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Cameron Savage Fall 2019
Cameron Savage
Cameron Savage
BFA: Printmaker
Scientists can trace the modern human’s beginnings to western Africa and map out migrations that moved hominids into the rest of the world. Mankind traversed a vast and unknown wilderness for the pursuit of food and resources. We have always been explorers, desperately searching for anything new. I’m interested in mankind’s thirst for knowledge of the unknown, and the possibilities that exist outside our little blue rock. Will Earth’s resources eventually be exhausted? Are other planets suitable for the continuation of humanity? Can civilization exist outside our solar system?
Contemplating these questions and being influenced by science fiction pop-culture, I explore color and imagined landscapes. Fictional landscapes and geometric forms contrast and engage one another in my work. The work displays a constant tension between “man-made” structures and their impact on naturally formed structures. Since my forms are fictional, they are untethered from reality, allowing a nearly endless amount of freedom. I’m heavily inspired by album cover art and poster designs by artists like Dan Mumford, Luke Preece, and Rickey Beckett.
My medium of choice is screen printing, which allows me to access vivid colors and stylized mark-making, resembling the graphic nature of posters. Like Cecily Brown, I too use a vibrant color palette and an extensive amount of forms to engage a composition. The prints present exotic contrasting colors and deep landscapes that allow the viewer to travel to strange, alien lands.
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Cameron Savage Fall 2019
Cameron Savage
Cameron Savage
BFA: Printmaker
Scientists can trace the modern human’s beginnings to western Africa and map out migrations that moved hominids into the rest of the world. Mankind traversed a vast and unknown wilderness for the pursuit of food and resources. We have always been explorers, desperately searching for anything new. I’m interested in mankind’s thirst for knowledge of the unknown, and the possibilities that exist outside our little blue rock. Will Earth’s resources eventually be exhausted? Are other planets suitable for the continuation of humanity? Can civilization exist outside our solar system?
Contemplating these questions and being influenced by science fiction pop-culture, I explore color and imagined landscapes. Fictional landscapes and geometric forms contrast and engage one another in my work. The work displays a constant tension between “man-made” structures and their impact on naturally formed structures. Since my forms are fictional, they are untethered from reality, allowing a nearly endless amount of freedom. I’m heavily inspired by album cover art and poster designs by artists like Dan Mumford, Luke Preece, and Rickey Beckett.
My medium of choice is screen printing, which allows me to access vivid colors and stylized mark-making, resembling the graphic nature of posters. Like Cecily Brown, I too use a vibrant color palette and an extensive amount of forms to engage a composition. The prints present exotic contrasting colors and deep landscapes that allow the viewer to travel to strange, alien lands.
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Professional Practices Final Portfolio
Ashley Schell
There is a bittersweet beauty in the nature of average everyday life and simply existing with those around you. I use this mindset to explore my own past and present growing experiences in a tight knit, conservative southern region of the United States, I create artworks that help me better understand my relationship with myself and the individuals that surround me. By forming connections between my personal life and my relationships, my artwork has allowed me to explore where I physically exist in the world and who I am as an individual. My artwork embodies the specific experiences and external influences that have gotten me into the position I am in today.
In my artwork I tend to use subject matter that pertains to my personal life and experiences. By using symbolic objects and environments that are directly connected to, or sometimes suggestive of southern culture, I hope to convey the sense of confusion, containment, and bitter-sweetness that a person can experience whilst living in such a place. When using these themes of confusion I create drawings that are fragmented with reality. I will place figures into an environment and merge them into abstracted environments that exist upon contrasting linear planes and don’t necessarily make sense. A rule that I like to follow as a human being is that not everything needs to make complete and total sense.
In terms of medium, my go to is graphite and watercolor. As I’ve mentioned before, there is beauty in simplicity and I feel that graphite speaks eloquently for my work. My main goal with my artwork is to maintain an introspective artistic lifestyle, as I feel in order to mentally develop, one must unlock the next level of understanding themselves.
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Jay Schroeder pro-practice
jennifer schroeder
My Art is mainly reality based, focusing on social commentary or narrative. Often covering themes of depression, disorders, disability, dilapidation, inequality, and struggles. I provide art that people can connect to on a personal and emotional level. Experience with bigotry and struggles with disorders and learning disabilities has influenced me to explore art that is unapologetically honest. With the goal of reaching out to people so they can see the good and the bad in the world, creating something they can relate to and connect with, so we can all stand together in solidarity.
I have experience with 2D and 3D media, focusing on photography because it helps me capture the level of honesty I like in my work. However, more recently I have been experimenting with Print, video, and sound. Exploring the same themes and addressing new ones, introducing theology more recently in some of my current work. As a practicing pagan who was raised catholic, I can find where things overlap and separate. I’m able to hold an open mind about faith, question, be curious, and look at theological stories from different angles.
