a foreign country. He began to use rope as a medium to portray this idea of relationships. This work is organic, technical, and intimate. Overall, Lee is a well rounded artist both technically and conceptually.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Artist - Rob Gonsalves
Art Center Gallery
Visions Fine Art Gallery
“Artist Rob Gonsalves was born in Toronto, Canada in 1959. During his childhood, he developed an interest in drawing from imagination using various media. By age twelve, his awareness of architecture grew as he leaned perspective techniques and began to do his first paintings and renderings of imagined buildings.
After an introduction to Artists Dali and Tanguy, Gonsalves began his first surrealist paintings. The "Magic Realism" approach of Magritte along with the precise perspective illusions of Escher came to be influences in his future work.
In his post college years, Gonsalves worked full time as an architect, also painting trompe l'oeil murals and theatre sets. After an enthusiastic response in 1990 at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Gonsalves devoted himself to painting full time.
Although Gonsalves' work is often categorized as surrealistic, it differs due to the fact that the images are deliberately planned and result from conscious thought. Ideas are largely generated by the external world and involve recognizable human activities, using carefully planned illusionist devices. Gonsalves injects a sense of magic into realistic scenes. As a result, the term "Magic Realism" describes his work accurately. His work is an attempt to represent human beings desire to believe is the impossible.
Numerous individuals around the world, corporations, embassies, and a United States Senator collect Gonsalves' original work, and limited edition prints. Rob Gonsalves has exhibited at Art Expo New York and Los Angeles, Decor Atlanta and Las Vegas, Fine Art Forum, as well as one-man shows at Discovery Galleries, Ltd., Hudson River Art Gallery, and Kaleidoscope Gallery.”
This biography is from Discovery Galleries.
“I try to keep my work consistent with the style that I’ve developed and keep it fresh so people are interested in me and the work that I do.” - Rob Gonsalves
"I believe that there is real magic in life. Sometimes the experience of it can be dependent on one's point of view. I have come to see that making of art as the search for that point of view where the magic and wonder of life appears not so much as an illusion, but as an essential truth that often gets obscured." - Rob Gonsalves
I could not seem to find an interview with the artist online, so I typed out the following text from a book that I have called the Masters of Deception.
"I believe that there is real magic in life. Sometimes the experience of it can be dependent on one's point of view. I have come to see that making of art as the search for that point of view where the magic and wonder of life appears not so much as an illusion, but as an essential truth that often gets obscured." - Rob Gonsalves
"Magic realism, primarily Latin American literary movement that arose in the 1960s. The term has been attributed to the Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier, who first applied it to Latin-American fiction in 1949. Works of magic realism mingle realistic portrayals of ordinary events and characters with elements of fantasy and myth, creating a rich, frequently disquieting world that is at once familiar and dreamlike."
"Magic Realism." Academic Search Complete. Colombia Electronic Encyclopedia, 1
July 2010. Web. 8 Nov. 2010.
I could not seem to find an interview with the artist online, so I typed out the following text from a book that I have called the Masters of Deception.
"Much of my free time in childhood was spent daydreaming and drawing. Usually the subject would be an imagined place. For me, the greatest joy in drawing came from giving form to something that had previously only existed in my head. Gradually, my drawings came to be influenced by another aspect of my personality, my strong aptitude for mathematics. Buildings became my main subject. By age 12 I learned the rudiments of perspective drawing, aided by the architectural texts I would pore over.
In my teenage years my interests shifted more towards the realms of surrealism, symbolism and fantasy in art, literature, and even music. The emphasis on the subconscious and imagination intrigued me and pointed the way for the first handful of paintings that I was to produce. These images were dreamlike and enigmatic in the manner typical of surrealism. I did not at this point have the confidence to consider painting to be a career path that I could realistically pursue. My painting activities were essentially put on hold as I studied architecture and worked for some years in that business.
Eventually my desire to create images returned, as my work in architecture had not allowed many opportunities to fully exercise my imagination. I made more time for painting, continuing in a surrealist vein, but with new influences, probably largely due to my architecture experience. I had long been fascinated by the techniques that are employed to show the spatial relationship of objects in two-dimensional representations of the world. As I began painting again I felt the need to make the dreamlike, magical occurrences depicted seem more concrete, as if they could be experienced in the physical world. My first introduction to the work of Magritte helped to crystallize for me the direction that my work was to take. His work “The Human Condition” has a magical effect while being at the same time a straightforwardly realistic image. I has wanted to affirm that magical and wondrous experiences are not confined to the realm of dreams or the subconscious, but rather can be derived from our experience and conscious interpretation of the physical world, Magritte’s “magic realism” helped me to see how I could achieve this.
