"Myspace" Breaking new grounds

Just got the ok to put up some photos in Breaking New Grounds Coffee shop. The theme of my show is going to be taking the art from the walls of my room and putting there. This means assorted frames, different sized images and mediums. There will also be a sort of voyeuristic element in that it is a little peak into something that should be private and designed for myself. I hope to show the absurdness modern networking and exposed the one shred of my life that I had kept private.

late paper

Paul Cezanne and Andy Davis were both pioneers in their approaches to painting. It was through studying Cezanne’s unique methods of capturing a form that would lead the way for modern artist like Davis today. They both do not care for mimicking what was popular, but instead chose to create their own structure of painting. Both these artist study form geometrically and experiment with strange usage of perspective. Although these two artists never met in person, Cézanne’s personal struggles and paintings played vital role in paving the way for artists like Andy Davis and in the shaping of modern art.

Cezanne’s paintings are often seen as a bridge between art of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. It was predominately Cézanne’s later works that inspired the origins of cubism. His pieces had two major characteristics cubists would adopt into their own work; the simplification of his subjects in to geometric shapes and his use of perspective. Cezanne would use spheres, cubes, and cones as his primary tools of abstracting the natural forms in his work. He used thoughtful and exploratory brush strokes to compose these shapes into a distinct, innovative image. It was also his studies of the human viewpoint that cubists found fascinating. Since humans have two eyes he saw there to be two slightly different perspectives at once. He explored depth perception and spatial relations, even flattening the image to the surface that it was on. These two methods drew harsh criticism and were often misinterpreted as a mistake.

Andy Davis does not have the troubled life that Cezan had to live but rather is a happily surfing Californian. Even with these differences in their lifestyles there are remarkable similarities in their works. Andy uses bold brushstrokes and takes a very painterly approach. This image shows one of his most common traits in his works, which is the flattening of the subject. It is the solid green mount with two white squiggles and a sliver of blue that make this picture work so well for me. He only supplies the most minimal amount of information and through color relationship and where they are positioned in the space that the audience is left to piece it together. The surfer and wave boldly are positioned in the foreground of this panting and uses a strange point of perspective. The abstracted and quite uniform water along with the earth looking severe creates an effect that seems as though the surfer is riding the stars of outer space.

It is clear that the geometric and perspective tendencies of Cézanne’s works played a major role in the development of modern painters like Andy Davis.

Alex Machinegun Kelly

I've been scanning some old work in hopes of putting together a better portfolio and stubbled across this gem. I try and always work in a series or create images that work well with one another. This diptych I was really pleased with. I think there is a huge difference between an interesting subject and and interesting photo and here atlest I hope people look at with a facination. The calm expression on the left of an adolescent boy juxtaposed with the rage and unexpected violence on the right. Kind of reminds me of a zombie movie where the scarest people who get turned are always the little girl or grand parents it never is expected that there could be such anger in them but then wam a second later there blood thirsty brain eaters. I also like how this is one of a kind and cant be duplicated. Even the negatives were ruin by the cyanotype process so it makes it really special.

The best thing at the exhibit

One of the best parts of going to a art show is not only the art hanging on the walls but the people around them. The other week we went to the pcac gallery and saw the bfa exhibit and even though I really enjoyed the show it was the girl running the front dest that left the strongest impression on me. She was sitting at her dest littered with piles of magazine clippings and assorted junk along with a glue stick, some scissors and a simple leather bound journal. She was putting together a journal not for some class or to get into grad school but just because she wanted to. It seems like all to often we do work to get by. We take the path that is allotted for us by the school, our parents, and our friends. Even though she is forced to sit at a desk she found something productive, more importantly, something that keeps her sane. Below in my artist statement I wrote "Id rather be taking photos right now" and this partakes to this frustration. Not only that Im assigned to take finite math and restricted to three photo classes but that in my free time I seek little to no productive steps towards becoming a photographer. Classes have conditioned my brain to seeing these works as homework when they should be my alternative to checking facebook. And that even as I write this I will almost just a quickly forget my new aspirations and go to click around addictingames.com

Artest statement

I'd rather be taking photos right now.

Art proposal

Color is something that I always pay close attention to in my work. It’s presence or absences from a piece can have a profound impact its mood, contrast and subject matter. In my photography I typical choose to leave color out of my images. I feel it can take away from the subject and I enjoy the aesthetics of a black and white image. I find my paintings really benefit from use of color but I can’t help but feel a detachment from my paints and the actual subject I’m painting. For my next project I hope to bridge this gap between the colors of my subjects and the paint on my canvas.