My current project, “Dependency” is a print, etching on zinc, printed on Cream Stonehenge using blue-black mixed with white ink. Cream paper and blue-black ink have a medical feel, like the writing of a doctor’s pen on a prescription slip.
“Dependency” addresses behavioral disorders and the need for, or dependency on medication for these individuals to function. This specific work focusing mainly on ADHD, Learning disorders, and anxiety disorders. Referencing pills commonly prescribed for these conditions (Vyvanse for ADHD and Lexapro for Generalized anxiety disorders). Using these pills, I etched in the Words, “Pills Think” and hid them amongst a scatter of the same pills. Driving in the dependency on medication to function, that to some taking medication is the equivalent of being able to think.
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Professional Blend VII
jade simpson
I create graphic design pieces with the goal of inciting a feeling in the viewers. I have found through the years that creating a well developed color pallet is a major part of my process as an artist. This is because color can help enhance the specific emotion or idea that I am pushing for. I enjoy designing a variety of posters over subjects from music to commentary on social issues. The reason I choose the topics of mental health awareness, suicide awareness, gender roles, domestic violence, drug abuse, and other similar topics is because I want people to stop avoiding them. I want to inspire a change in the world and get people to start talking about them on a larger scale. I want to put the very real problems of society in their face and make them want to change their behaviors and attitudes. If not I hope to at least compel them to bring awareness to others. The less heavy pieces that I creat I want to awaken the fun that is sparked in Children. A feeling where the stresses of life are the farthest thing from the veiwers mind. Just breathe and have have. Be happy. This work is generally inspired by graphic artists that use vibrant and wild color theories, funky patterns, and interesting methods of creation. Artists such as Jessica Walsh, Stefan Sagmeister, and Milton Glaser.
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Professional Practices: Cumulation of Work
Sara Talwalkar
I juxtapose sharp and organic shapes, which are inspired by ideas of plants, landscape and architectural design because of the clean lines and minimalistic forms. Line quality is used to show space, and enhance a minimalistic aesthetic, while the use of line and value in architectural drawings changes perspective and manipulates the viewer’s eye. As well as plants, landscape, architectural design, my work is about containers, containing space, and the manipulation of a man-made space. The geometric motif running through the body of work is primarily boxes and can be seen as a reduced form mimicking shapes one interacts with on a day-to-day basis. I am interested in the relationship between the viewer, the form, and the space in between them. The combination of these formal qualities determine the composition of the work and whether or not it is set in an atmosphere.
Loneliness, space, and minimalism inform my work. As a printmaker who works in etching primarily, I am influenced by Ann Kavanagh and her use of line and composition in her photo-etchings, photographs, and Japanese woodcuts. Loneliness is the lack of something, and I use minimalism to show that through sharp, uncluttered lines, rich values, and unconventional spacing of the plates. By composing the space of the page with line and value, loneliness is depicted through an altered perspective, whether that be from the outside looking in or a dramatically skewed angle. I am interested in the evolution of a space within the confinement of a man-made space, mostly the size of the plate or page.
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Terra Incognita
Savannah Jane Walton
To seduce one’s mind is about the thrill of the desire itself. Through the strange marks, there is desire to invent something out of the unknown. The thrill of the sensation of energy. You can’t articulate what is happening... but you feel it. Consumed by reading this euphoric language, you desire to depict the code of the rhythm to challenge your mind’s environment. This is the language that is translating as sound moves through space, daring you to disturb the silence.
I am the architect of my own wonderland, allowing me to compose my acoustic map with expressive mark making to enhance the experience of movement. Using music theory to create controlled nonsense, I develop an overwhelming environment. I want to pull from society’s vulnerabilities of the confusion that this space is ‘off the grid.’ Expanding outside the realm of reality into a space of uncontrolled time where the sound becomes your enlightenment—state of no mindness. The act of visualizing this sound through space is shown through altering organic forms within industrial structures to really play out the rhythm for the people. The line work creates its own lyrical language stemming from design elements and algorithms. Communicating vibrations through the repetition of busy shapes combined with the act of reduction and addition to create depth through the negative space. Using layers of transparencies, geometric shapes and line is how I deconstruct the perception of my large scale composition. I manipulate the intuitive flow of lines to illuminate my abstraction.
Contemporary German artist, Jorinde Voigt, creates large scale drawings incorporating text and collaged elements with energetic yet cryptically ordered compositions. “My work is like music,” Voigt says. “You can enjoy it without being able to read the score.” And honestly, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Graphic designer David Carson, advises artists “Don’t mistake legibility for communication.” These words pushed me to explore how to communicate the visualization of sound. After all, you can’t read my pieces—but they do tell a story. These stories with no location, enticing you to get lost.