From a technical point of view, my work began to employ various optical illusion devices. At the same time however, I became more focused with regard to what I wanted to express about the subjects that I was depicting. In general, I would say that my work has become primarily a celebration of the wonder of imagination. When one’s imagination is brought to bear on a simple life experience, it can be magical – even transcendent.
Frequently, the desire to express the wonder of imagination is manifested as images depicting children at play. The magical transformation in such images illustrates what is happening in the minds of the characters depicted, who are so absorbed by their activity that what is imagined seems to become real. Often these images will involve the type of illusion device that suggests an impossible (yet convincing) change of scale.
Other sources of inspiration for my images can be found in the various dualities that can be observed in life experience: natural vs. human made, urban vs. rural, light vs. dark, material vs. spiritual, etc. The images that are rooted in these concepts usually employ the device of a metamorphosis from one element to another. However, the techniques of optical illusion in my work are utilized somewhat intuitively. The devices that I use are generated perhaps less scientifically than in the work of artists whose primary concern is the creation of optical illusions for their own sake. For me, the particular subject depicted and its emotional impact is crucial; the illusions are a means to an end and must serve the objectives of the overall conception of the image."
Seckel, Al. Masters Of Deception - Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical
Illusion. New York, New York: Sterling Publishing, 2004. Print.
I was introduced to Rob Gonsalves' work several years ago when I received his Master of Illusion wall calendar in either 2007 or 2008. I transformed his monthly images into wall art, now displayed in my apartment. I admire his dream-like imagery that flows as if it were an actual scene. His work with optical illusion allows the viewer to be swept off into his created world, full of realist magic. He works in such a way that does not allow just the illusion to take over, but to allow the illusion transform into a realistic world for his characters and viewers alike. As far as relating to my artistic practice, I admire his combination of surrealism with realism, creating dreams, magic, and events that seem to be real life. I unfortunately cannot draw to save my life, so I am at a disadvantage there, yet the world of photoshop can do many things...
Idea - Unconsciousness
UNCONSCIOUSNESS
1 a : not knowing or perceiving : not aware
b : free from self-awareness
2 a : not possessing mind or consciousness <unconscious matter>
b (1) : not marked by conscious thought, sensation, or feeling <unconscious motivation> (2) : of or relating to the unconscious
c : having lost consciousness <was unconscious for three days>
3 : not consciously held or deliberately planned or carried out <an unconscious bias>
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
“Salvador Dali wrote that he wanted, through automatism, (releasing the expression of the unconscious mind from control of the conscious mind) "to systematize confusion and thus help discredit completely the world of reality.”
An excerpt from arthistory-famousartists-paintings.com
“We sometimes act unconsciously, perceive unconsciously, and even think unconsciously, all by the simple reflex of the mechanism.”
Lewes, George Henry. "Consciousness and Unconsciousness." Mind 2.6 (1877):
157-167. JSTOR. Web. 8 Nov. 2010.
“…unconscious attitudes compensating for conscious ones, especially the idea that what is repressed from the consciousness will find expression through the unconscious.”
Astor, James. Michael Fordham : Innovations in Analytical Psychology. USA and
Canada: Routledge, 1995. ebrary. Web. 8 Nov. 2010.
Consciousness, Unconsciousness, and Intentionality
by John R. Seale
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1522923
Consciousness and Unconsciousness
by George Henry Lewes
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2246374
Michael Fordham : Innovations in Analytical Psychology
by James Astor
http://site.ebrary.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/lib/vacommonwealth/docDetail.action?docID=5003555&p00=unconsciousness
The idea of the unconscious mind has become of interest to me, as it entails aspects that affect our daily lives without really knowing it. The unconscious mind controls our dreams, which tend to be odd interpretations and combinations of events in a non-sequitur manner. Zoe Beloff's interest in dreams and manifesting them in such a way that convinces her audience that they were made by these psychological thinkers made me interested in this aspect of the mind.
