I would like to create a clever body of work that makes people laugh using my love for play on words. Incorporating many common idiomatic phrases in my pieces such as “busy bees”, “putting all your eggs in one basket”, “hit two birds with one stone”, and “couch potato”, I want to show the humor and ridiculousness of these phrases by portraying them visually. Additionally, a goal of mine is to convey a sense of awkwardness in my works that makes them more humorous and intriguing for the viewers. While Peter Bruegel’s main goal in working with common phrases of his time was to teach moral lessons, I want to make people laugh. I also want to explore the ambiguous nature of these phrases, by contrasting the real and the imagined in my works. To do this, I will show the real aspect of the phrase through a photograph, while the imagined will be through drawing. I plan on juxtaposing the images together through photoshop. Then I would like to print the images on nice paper and work with drawing and possibly collage to give a more handmade feel to the work and make it more interesting. I think that using pen over the digital image will also serve to connect the real and the unreal. Compositionally, it will also connect the photo with the painting better.
I want to place my works in the context of an Idiomatic Phrase Dicitonary. I think that a dictionary will be humorous and it will also tie all the works together in an interesting creative way. I plan on making categories for the phrases such as Food Puns, Religious Puns, Sports Puns, and Anatomy Puns. Each category will have an image of a pun to represent it. Also, framing my work in the context of a book would further develop a sense of irony since my idea deals with some of the absurdities in language and books are typically places for writing.
I want to use a book that I created by hand as my dictionary, so that the dictionary will be entirely mine. I plan on gluing each page into the book that I have already created. Also, I want to design a cover for the book so that it has the feel of an actual dictionary. I may scan the pages so that my book may be viewed digitally too.
In the reading on matter, I found the discussion about how to choose materials really interesting. I think that the author is correct when he says that “the range of matter is to great to lock oneself into.” When I was in elementary school, I always saw sculpture as limited to common materials such as clay, wood, and metal. Now however, I would agree with the author because our materials are endless. Technically, anything around us can be used as a material. This notion reminded me of the gallery we went to on a field trip, when we saw the artist who used dental floss and balloons in for her sculpture. I think that using unexpected materials often times can make a sculpture look more interesting. I really enjoyed the different examples of using different materials for different purposes. Particularly, the table attached that is entirely crafted after metal is really intriguing because it goes against our expectations of materials. It is really cool how the scene of a set table can be entirely recognizable with a different material. I think that using an unexpected material puts an interesting twist on a piece. In the future, I think that I would like to be more experimental with my materials.
Will Cotton is a contemporary artist currently working in New York City. He has earned his BFA Cooper Union and his MFA at New York Academy Art. He directed the Katy Perry “California Girls” music video. While he works with a variety of different mediums such as drawing, sculpture, and painting, Cotton’s work all center around candy in a very surreal way. For example, in some of his realistic oil paintings, he replaces the hair with candy ribbon. Also, he paints a lot of surreal Rubeniste paintings where the clouds are cotton candy.
I find his cake sculptures really intriguing and interesting too look at. I love how realistic they are. Yet, at the same time they seem absurd. I think that his color placement very well balanced, and the pastel colors give optimistic and light hearted feel. I think that his attention to detail in the icing really draws the viewer in and holds his attention. The cakes remind me of weddings. Perhaps, the massive amount of cakes collapsing on each other could be representing the absurd consumption of weddings. Another interesting part of the sculpture is that he is able to use very recognizable shapes in our culture to create a very organic shape.
Andreas Slominski is a comtemporary artist who creates simple yet compelling colorful sculptural flowers. In his latest show in London he did a series of these flowers that represent the social and financial unrest throughout europe. He shows this through the bright, branching forms of the flowers that remind me of snowflakes or garden decorations. Their designs have a graphic form to them that comes from the combinations of basic shapes and lines that connect them and gives them a clear and almost playful feel. One piece has a two branches but only one has a blue flower. The other side looks as if it had been plucked off which is a metaphor for financial cuts taking place in many european countries. It is a simple shape created out of welded metal but it has a visually interesting pattern. Andreas Slominski creates relevant and current pieces that are a commentary on world events and are also artistically creative.