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Professional Blend VII
Emma Wilson
I have always been an artist ever since I was a child. My mom was one of my influences to become an artist because she always made arts and crafts with me. My aunt, Janet Wilson, is a very skilled self-taught painter and was also a large influence on my artistic life. I thoroughly enjoy the art of photography.
Tara Chisholm once quoted, “Photography is the beauty of life captured.” My photography is very sentimental because it’s mostly about family. Family is so important in life and so is being able to snap shoot memorable times. I explore the concept of the happiness that family brings. With photography, a moment can be captured that you might not ever get back again in your lifetime.
I often use high contrast in my black and white photos in digital and film. An American photographer who also enjoys photographing people in black and white is Richard Avedon. I believe that contrast creates a dramatic feeling while viewing a photo, which I find interesting. I often focus on the composition of a photograph.
Although I shoot black and white photography, I also love color. My artwork outside of photography focuses on the use of color, which is what attracts me to a piece of art. I find joy in making art with color because of a dark part of my childhood. Now that my life is much happier, I often create happy art. To me, color represents happiness. I want my viewer to feel happy when looking at my happy work, unless I intended to give the viewer a different feeling. Art is very important in my life. I love being an artist.
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HoneySeekers
Aurora Zwyghuizen
As a graphic designer I get into a different mind set. As a designer, project parameters and visual satisfaction are paramount. I choose more appropriate colors for what is assigned. I try to get out of my head and into the real world. I attempt to create viewer interest by organizing typography with hierarchy and arranging images in a compositionally pleasing manner.
Some of this will be seen in my most recent project, Honey Seekers. This is a nonprofit organization to help save the bees. Bees are very important to me because they are the ones that give us life. I am choosing a variety of bright colors to attract the viewer in the logo and in the posters that I am creating. I have chosen colors that are realistic to flowers and nature. I am trying to use these colors in every poster to keep a consistency, but make sure that they are also different at the same time to keep them visually appealing. For the posters I use different fonts to describe importance and to give the layout a more pleasing look. The posters will also be on an average to large scale. I will also use these colors and fonts for the website that I will design, so that the viewer can know more information and see more visually appealing criteria.
With this project I am trying to get out of the box and make an area that will “wow” people by walking through it. I hope that the colors will attract people and make them want to make a difference. I will also be making a website to have donations and more information about bees for people to read. I am also making an informational book and keeping on the color scheme of the posters that I have created.
Stefan Sagmeister is one graphic designer that I look to. He is very modern and I love how he will put himself into a piece of his work, as if it were a performance piece. His use of typography is always eye catching, which is what I would like to accomplish. Every piece of his art is different, so you don’t know what to expect, but you know that it is his. Two other artists that I look to are Matthew Willey and Ladislav Hanka. Other than being artists they are also bee activists. Matthew Willey travels the world and makes bee murals to raise awareness about what is happening. Every mural is different and it shows how he can make every mural match by being different. Ladislav Hanka makes etchings out of decomposed hives. He won art prize this year in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he talked about the circle of life with bees but knows how important they are to us.
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Professional Practices
Shelby Adams
Currently, I am focusing on the aesthetic nature of my artwork and how its appearance aids the use of it. My work tends to lean towards the more organic/imperfect side of crafting: whether it be in my ceramic work or metalsmithing, I enjoy the small variations in form that create a true sense of the handmade. I further this sense of hand-craftedness by exposing the materials themselves, such as leaving metal to patina over time or leaving the clay exposed while glazing. The strong sense of materiality within my work, along with their organic sense of form, creates very naturalistic objects that emphasizes the materials themselves. I’m interested in the minimalism that these choices can evoke and how these aesthetic leanings affect the functionality of each piece.
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Catherine Alexander
Catherine Alexander
Have you ever created a whole entire story in your head? Or been looking at an old photograph and imagine how you would fit into it? My imagination constantly runs wild with all kinds of stories. My work deals with narratives rather they be fantasies or personal, represented through series of photographs and prints.
My screen prints focus on a particular story that’s a twist on ancient mythology, with subtle narrative I have created and mixed within it. The print gives the viewer just a small glimpse into the story’s narrative. I want the viewer to be able to identify the myth the print is referencing and understand the story. I’m influenced stylistically by illustrator Victo Ngai and her prints in the book Chinese Fairy Tale and Fantasies by Yiyun Li.
With photography I take a different approach, rather than a fantasy narrative, my photos are a more personal narrative. The series is focused around my family history, and merging the past and present through family photographs centered around important locations and new photographs of what those locations look like today. The series was inspired by with website Dear Photograph started by Taylor Jones.
I also take a mixture of prints and photos to create stop motion animations as well as GIFs. The idea of turning my prints into animations came from artist Andrew DeCaen. The animations are used to create a sense of time using multiples, giving the viewer more than just a glimpse into the story. With the use of animations and GIFs I am allowed to further the concepts and ideas of both my photos and prints.