Graduate School Application - Rhode Island School of Design
Application can be accessed at link below
I am interested in the Rhode Island School of Design because I would still be able to be on the East Coast, where I grew up, and it’s graduate photography program is the third most prominent program in the United States. RISD’s graduate program as a whole is the number one program in the nation. They offer interdisciplinary seminars, the opportunity to work with faculty and critics, and hold lectures by distinguished artist, scholars, and critics. RISD also has a collaborative relationship with Brown University to allow the student to have further access to courses, lectures, and events. The faculty is internationally renowned, and they offer sixteen distinct programs to prospective students. The MFA photography program offers various courses, intertwining technical, conceptual, and aesthetic ideas. They encourage both still photography and time-based photography, encouraging students to experiment with video, digital imaging, etc. The program is based more on independent study, yet graduates are allowed to take undergraduate, more structured, courses as well. The department also encourages conversation between all levels of the program, undergraduate, graduate, and faculty, and holds several events per year to allow this integration.
PROFESSOR - Ann Fessler
MA, Webster University
BA, Ohio State University
Close to Home
Installation View
Bell Gallery
2001
Close to Home
Installation View
Bell Gallery
2001
Close to Home
Installation View
Bell Gallery
2001
Close to Home
Installation View
Bell Gallery
2001
Close to Home
Installation View
Bell Gallery
2001
View of cover of novel The Girls Who Went Away
GRADUATE – LAURA SKINNER
“Laura Skinner was born in Connecticut and raised in Louisville, KY. She received her BA in English from Kenyon College in 2005, and is currently working toward an MFA in photography at the Rhode Island School of Design. She has been in a number of group exhibitions, and most recently a solo show at Zephyr Gallery in Louisville. Laura is photographing private investigators for her current project.”
Family Photos
2008
Family Photos
2008
Family Photos
2008
Family Photos
2008
Family Photos
2008
Graduate School Application - San Francisco Art Institute
Application can be accessed at link below
http://activeweb.sfai.edu/Media/Website%20Resources/pdf/admissions/SFAI%202011_Grad%20App%20Form.pdf
I have been interested in the Art Institute in San Francisco since my junior year of high school, yet the out of state tuition was not a possibility. This institute seems to allow the student to further investigate their place within the art world with an interdisciplinary context. They offer the possibility to be aware of multiple methodologies of exploration into different ways of thought that will allow the student to further be able to step out of their box. The San Francisco Art Institute has internationally accomplished faculty who are engaged in and offer every art form that we have available at VCU; including cultural theory, art history, film, video, sound, digital media, design, print media, photography, painting, sculpture, new genres, and writing. Students are able to work independently and also one-on-one with the faculty. They also require teaching assistantships and/or professional internships. I feel like attending an institute with similar courses offered in a different location in the United States, the west coast to be specific, especially since I have lived in four different locations on the east coast, would allow me to further my concepts in a different environment to embrace diversity.
PROFESSOR – Linda Connor
“Department Positions:
Graduate - Any Subject Graduate Faculty
Photography Undergraduate Faculty
Linda Connor is associate professor in the Photography department. Her photographs are in notable collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK. Her work has been published in monographs including On the Music of the Spheres, Visits, Luminence, and Spiritual Journey, the latter published for her mid-career retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. She is the recipient of numerous awards including National Endowment for the Arts grants and a Guggenheim fellowship.”
Boy Bathing, Angkor Thom, Cambodia, 2001
Gold toned printing out paper
10 x 12 inches
Katas and Cloths, Ladakh, India, 2005
Archival pigment print
27.5 x 21.75 inches
Edition of 10
Sacred Text, Ethiopian Church, Jersusalem, 1995
Platinum Print
20 x 24 inches
Summit with Prayer Flags, Spiti, Ladakh, India, 2002
Gold toned printing out paper
Mount 20 x 16 inches/Photo 10 x 8 inches
The Canyon Suite Ladakh, India, 2002-2003
Archival pigment print
Each: 10.5 x 13.25 inches
Overall: 10.5 x 127.5 inches
Edition of 10
GRADUATE - Aaron Rosenstreich
“Aaron Rosenstreich was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1980. He received his BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase, School of Art and Design in 2003 and his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2007. Rosenstreich works almost exclusively with black and white photography in a wide range of historic processes. Using various historic and modern photographic technologies as descriptive tools, Rosenstreich explores themes of age, place, and time. The intersection between these themes is the foundation his images are built upon. His work has been exhibited in California, New York, Spain and Vermont, and most recently at Hatch Gallery in Oakland, and The Lab in San Francisco, CA. Rosenstreich lives and works in San Francisco.”