One idea in the Matter chapter in The Sculptural Idea that I found intriguing was the section on “the intrinsic character of the material”. It is interesting to think about the physical and psychological effects of the materials themselves rather than the sculpture as a whole. The idea that the material of the sculpture gives another dimension to affect a response from the viewer in a similar way to the colors of a painting. However it is more complex than a painting in the idea that a piece of blue painted metal will create a different feeling than a blue strip of cloth. The artist can take advantage of the primal instincts a viewer will have toward the different materials and use them to craft a certain emotional response to the sculpture as a whole. Combined with color and form this allows the artist to create a very specific type of feeling for the whole piece. I find it very compelling to think about all of the possibilities an artist has with sculpture in order to elicit different emotions from a viewer and also how each person will interpret the use of materials differently.
James Norton is contemporary artists whose work emphasizes the expansion of material available for current art. He is a sculptor who creates individual pieces rather then installation art out of a huge amount of cable ties. Most of his pieces are shapes suspended from the ceiling. I think the reason why I find them so fascinating is because of how typical his medium is. By essentially creating massive chains of something so simple, he creates something so complex. Ironically, his process is certainly not that trouble-free. You can tell in each piece that there is care, there is a pattern, and a plan used to complete the end result. He also uses color to add another level of complexity to his work. He seems to place balls of color within the larger object creating a nest and egg type thing that looks very natural. On the other hand the harsh and sharp lines of the cable ties give the pieces a somewhat aggressive and hostile effect. The safety of a nest or a home in juxtaposition to the severe material presents an interesting contradiction in my mind. Overall I like his pieces and appreciate his methods and outcomes.
David Phelps is the contemporary artist I have chosen to focus on for this study. He first came to mind because I saw one of his pieces in person on the OU campus last spring, and I remember loving it but I didn’t pay any special attention to whom the artist was at the time. So a couple of weeks ago when I saw I short article on him, with the piece I had seen, I became intrigued and decided he was an artist I really liked. His sculptures are usually huge and cast in bronze. They are traditional in the sense that they are realistic depictions of humans, and bronze is a very traditional sculpture medium. However he is untraditional in his posing and placing of the models. Each is in a position, or doing something in the water. For instance in his work, “Oarsman” it is simply a man rowing a boat, but he makes it interesting by placing it as it would actually occur in water, on land. Instead of the man rowing across a lake, he appears to be out for a relaxing afternoon on a brick walkway in Tennessee. So as beautifully realistic and relaxing as his sculptures are, they are juxtaposed on completely unexpected terrain, giving the artwork a fun and unexpected twist.
Throughout the presented stories, what I was most intrigued with was the argument posed: How do you define what is sculpture and what is instillation? I am of the opinion that they are almost one and the same, but I am sure there are artists out there who view themselves as sculptors and would be appalled to be called ‘instillation artists,’ and likewise many instillation artists whom would never refer to themselves as sculptors. However if this line between the two really does exist, how and where should it be drawn? In the story on matter, matter is referred to as pretty much any sculptural tool, but to be defined as a tool representative of sculpture is restricting, because many of the materials described as matter are used in other areas of art. This whole idea brings back the topic from the beginning of the year where we tried to discover what was really drawing, for instance, it could be many things, not just drawing with a pencil on some paper. So what is really happening here and with every aspect of art, is that the lines are starting to blur. The edges and definitions we have used are starting to disappear, and calling something a ‘drawing’ or ‘sculpture’ has become a much more defining and hard to accomplish task. The role of the artist has started to complicate itself because we no longer even know an exact title for what it is we’re doing anymore, which if you think about it, is kind of hilarious.