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Professional Practices
Jalynn Ashford
Artist Statement
As a viewer looks at my work, it should serve to intrigue the viewer and instill curiosity upon them. I am creating work with clean and consistent line quality throughout the pieces and through this line quality, contour lines sometimes reoccur. Color palettes are being used that are bright colors paired with neutrals, which catches the viewer’s eye. Implementing pattern into my pieces is an element that I am striving to use more often to create more visual interest. A shape based illustration style is a process that is exciting for me to implement and therefore, it is beginning to become more consistent to create bold, playful images that inform the viewer pleasantly.
The main form of medium that I prefer to work in is graphic design in a variety of scales. This is the center of my focus while I explore graphic areas such as digital illustration, branding, layout, and alignment. The ability to allow my artistic abilities to communicate information in the world in an interesting and appealing way is a focus and eventually creating designs with the purpose of serving external customers is a career goal.
Musical instruments are currently an area of focus in my designs. Music is a personal interest of mine that I have invested in for the majority of my life; therefore, they are an exciting and intriguing subject for me to explore in my design. Music is a bright, beautiful, and dynamic way of creating. I believe this needs to be reiterated through the design in order to make playing an instrument seem modern and inviting. I pair illustrations that literally depict the instrument with bright colors that differ from the instrument’s origin color to create unique visualizations.
The art and design world is very influential. Luba Lukova is inspiring with her thoughtful and minimalistic compositions that are consistent throughout all her work, alongside her line quality. Her ability to match vibrant colors with neutral black and whites to create visually pleasing pieces is influential. Hand-letterers such as Jessica Hische and Marla Moore incorporate elegant, unique hand-lettered typography into a majority of their work. This design element is personally admirable and implementation into future work is in thought. Jessica Hische’s design process and workflow influences how I work through design problems.
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RECONSIDER THEN INFORM AFTER BREAKING DOWN
Kora Carlson
The process of art is meticulous, becoming richer in layers as time passes. When art and the body come together, they immediately magnify an existence long before assemblage. I want to question predetermined existence through the use of found material. How the use of appropriation in art-making challenges patterns and creates a moment of change.
Objects exist only from years of meditation, but we can quickly reconsider their function through intentionality. I’m specifically focusing on relearning form, shape, and color after crossing the gender divide. How the ability to assert inclusion in time and space is symbolized by the transformation of objects.
My materials are collected through this lens and everyday collaboration between environment & self. How can design create a celebration of liberal individuality.
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Growing
Hailey Church
Tending to work with oil paint and loving its fluidity, the work I produce is about confidence in body image not only seeks to normalize but also glorify differences in body types. My work is inspired by a value that has been instilled in me since a very young age - I can do anything, want anything, or like anyone or anything I want to regardless of my gender. I produce my artwork to make others feel that they are capable of the same things and I use my art to promote self-love and an appreciation of the uniqueness of one’s self or others. Stylistically, I approach these feminist themes by using soft lines and textures, smooth, silky, and careful value shifts to accurately depict form, mass and space. Color is an important tool of mine, and using oil paint allows me to use that to the full potential.
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Rosalyn Churchman ProPrac
Rosalyn Churchman
Rosalyn Churchman | Artist Statement
My work is an examination of the process of decontextualizing everyday objects and manipulating perception through juxtaposition and the use of freeform line. I find that by juxtaposing order and chaos I am able to create energetic and visually engaging compositions.
I have synthesized the techniques of Julie Mehretu’s layered line and Jackson Pollock’s abstract paintings to develop a style of my own. The static nature of ordered line juxtaposed with loose line creates dynamic and dramatic movement throughout the piece. I think of each of these drawings as a maelstrom of line, pattern, and ink clouds that come together to create ambiguous and abstracted compositions.
I am interested in incorporating recognizable images of the human figure within more abstract compositions to evoke a universal feeling of distress. These pieces use parts of the human figure as reference points within an abstract and dynamic scene. This juxtaposing allows me to blur the line between figuration and abstraction. In these drawings, I incorporate colored pencil and watercolor with pen and ink. I find that along with pattern and line, the addition of color enhances the piece and aids to the overall complexity of the drawing. The appearance of bold black lines and patterns beside bright blocks of color gives an aggressive and graphic quality to these drawings.
In my current drawing series, Gears, I render human faces and figures, but incorporate mechanical aspects. I am exploring this method of juxtaposing the artificial with the human as a new means of depicting ironic and unnatural subjects.
I would like to transfer my ideas of juxtaposing order and chaos to my graphic design work. I enjoy typography and the manipulation of letter forms through font variations, color, and pattern to develop eye-catching and aesthetic visual hierarchy. I am also drawn to page design and enjoy organizing imagery and type into effective and visually interesting compositions. Paula Scher’s use of color, shape, pattern, and type to create engaging compositions inspires me to do the same in my own designs. Like Luba Lukova, I would also like to scan in my drawings and then manipulate them on the computer. I am interested in how my method of contrasting order with chaos and the recognizable with the unrecognizable can play out in my future designs.
