5/26/10 Art Show
-very conceptual, abstract
-less dark than the years before
-a lot of words
-overlapping imagery
Much of the work from the art show is very abstract and conceptual. It is about ideas, thoughts, feelings, words. All these work together to create a product very different from what is usually seen in high school art shows. There is a lot of text used in the paintings, probably because of the prevalence of ideas in the work. These pieces aren’t just nice to look at; they express ideas about the world, their relationships, their lives and their communities. There is also a good amount of just abstract work to be seen, and the composition of those works I like for the most part, especially Sara and Emilija’s. Many of the sketchbooks were also a lot of fun, because they work well with the style mostly seen in this art show.
4/26/1 #1
Artist: Ben Rotman
http://www.artq.net/ArtistWork.asp?artist_id=UMDPM140283722021649
-abstract, yet easy to recognize shapes and figures
-very colorful
-some use digital art to create paintings that look very very much like watercolor
-believes digital art is the answer to the current lack of creativity
His paintings are brilliant in color; he uses vibrant colors and does not mix them so that they blend into dullness. The colors are used to form shapes that seem random and yet bring out the feeling of the paintings, and bring the figures in them to life. The two paintings i like best are “Laidys” and “Ballet” (the green and yellow one). In both there are very few lines, but the subjects are very clearly detectable. Especially in “Ballet”where the patterns of green create a feeling of the ballerina dancing, which is also a little surprising, since green is not a color commonly associated with ballet.
3/16/10
Artist
Lydie Lanoe
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/Lydie+Lanoe/119745.html
2/23/10
Artist: Yi S. Ellis
-draws inspiration from Chinese brush paintings
-uses acrylic and oil paints
-vivid colors
-”Painting for me is a necessity to release the creative force within. I paint the emotions, moments, and fleeting visions that words cannot capture. But paints and canvas have a life of their own–often a painting sprang to life despite of me. It is a constant process of learning, discovery, experimentation that ultimately takes me (and I hope the viewer) to an inner world that resonates personally yet universally.” –Yi S. Ellis
Her paintings are vivid and exciting with color. The combination of brilliant oil paint hues and Chinese brush painting style creates a striking visual effect, interesting in its differentness. She says that she hopes her paintings resonate personally and universally, and they definitely resonate with me, in the colors as well as the style, because I too am Chinese and I feel like her paintings represent something in me.
* * * * FALL SEMESTER 2009 * * * * *
1/5/10
Artist: Liu Bolin, Hiding in the City
-blends in with surroundings
-protest against government
-the environment, the state of living
This series of work is one of those things that changes the way people think about how art can be created. Splatter painting was cool when Jackson Pollock did it because he was one of the first; it was different from what everyone else was creating, but what makes it so great now, when everyone can make such work? It looks cool, but it’s not really saying anything, rebelling, or making change. It might be good, but it’s not revolutionary. That’s why I think Bolin’s idea was so cool. It is something that takes a different way of thinking to come up with. Painting and camouflage have both been around forever, but not together and not like this. His goal was to partly to bring attention to what the government was doing (The government kicked him and hundreds of others out of their homes to make room for Olympic buildings). He could have written an essay on it, but instead he came up with a new idea, one that caught the attention of many people. He was successful in bringing attention to the problem of the Chinese government’s use of power, but what fascinates me most is the cleverness of the idea.
11/30/09
Artist: Weeda Hamdan at http://www.weedahamdan.com/paintings/Exhibit.html
-oil paintings
-impasto
-brilliant colors
-abstract and real
-one little moment in time
Weeda Hamdan’s brilliantly, vividly colored paintings are like the one image that I might remember from a long jog through a park. They are those “normal”, yet very special scenes, so beautiful. Her use of impasto, a thick knife application of paint, creates rhythmic strokes of color that when viewed as a whole, result in an extremely real image. You could almost say that her paintings are beyond real, fantastic and otherworldly.
Most of her paintings involve water, trees, or both water and trees. The trees have an enormous vibrancy in them, full of life, fire, imagination, and those imperfections that are beauty. The water seems to hide a secret underneath its brilliant surface. When a painting of hers holds both trees and water, the result is breathtaking.
10/19/09
Artist: Geninne at http://www8.flickr.com/photos/geninne/
Serena Xu
- illustrations
- beautiful, eye-catching colors and patterns
-full of life, exuberant
-makes me feel happy
-half realistic and half imagination
-not something that exists to inspire thought
This artist creates beautiful illustrations with perfectly chosen colors and careful detail work and patterns. The colors, patterns, and imagination that goes into these illustrations makes them seem like pictures from a dream. The pictures are exuberant and full of life. I can almost hear the birds chirping and see them walking off the page when I look at some of the pictures, and yet they are not like photographs. They are pictures that children and adults could love simply for their aesthetic value.
They are pictures that I would look at carefully to see how all the details are created, but not ones that I would examine while searching for the meaning of life. They are simply beautiful and inspire my imagination, but not the part of me that wonders about the world; this isn’t a bad thing, though, because each artist has their own purpose.
Karen Kieser 9/20/09
Denney’s Electric
Serena Xu
extremely sharp lines, edges
colors are very blue
paintings are haunting – the people seem soulless, anonymous; scary
the sculptures seem so much more life-filled; they really do look like part of nature
Karen Kieser’s paintings of people are haunting. They have such sharp lines and edges and colors that tend toward blue and green; this makes the paintings feel cold and brutal somehow. She says that she is interested in organic form, the vibrance of growth and in birth, life and death, but I think this can be applied only to her sculptures. The people in her paintings do not seem like they could ever be involved with birth, life or death. They seem soulless, especially one of a woman who has no eyes; eyes are usually the representation of soul and identity in art and literature. There is also an anonymity to the people in her paintings. This is part of what is so threatening about them, because anonymity is something that most people fear; we spend our whole lives trying to push our way out of anonymity.
In comparison, her sculptures fit her description of what she tries to do through her art. I see the “vibrancy of growth” in most of her sculptures; they seem to have been caught in the very motion of growing. I especially like the two that resembled people.