Since early cave painting humans have been painting from their surroundings. I hope to recreate this act of painting with what is naturally around me but with a twist, using my subjects themselves. If there is a spilled package of Ketchup in the image then it will be squirted on the canvas. If there happens to be bird crap on a rock then it will get smeared onto the image. Some subjects simply will not rub off on the canvas and these I will use as a sort of pallet knife. The goal of this project is to have a bit of reality rub off on something that is a creation of our minds and a struggle of our hands.

            

            

Table

300 dollars and 12 hours of strait wood working later I finally have finished my table. I'm very pleased with the results aside from the table top not being very functional. It will support a fare amount of coffee mugs but Im still worried about feet and heavier objects. I really like how the stepping down effect came out. I played around with grain, thickness of wood and distance from the top and I think they came together nicely. A last minute addition with the little support beam really helps attract your eye to the top of the piece and then step down from there. The concept of having the most dominant piece of the table being the glass I feel was also a success. 

Painting

I'm wrapping up my painting class this week and I finally made a painting I'm happy with. We were supposed to paint outside but due to bad weather we were stuck painting donuts in the classroom. I was a little bored at painting it accurately and chose to step outside of my comfort zone and portray how I saw it. It looked like this discussing ring of fat that I could only see Homer Simpson liking. I painted it with the gross details I saw in it and added sickly green frosting. To drive the point home I knifed in a pink back drop that I ended up filling in but is not pictured.

BFA exhabition

The UNH museum is currently exhibiting the works of the graduating BFA students. I was really psyched on everyones art especial the painters. Not to say that the photos and woodworking was by any means bad just that the paintings really kept running through my head long after I left the show. It also wasn't a result of the majority of the pieces being painting it was just that they were stronger pieces. It seemed like the woodworking and photo was a result of allot of problems and dealing with them anyway they could and struggling. The paintings appeared like they successfully put their ideas on the canvas the way they desired. It really made me think more about the mediums that I choose being a photographer I have to use some sort of reality and it can be restraining. 

ICA boston field trip

Hanging Fire by Cornelia Parker stood out as my favorite piece at the ICA. It is an amazing 3 dimensional collection of suspended charcoal. When one first enters the room its exhibited in its beauty commands your attention and it consumes the room forcing the viewer to examine it more closely. It almost appears to be a charcoal drawing with the jet black pieces of wood against the brilliantly white backdrop of the wall. Then some more sinister meanings seem to drift through my thoughts as charcoal is often a somber sight seen on the ground. It is juxtaposed and organized as though it is still a fire with the larger pieces at the base. By doing this she successfully brings weight to something that should have none. Something destroyed but brought back to life by suspension. This maybe even a study of how so many artist used this piece of death and destruction in charcoal drawings to create something again. Its subtitle Suspected Arson and that she stole the charcoal from a crime scene also works with this theme.

Bandsaw box

After spending 15 of the last 24 hours in the wood shop I'm very happy to say that I've completed my first woodworking assignment. Creating a bandsaw box uses a different process then I am accustomed to. With a bandsaw box its is an almost entirely subtractive process. This meant that any messups would be very hard to fix and turned out to be really stressful. It also allows for allot more freedom in creating curves and unique shapes. I decided to create a sort of 50's fridge style box. I wanted something clean, functional and simple. The idea also works with the way I approach photography, which is taking something real and bending it a little and somehow making it surreal. With my box I made it appear as though the doors would swing open but really they slide out and have a strange curved wall. I also was attracted to the idea of a static fridge that will last forever like the ones of the 50's but juxtaposed  in creating it with a very organic and perishable substance like wood. I took the concept of the fridge and twisted it a little and used more of the characteristics that I found interesting and successful aspects of the design. One being making three doors instead of two. This created another round spaced along the side between the doors create a nice repeating bubble form. 