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Professional Practices Fall 2018
Lu Colby
Complications with infertility and the states of despondency that come with it are themes that I personally connect with. When reflecting on what it means, personally, to be a woman I have always associated these thoughts with motherhood and home. I attempt to reflect on these thoughts and explore them through my work.
I dissect and experiment with these concepts through the use and symbolism of apples. The apple has many layers of symbolism and even biblical references as the forbidden fruit. The apple is said to be a symbol of knowledge, immortality, temptation, and the fall of man. It also is seen as wholesome and comforting, much like my own mother’s apple pies and making cider from our family apple trees as a child. I believe these symbols parallel and represent many elements of being female. Using apples at different states of decay, being eaten, or even bobbing for them, are speaking to my personal stories of being a woman and the greatness and hardships that parallel that identity.
Inspired by Judy Chicago, my pieces have varied in mediums of art such as sculpture, printmaking, installations, and performance pieces but all have common characteristics such as multiplicity, repetition, and use of the color red to represent menstrual blood. The use of repetition and multiplicity throughout my work speaks to these individual moments and experiences as a whole while also thinking formally and fundamentally through the work. I want to use my art as a platform to speak out to the issues surrounding my culture and more specifically towards women.
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Nance Craven_ProPracSP18
Nancy Craven
Figurative work is what drives my art to convey and evoke emotion. The figures become derivatives of nature using organic lines, whether they are a naturalistic depiction or an abstraction of an original form.
My areas of interest include woodworking and drawing. As an individual geared towards math, problem solving, drawing and craft, woodworking requires me to use these and other skills to create a successful work of art. The processes in which I create something starts with an idea of what I want a specific piece of art to be about, what I want it to look like, and what its function might be if it has one. After this, I make multiple sketches, choose the one that I think will be the most successful, and refine it multiple times. Many of my wood projects focus on form and are constructed of smooth, flowing lines with open spaces. My form-focused works are often modeled after things such as nature, the figure or music, and are meant to evoke some type of emotion from within the viewer. Some of my works incorporate drawing and work in conjunction with a wood piece so that a specific concept can be conveyed by both formal and linear properties. The subject matters I most often use in my drawings are hands and the figure. The concept behind this is that hands and body language are strong indicators of feeling, whether it be calm, tense, open, closed, etcetera. Since gestural interpretations are nearly universal, most viewers can relate to the feeling that each gesture is meant to evoke in the viewer.
My inspirations for drawing and woodworking come from contemporary art artists such as Duarte Vitoria, who draws and paints tense depictions of human figures rendered within the strict confines of the picture plane, and Sylvie Rosenthal, who creates functional wooden objects that reflect animals and other components in nature. Elements and properties that draw me into other works of art are the use of line, figure, design, and detail. To come up with new ideas and designs, I like to observe my surroundings, whether it be in my room, a classroom or studio, or nature.
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Professional Blend 3
Kelsey Crawford
The importance of people and their roles in society are of great interest to me. Within our society the idea that certain individuals are held higher than others is the most interesting of others, usually based off of the privileges they have such as money, class, respect from others that not everyone gets. The ideas of our current societal norms paired with expectations are fascinating to me and how we as humans begin to react to them is something I enjoy including in my work. I am a designer, an innovator, artist and creator of things. I focus on the digital world of creating but 3 dimensional beings have always been something that will grab my eye. Using these ideas with geometry and dynamism is what I find when looking to create.
I use photography to start the creations of my digital illustrations. This imagery, creating a focal point and then accompanying it with geometric shapes is something that feels natural to me. Along with these ideas, I like to create pattern with textures and shapes, this helping the central theme. The use of positive and negative space shows through as well when it comes to my work. The shapes geometrically are simplistic but the composition is not as it could be said to be busy and chaotic. For example my work consists of a central figure or focus such as a person that is surrounded by varieties of shapes and movement.
Influences of the world are present. For me specifically, I draw inspiration from the Art Deco movement, specifically the architect William Van Allan who is best known for his work in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, NY. The detail, pattern and line curvature as well the pattern and consistency of the design all are something that I find interesting and aesthetically pleasing. Other influence from that time are graphic designers Leo Marfurt and AM Cassandre. Constructivism and it’s use of shapes is also something I find highly intriguing such as the artist El Lissitzsky. As well as drawing inspiration from the past, I also find it in the present of the works by street artist turned graphic designer Shepard Fairey who came to fame by doing the Obama Hope poster as well as painter Kehinde Wiley and his use of color and pattern. These visual inspirations connect to me by their use of color, shapes and pattern. Kehinde Wiley is a painter that visually, the work isn’t compatible in style to the other examples but the use of pattern can be aligned to be similar as the use of pattern in the Art Deco examples. Naturally I am drawn to primary colors, their monochromatic difference within their color and how the colors work when put against one another. How these colors play off each other as well as how strongly they can stand alone is something I think lends itself to the theme of the people I am so interested it in the bigger picture; strong and individual but when put together intense and powerful.