The most intriguing point that continuously reoccurred in my mind due to its reoccurrence in the readings was the concept of the history and growth of sculpture over time. The Vitamin 3D, New Perspectives suggests that, “We are far from the days when sculpture served the sole purpose of monument or memorial”. In the past, sculpture was primarily a form of art made 3 dimensionally using very classic skills, technique and material. Now, “everyone is welcome and anything goes”. I admire the idea and progress made within the contemporary sculpture/installation art world as it expands the space and meaning artists now can use, but this idea seems far more liberating than I believe it actually is. While installation art and sculpture bear no rules anymore, the creativity and possibilities are almost endless. My fear is of the length artists will go to create something evocative and new, and how far is too far? The use of human bodies has been done as well art with very outrageous meaning behind it, so at what point will material and meaning become far too shameful for viewers to handle. The answer is, “at the present time, any and all materials are fair game for the sculpture” (Matter). That “fair game” is what I believe could lead to artistic social turmoil.
Artist: Jang Yong Sun
Jang Yong Sun is a Korean artist who was a part of a solo exhibition entitled “Particles of Dark Matter”. In this exhibition, he has a series of interesting sculptures where he creates giant organic shapes through welding together a multitude of steal rings. These sculptures appear to be meticulously formed to emphasize the organic structures that they have become. I think what is most interesting about these sculptures is the sharp contrast between the substance used to create the forms and the forms themselves. When we think of steal, even though it can be manipulated, we perceive it as non malleable because of its purpose in every day life. But Jang Yong Sun contradicts this preconception in this exhibition through his fantastical works. I wasn’t able to find any of his artwork outside of this exhibition and it also seems that very little information is published about him but what I have seen seems pretty interesting.
Thoughts on the reading
Sculptures are peculiar things. They serve no identifiable purpose and exist only to provoke a response from the viewer. That response is usually intended to leave an image on the viewer’s senses and open up their mind to thought. We, as viewers, are inevitably compelled to think about a sculpture, because as previously stated, a sculpture has no true purpose and so our mind’s long to give it purpose. I tend to find this entire process tedious, being a person who’s not really a fan of using their senses, and in all honesty I get physically tired quite easily when I’m being forced to use my senses to do something I’m already doing such as thinking profoundly about things. For me, external sources don’t tend to be very effective at inspiring my mind toward creative thought or entertaining my own creativity in my own creative process. This is because external things are always under the forced natural law that all physical things are forced to obey, such as gravity, physical form and a natural balance. And the way I perceive physical things, they are all the same to me. Even when objects are taken out of their “natural environment” in an attempt to provoke thought, it feels more forced than it does inspired. Only when an object or a sculpture starts to defy such natural laws do I start to find it intriguing.
So... A lot has changed since my original proposition. My last proposal was to do a series of pieces that reflect the underlying flaws of a picture perfect place such as SMU. After struggling to truly understand exactly I was trying to convey, I accidentally stumbled upon a new idea.
I read an article in the Daily Campus that dealt with students abusing ADHD prescription medication to help them study and ultimately perform better academically. Abuse of Adderall and similar medications has become a huge problem not only at SMU, but also at college campuses around the country. It's pretty obvious why students abuse it. Getting better grades has become as easy as popping a pill to help you concentrate. Honestly, who wouldn't want to?
From all of this, I finally feel like I have a solid proposition that I can execute confidently. My new idea in a nutshell is the abuse of prescription medication to find perfection. Modern day society has become reliant on the use of drugs to be better. If you have a cold, take a pill. If you are depressed, take a pill. If you are stressed, take a pill. Cures for nearly all problems that we face in our lives can be taken care of by popping a pill. As I'm sitting here writing this, it's blowing my mind how reliant we all have become on prescription drugs, myself included.
My final proposition will consist of two larger pieces and a series of smaller images. It will basically be a study of Adderall. I want all of them to be composed using charcoal to create a very dark, bleak, black and white mood to the series. The two larger images will be based off of a picture I took of an Adderall bottle tipped over with spilled pills across the table. One will be a neat and clean drawing while the other drawing will be abstract and almost child-like. The smaller images will range from a close up of a pill, a crushed up pill, the bottle... etc.