This past week I went on springbreak and had the opportunity to do a bunch of traveling. One place I went was Montreal for my old roommate Jeremy Elkin's  skate video premier. It was awesome to stay with him at his house and experience first hand the behind the scenes work that goes into an event like that. Things like getting their earlier, setting up, picking up and distributing merchandise for the sponsors and mingling with the crowd. In the end it seemed like everyone had a great time and a definite success for the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmdHdruLuPk

This past tuesday I got the chance to go visit my painting teachers open studio. Its aways fascinating to see a professors work and I'm almost always surprised. Drumheller's works were all very well done as I expected but what I hadn't seen coming was his choice of subject. His paintings of miniature animal figures were awesome and very different from the landscapes and lighthouses with crashing waves that I had expected. Also his works of his wife in the empty museum were interesting. His study examined someone whom he had known for 30 years but asking him self who this woman really was? and taking an unbias approach at painting her. It really gives an almost stocker feel to the paintings but upon second glace they were carefully mapped out with her composition between these amazing historic sculptures. If I could buy any piece it would have to be one of his smaller painting. I really enjoyed the smaller ones cause he would work allot more with color and apply layer upon layer of paint until it looked like rice cripys had been put underneath.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ_z0rDmvmc&feature=player_embedded#

Film is something that has aways been around in my life. I try and make some sort of movie every year normally about snowboarding or surfing. I recently have been really into music videos something that people put allot of time and money into but dont get enough attention because of shows that show people on the jursey shore. I did rent out a camera for the past weekend and went up to a friends house on the Maine coast to surf and am going to try and make something out of that. Until then here is one that Im really psyched on and makes me wish we had a film class.

I first came across Cezanne's works while on a term abroad in France. It was during my jr year of high school and at a point in my life that I was making major decisions as to the direction of my life and my art. I decided to study in a college town Aix en Provence which just so happened to be the birthplace and primary home of Cezanne. I soon found out they had a small museum dedicated to his works and even had his house open for tours. I went out and visited both of these and was blown away at his work and just how ahead of his time he was. It was clear that his paintings paved the way for the art of the early 20^th century and cubism. He explored with depth perception and spatial relations, even flattening the image to the surface that it was on. He would use spheres, cubes, and cones as his primary tools of abstracting the natural forms in his work. His studies of the mountain in Aix really stood out to me. I realized that I had everything around me in this awesome area of the world to work with and I went out and bough a sketch book. Everyday I would work on a study either using colored pencils, collages or photographs to not only remember the place but to try and capture what was all around me. Cezannes greatest influence on me was to let go of perfection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#feature=grec&playnext=1&playnext_from=TL&videos=EI47nkmxmW4&v=sBOdfjZozss

One thing that really inspires my work is skateboarding. Whether it is the travels it takes me on or the people I meet it is more often then not a result of skating. Here is one guy I'm psyched on. He might not be doing the craziest tricks or the most marketable person but he does what he wants and does it good and people notice that. That being said he is one of the best out there and still is really humble. He also doesn't let one thing run his live. Even though he could stick with skating and be a skateboard jock (compete in the xgames and have shampoo sponcers) and earning allot of money he found other ways like woodworking to develop as a human being.

Bandsaw box

Just got done with my styrofoam model of my bandsaw box. Its going to look like a miniature 50's fridge. Im trying to work with some concepts that I normally do in my photography. I want to take something that is concrete and present in everyday life and put a twist on it. A fridges sole purpose is to preserve and is very man made. I would construct this out of wood and create an organic piece.

Collages

I've been messing around with a couple ways of making collages here is one I do with only using macintosh preview.

New fotos

Just got a role of film developed from my trip to skateboard Barcelona. The trip was a blast except for getting stuck in Madrid and loosing our bags...

Just finished my first project in wood shop. Its a wood mallet that I'm pretty psyched on, good weight and tapered off edges. Now I can go hunt vampires

When one first looks at this piece attention is quickly shifted towards the two bold brush strokes. I is these strips of blue that make this painting so fascinating. That two strokes of a brush could completely shift how we read the painting. The line over her eyes might as well decapitate her and removes any sense the simple family portrait.

This statue captures the essence of fertility. Even though it is composed of cold hard iron it is very successful through use of the large belly and bisection. It really iconosizes women with their hard shell to the external world all the while they carry and create life.

This compilation of images is very powerful. It is painted in a way that shows the people for what they are and nothing around it to take away from them. The absence of black and white is very present and immediately brings to question race. One may find them selves questioning whether the subjects are only two people but then when the text is read find that they themselves might have stereotyped


Although this photo may first appear as a simple snapshot it is far from it. The bold black backdrop works very well in contrasting with everything from the lady's brilliant read clothing to her blond hair. The composition leads the viewer eyes up her arms and eventually to the subjects head

VOTE OR DIE!

Last day to vote and make up fake emails for foto contest. vote for the surf picture on the first page and the yellow
field and mountain and orb magnifying glass thing on the second http://unh.edu/cie/photocontest/vote_spring10_ppl.html