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Tiffany Day
Tiffany Day
I draw inspiration from parts of the visual world that strike me as strange and unique. I love to work with the concept of the extraterrestrial. So much of the universe is unknown to us that it is easy to imagine whatever you desire could be out there existing in it’s own world. Printmaking led me to the examination of the idea that there is more to be learned outside of our limited knowledge of space prompting me to make prints about exploring a new world. I used three separate plates to create a narrative using natural forms to create a rocky, foreign landscape that felt full of the possibility of mystery and surprise in uncharted territory. The narrative is of this unexplored, rocky, mountainous region with an astronaut making his way through the terrain and an alien creature peeking over a large rocky hideout. This was the beginnings of the idea of otherworldly exploration.
I love to utilize curving, fluid lines, and natural forms within nature and the body. I incorporate the human body in a lot of my work. In ceramics, the strangeness of holding molds of human body parts inspired me to create an arm and hand holding a head. This piece was meant to explore the juxtaposing ideas of beauty. An exploration of how beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Beauty cannot be judged objectively, what one person finds beautiful may not appeal to another. The face of beauty for everyone is different, for some it may be the beauty of nature ( ie. the flowers covering the arm and one side of the face) and for another it may be the beauty of the natural (ie. The plain/natural side of the face). Sometimes ideal beauty can overtake your own perception of beauty. In photography I utilize natural forms such as trees and rocks, which are works of art in themselves because of the way time shapes them into unexpected formations. Yet, through photography, can be framed in a way that enhances its natural conversation with the surreal. For example, natural, rocky formations seen with the naked eye can be framed with a camera to look otherworldly and unnatural. I explored a favorite hiking area, Garden of the gods, and took inspiration of its natural surrealist qualities to capture a photograph of two rocky mountains. While reviewing the photos I seen the surrealist quality of the photo that looked as if two mountains were really two humans kissing. This leads the viewer to wonder if it is meant to be two humans kissing, two mountains, mountains that were once human lovers, or anything the viewer wishes to interpret the image as.
Salvador Dali has been a great emotional and creative influence on my work. I relate to Dali’s exploration of the unconscious and the strange, alien imagery that results from it. A more contemporary artist such as Carrie Lingscheit who explores human behavior and remembrance in her printmaking, inspires me to look deeper into what roles the human figure can play in an artwork in terms of narrative and emotion. .
My artwork comes from a side of me that I don’t readily share with others. My goal for my artwork is for it to be about myself and the way I interact with the world, yet generalized enough for viewers to look at my work, reflect on it, and interpret the art in their own way. Through exploring ideas of strangeness, the extraterrestrial, and the surreal, I hope my viewers’ outlook on life and their experience shape their interpretations. I hope these readings of the work surpass my own interpretations in a way that expands the conversation the work is in and further enhances the alien nature of my subject matter.
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cdothsuk_proprac_SP2018
Carly Dothsuk
Carly Dothsuk
Spring 2018
Artist Statement
My art questions what home means to me in relation to my family and myself. I have recently begun exploring why home is home, and what that may entail and why we may rebel against it. I want to figure out why I love my family,and or even why I rebelled from my home. My work functions as a sort of apology in a sense; apologizing for taking people and my home for granted.
Through my paintings and drawings, I explore this with the use of different planes, lines, abstract symbolism and even a series of self portraits to help me explore this. I do this by using colors, line, and perspective to bring things forward, and some back. Playing with the different planes, lines and abstract symbolism gives the artwork depth and space for the viewer to observe and ponder the work. I want to explore memories, go back in time and search for reasons, explanations, and comfort in the ordinary.
Daniel Pitin’s work best exemplifies where I would like to go with lines and his use of space that helps him tell the story or experience he is trying to portray. (An example would be his work Watchtower.) I want to take my memories and mix them with abstract scenes to make them more like memories than reality. I guess in a sense you could say that I want to bring you into my world. In my work Fond Memories, you can see my try at this; and in my painting Many Explanations you will see a continuation of this as well. In the drawing Fond Memories I cut out pieces of the drawing to show the fragments our memories may leave out. With lines and perspective I create a new world to explore, a peek inside of my head and experience the memories with me. In my painting A Map I play with space by using color to give it a “another dimension” feel to it. I make it seem spacious by using flat paint versus layered paint, which pushes and pulls the subjects of the painting.