Pyramid
2007
Substation
2007
Machine
2008
Cat Excavator
2009
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Artist - Sally Mann
Sally Mann does not seem to have her own personal webpage, but can be found on many others, including, artnet, artencyclopedia, pbs, Robert Koch Gallery, Gagosian Gallery, etc.
Biography
Sally Mann was born in Lexington, Virginia in 1951. She has always remained close to her roots. She has photographed in the American South since the 1970s, producing series on portraiture, architecture, landscape and still life. She is perhaps best known for her intimate portraits of her family, her young children and her husband, and for her evocative and resonant landscape work in the American South. . Her work has attracted controversy at times, but it has always been influential, and since her the time of her first solo exhibition, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., in 1977, she has attracted a wide audience.
Sally Mann explored various genres as she was maturing in the 1970s: she produced landscapes and architectural photography, and she blended still life with elements of portraiture. But she truly found her metier with her second publication, a study of girlhood entitled At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women (1988). Between 1984 and 1994, she worked on the series, Immediate Family (1992), which focuses on her three children, who were then all aged under ten. While the series touches on ordinary moments in their daily lives – playing, sleeping, eating – it also speaks to larger themes such as death and cultural perceptions of sexuality. In her most recent series, Proud Flesh, taken over a six year interval, Mann turns the camera onto her husband, Larry. The resultant photographs are candid and frank portraits of a man at his most vulnerable moments.
Mann has produced two major series of landscapes: Deep South (Bullfinch Press, 2005) and Mother Land. In What Remains (Bullfinch Press, 2003), she assembled a five-part study of mortality, one which ranges from pictures of the decomposing body of her beloved greyhound, to the site where an armed fugitive committed suicide on her property in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. She has often experimented with color photography, but she has remained most interested in black and white, especially photography’s antique technology. She has long used an 8x10 bellows camera, and has explored platinum and bromoil printing processes. In the mid 1990s she began using the wet plate collodion process to produce pictures which almost seem like hybrids of photography, painting, and sculpture.
Sally Mann lives and works in Lexington, Virginia. A Guggenheim fellow, and a three-times recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Mann was named “America’s Best Photographer” by Time magazine in 2001. She has been the subject of two documentaries: Blood Ties (1994), which was nominated for an Academy Award, and What Remains (2007) which premiered at Sundance and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Documentary in 2008. She has been the subject of major exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Her photographs can be found in many public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/sally-mann/
Artist Biography
Quotes by Sally Mann
"...If it doesn’t have ambiguity, don’t bother to take it. I love that, that aspect of photography—the mendacity of photography—it’s got to have some kind of peculiarity in it or it’s not interesting to me."
"It's an odd phenomena, when a feeling becomes a photograph."
From What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann
"I look, all the time, at the people and places I care about, and I look with both ardor and frank, aesthetic, cold appraisal. And I look with the passions of both eye and heart, but in that ardent heart, there must also be a splinter of ice."
Artist Statement on Proud Flesh
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/04/interview-dialogue-between-steven.html
The above link is a discussion between interviewer and Sally Mann and Steven Cantor, the man who filmed her movie, What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann.
Watch the full episode. See more ART:21.
Watch the full episode. See more ART:21.
Watch the full episode. See more ART:21.
Watch the full episode. See more ART:21.
I adore Sally Mann's simple yet still very intricate portrayal of life. Mann's approach to art is very different than the last idea entry I wrote, dealing with psycho analysis in depths that are so simply portrayed in Mann's stunning photographs. She produces work in such a way that is very personal, yet still speaks to a wide audience. I chose to display videos rather than single photographs, because there is not one single photograph that speaks louder than the next. I even had trouble picking out videos, as there are an insane amount on the internet. She speaks of love, sex, simplicity, complexity, beauty, death, etc. I admire her ability to portray such concepts without overbearing the viewer with complex ideas. They are made and displayed in such an entrancing way that it is impossible to not be sucked into her imagery and contemplate your own connection to similar objects and circumstances. I would like to find a balance between complex thinking and simple imagery.
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