The main difference between my paintings and drawings (although they speak of the same things) is that in my drawings I prefer cleaner lines and less color, and in my paintings I prefer color and abstraction with less lines. However, my goal is to eventually combine the two mediums. I have already begun experimenting with pastels and conte pencil to push myself in drawing, and to desensitize myself with color. In all of my work you will see a basic symbol for a house. This symbol means home in many forms, and is universally understood to be just that.
My goal with my artwork is to be understanding and inquisitive of myself and what the viewer may think. I want to figure out myself and others, while focusing on home and what that may mean to me and even other people. I want to provoke consciousness and reflective thinking in my viewers and myself.
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Professional Practices by Kayleigh Doyle
Kayleigh Doyle
Artist Statement
Kayleigh Doyle
Moments captured by old photographs are intriguing and mysterious.
I was gifted boxes of old family photos from my grandmother and was inspired by these moments in my family from the past that I was unable to participate in.These photos were taken before my time and connects me back to my genealogy, Recreating these photographs in the form of prints and paintings allows me to inject my own experiences into that moment. My work , inspired by these photograph is also addressing the ideas of memory and nostalgia.
I use both screen printing and oil painting to compose this body of work. Screen printing has a graphic nature I am drawn to, that complements the narratives I create. It also has a correlation to the photography because they both can exist in multiples.. On the other hand, I paint because paintings are often deemed precious and one of a kind. That cherished mentality is how one can relate to the mementos of their family memories.
My work includes using a photo from my collection and abstracting the figure with objects from the image. I often replace vital body parts such as the face or torso with the most prominent object in the photo. These figures are placed in a surreal, abstract backgrounds using a colors pallet that is inspired by the time the photographs were taken.
I am strongly influenced by my rural roots and family ties. I often use bluegrass or old country music in order to get me into the head space of the people in these photographs. I am inspired by the collage work of Genevieve Gaignard and her ability to alter these normal interiors with symbols of different time periods and locations. My intention is that the viewer can step into my shoes and experience these lovely moments in time and live through these nostalgic moments.
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Professional Practice Class
Alaina Goodlett
Human beings are creatures of habit and familiarity. Automatic movements, speech patterns, and daily activities often develop to a point where they can go unnoticed by the person performing them. Habitual patterns can develop and change as subtly or drastically as we can; they can be as freeing or as obstructive as we allow. Habitual activity can become an important comfort, but can also lead to a reality full of restrictions and anxieties that can halt growth, rather than inspiring it.
My work focuses on the study of how habit and comfort through habitual pattern can affect daily life. I use imagery and materials associated with comfort and flexibility – largely handmade fabrics – and juxtapose them with metal forms to create pieces that challenge the expected nature of these materials. The surface qualities of the pieces reflect the act of automatic movement through the act of making. A swath of handmade fabric is a visual representation of the time put in to learn how to hold the material and manipulate it continuously into something greater than it was before, not unlike the act of shaping and sanding the surface of metal to make it perfectly smooth, or the act of engraving with a chisel and hundreds of hammer strokes. The making becomes a recognizable pattern of movement that is at once therapeutic and comfortable, but also runs the risk of becoming monotonous or even painful if done long enough without a change of position or a break. The tedious nature of the process then informs the concept of the therapeutic nature of habit while also pointing out the potential risks of holding oneself to an inflexible schedule with no potential change.
Insect and nature imagery occasionally take place in my work, as the cyclic metamorphosis seen in animals and our environment can serve as an interesting dialogue for the similar changes noticed in human behavior. Growing out of certain norms as one moves through life allows for reflection of who we once were as we are reminded of the habits we might have once had. This examination of one’s own past can be used to piece together a timeline of daily living patterns that became phased out or inconvenient, shaping an individual through the abandonment of actions that may have been hindering personal growth. As such, we can find that who we once were is as different from our present selves as a caterpillar is to a butterfly. Should we try to recreate our old selves, those restrictions would be significantly more noticeable than they once were.
Extended introspection that comes with transitioning into adult life allowed me to see how my own habitual nature was hindering personal growth. While I still struggle with my self-imposed obstructions, being aware of them has allowed for exploration of myself and how to become more well-informed of what is needed to be successful while still having manageable living patterns. I want my work to inspire viewers to consider their own habits and how those may inhibit their ability to interact with new experiences and opportunities, and potentially begin the process of overcoming those should they deem it necessary.
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Professional Practices
Sarah Guinn
When people look at the work that I’ve done at Murray State so far, I want them to notice my passion for the field. In the works that I have done so far, a few of my favorite things to instill are alignment, typography and color. In graphic design, these elements are important attributes to create a successful piece.
I typically try to imitate what attracts me to another person’s work. My art and design use a lot of contour lines, symmetrical balance, shape, and negative and positive space. Usually my mental process of starts with getting ideas in my head and I write them down. If I don’t get an idea right away it usually takes some time for me to finally come up with a project to do. If I do have an idea though, it usually starts as one thing and as I start to work on it, it begins morphing into many different ideas and my entire project becomes a much bigger concept. I have instilled some of these elements and principles of design, specifically into a logo project and travel ad layout project.
The things that influence my work vary from my family to music to desserts to traveling. They are the things that excite me the most and I always have endless ideas of items to make when it comes to them. I also love making logos and the concept of brand naming. I am very interested in working on my hand lettering. This is a very big reason why I love Louise Fili and Marla Moore’s work so much. Fili does both branding and hand lettering and I recently have started to look at her work more often. Moore does everything that I aspire to do as well. Her aesthetic and her hand lettering inspire me to really give it my all. Overall, what I think I do the best in are the projects that interest me and go along with what I want to be successful at in life.
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Casey Johnson: Professional Practices
Casey Johnson
My art comprises one unifying idea: my own life experiences, specifically those relating to my family and friends. By depicting highly specific visual cues—such as clothing, crows, and the color blue—I combine multiple facets and memories in an attempt to communicate my feelings and experiences. Sometimes these symbols are universal; a yellow raincoat, for example, calls to mind childhood. Others are encoded within my own memories—a bird skull relates to a dream my friend had one night. My art is about more than myself; it is about finding common ground between me and my audience and exploring that overlap.
Through symbols, color, and texture, I reach out to the viewer. These symbols and colors appeal specifically to my own aesthetic and emotional sensibilities; it is for this reason that I am so interested in what the viewer can gain from my art. In order to interact with both my memories and the viewer, I use bold, dark lines, bright colors, and clearly visible—if not always decipherable—symbols. The interaction between these elements paves the way for the connection between myself, the piece, and the viewer.
Among my contemporary influences are certain niche illustrators such as Greer Stothers, whose bold use of color to depict creatures—both extinct and imagined—has left an impression on me. Her colorful compositions are straightforward and full of character, and I strive for a similar impression within my own work.
My experience with figure drawings, especially those done with pen and ink, was a major catalyst for my artistic choices thus far. In my figure drawings, I was able to explore unconventional color combinations. This exploration of color continues even in my more recent abstract drawings, in which I have depicted white bottles and other objects in hues of red and blue.
Photography has proven to be an unexpected catalyst for the further development of my art. A photo is an instantaneous moment in time; in a way, it is the purest way for me to present a pure reflection of my own perception. In an inverse way, photography has honed my sense of my immediate, daily surroundings. There are countless moments in any given day where I wish I could have my camera to capture the beautiful subtleties of my world. The photos that I have taken so far are largely the result of chance: I saw something lovely and photographed it, such as sunlight filtered through window blinds or an animal carcass. Others are staged and in a way are more like my symbolic work of other media than my other photos.
In my art I explore the psychological meaning of color; specifically, I use the colors red and blue as symbols for life. Both red and blue feel familiar and lively to me. At first, I subconsciously used these colors when producing life-based work. As time went on, I began to use the colors intentionally as a kind of code for organic life. In many cases, I also used green in much the same way, but the shade of green was frequently more of a teal color and was thus essentially another shade of blue. It is elements like color that my audience will connect to in their own way, and maybe this connection will be similar to the connections that I have with my own work.
Casey Johnson
2018
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Hanna Kesty
Hanna Kesty
I am not one to make myself the center of attention, therefore self-portraits or any aspect of myself were never an obvious choice. My work is developed from a personal narrative through drawing and printmaking, and is an opportunity to have an open conversation about mental health as a complex form that has multiple parts and pieces. Innocent, metaphorical objects help illustrate a variety of internal disruptions of that form. During the production process of a drawing or print there is a conversation of acknowledgement and honesty happening between these objects and myself.
These objects are depicted in minimalistic settings dominated by negative space forcing the viewer’s attention on the object. Due to the minimalistic settings there is a somber and desolate disposition that dominates the objects, such as a wooden chair, vintage TV, a hare and tree trunk mask. The pieces/objects are typically depicted distressed and covered with two-dimensional string to emphasize internal distress and chaos. Visual cues help the viewer in navigating the composition.
Artistic influences stem from lithographer Kathryn Polk with her use of a realistic and imagined figure, as well as her muted color pallet, and from mixed-media artist Toba Khedoori and the solitary spaces she creates with minimal imagery. Other influences are words. Words are powerful; from poems such as milk and honey by Rupi Kaur, to music, or simply everyday conversations, words shape our day to day lives.
Mental health is different from person to person, yet every person can relate to other people’s stories to a certain extent. It is something that should be openly discussed and not dismissed or suppressed. With this discussion I am connecting to others universally and possibly helping them figure out their own parts and pieces.
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