A World, Illustrated

Concepts are getting fired up in the world of TPOP this week, and final projects are in the beginning stages of development. For this week, we read chapters on Neo-Expressionism and History Painting in Painting Today, along with 95 Theses of Painting by Molly Zuckerman-Hartung, 10 Rules for Creative Projects by Diebenkorn, and Chuck Close on Creativity. We also watched podcasts on Kerry James Marshall and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung. I had the privilege to attend Molly’s artist lecture last year in person, and rewatching it helped give me a refresher on her style and process of work.

A few of Molly’s Theses on Painting that resonated with my final project:

9. This movement toward the eternal has been critiqued as Romantic but is as realist and banal as keeping one’s hand in a warm dishwasher on a sunny afternoon. The decision to space out-to get lost in the moment- is always an available decision

55. In painting, one has a conversation with oneself that is in someways the same as the conversation with the world. The difference is similar to the distinction between speech and writing.

56. In speech, one cannot take something back.

57. In writing, one changes one’s mind privately and presents a reasoned argument publicly.

This article, coupled with an understanding of Zuckerman-Hartung’s process, contains useful information on how to balance internal meaning and external meaning within the question, project, and concept that I am attempting to explore. I feel that the concept I have arrived to for my final has threads that connect me directly with the material without becoming too personally involved, yet investigate a broad concept that resonates with a public audience as well. This balance is difficult to maneuver, and has been an obstacle for me to overcome throughout the body of all of my previous work. The Neo-Expressionism chapter of Painting Today was also relatable to this topic. Anselm Kiefer, a German Neo-Expressionist who was mentioned many times in the chapter, explained why he used the materials he chose and how the ways in which he painted effected the content of his work. These decisions were carefully made to give Kiefer both personal meaning and public resonation within his topics.

This week in the studio, we continued to work on the abstracted gridded paintings of portraits that was assigned last week. This assignment has been a slow, tedious process that demands a constant reminder to see things as they are, not what you perceive them to be. My painting is still unfinished, although I have put a huge amount of effort into it. I still question if I am doing it right. I hope to finish it by the middle of this week although I understand that it will be considered late. We also have begun preparing supports for our final projects, and after a bit of technical inspiration by an artist I talked with in Seattle on Thursday, I have completed the preparation necessary to start painting.

On Thursday, as mentioned above, the class took a field trip to Seattle to hone in on the ideas we want to explore for our final projects. There was a wide variety of processes, concepts, and ideas to pull inspiration form over the course of three museums and at least four galleries, and I found useful information on Romanticism, Indigenous perspective, the sublime, color use, underpainting, and form to add to my project.

I also gained a lot of insight into deeper thinking throughout the process of writing my exegetical response essay this week, and really thought out terms used in the passage my partner and I wrote about. It helped remind me that even the simplest terms could hold multiple meaning and interpretation, depending on the perspective that they are looked at.

5 Terms:

Superficial (From my response essay)- Existing or occurring on the surface, Appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely, Lack of depth, Shallow

Expressionism- To use form as content, A style of painting in which the artist seeks to express emotional experience instead of impressions of the external world.

Layers (From my response essay)- Layers of physical material (paint, supports, objects) Layers of meaning, (perspectives, ideas, concepts), A sheet, quantity or thickness of something.

Avant Garde- New, unusual or experimental ideas, especially seen in art or in the people that make art

Hunger Nach Bildern- German for the Famine of Paintings in the 1960s.

5 Skills-

Differentiating between personal perspective and external/general definition or meaning of a topic

Pulling inspiration and ideas from physical artworks and primary sources, field work

Annotated bibliography: Research from secondary sources

Preparation of multiple supports: Stretching canvas, Priming

Critical response of exegetical writing

Note on the Artist’s Lecture on Wednesday- Suzanna Bluhm: This whole idea of balance between internal and external perception has been a vague question of mine that I’ve been trying to put into words for a long time. Asking Bluhm how she was able to have so much personal experience and meaning in her paintings that on the surface seemed to look very broad, serious topics such as politics, polarization and geographic boundaries helped me find a way to put my question into words. Her response, which was something along the lines of ” I can only

speak of my own personal experience with these things, because it is impossible to know and live all these perspectives and narratives that surround these topics..” is also helping me form a way in which I comment on topics that are outside of myself without making assumptions or searching forever for the “right” way to discuss such broad and intangible ideas.

Ah, yes. Midterm week. This week we explored themes such as Abstraction,  Figure, and Portrait. We read chapters in Painting Today on the Photographic,  Pure Abstraction, Ambiguous Abstraction, and Post-Feminism. We also explored the Shultz-Sillman interview, and investigated portraiture through Tj Clark’s podcast on Rembrandt.  I found the photographic chapter to be enlightening when thinking about the topic of painting from a photo, especially in this day and age of modern technology. When I first developed my interest for art, I often used photographs as a guide.  Concepts such as distancing content through different mediums or using a photograph as content instead of a tool to depict something else will help me use photographs for artistic purposes in a much more potent and meaningful way. I also was very interested in both of the abstraction chapters, partially because I’ve never really understood abstraction. After engaging in seminar and discussing with my peers, I not only feel that I have a better grasp on what and why abstract is, but how I can use it as a tool to help direct the questions and ideas I’m trying to convey in my own work to an audience.

We developed two copies of figurative/portrait work this week, and had a large amount of pieces to choose from. I chose to do my copies on Jenny Saville’s Reverse, the first one being a formal copy, the second being a creative, abstract version of the first. Jenny Saville was the artist I chose to do research on last week, and I’m glad I had a little extra familiarity with the artist before beginning these paintings. We also started a portrait on Thursday afternoon that is due on Wednesday of next week. I was unable to be there for that workshop, but have made efforts to reach out to my fellow studio mates to find all the necessary information needed to complete this portrait by Wednesday.  Something that I feel is worth noting is that after finishing both of these pieces, I became more partial to my creative copy than to the original, although the original copy probably took me about 3 times longer than the creative one. Is this because I felt more comfortable with the content the second time around? Was it because I wasn’t as focused on perfection and more focused on content? These are the questions I’m still trying to figure out.

5 Terms:

Pathos- An emotional appeal in an argument, discussion, or conversation

Expressionism- A style of painting in which the artist or writer seeks to express emotional experience rather that impressions of the external world.

Distance- In an artistic context: 1. The space between on object to the next physically in a composition 2. Metaphorical distance that is created by using tools such as photography, video, or other mediums to put content into a different perspective or context.

Gestalt- An organized whole that is perceived as more than a sum of its parts

Geometry- In terms of early abstract philosophy, the lineaments of a better, more ideal world. Means for creating and foreseeing a utopia of sorts.

5 Skills-

A greater understanding of Abstract painting (not fully formed, but better than before)

Use of photography as content and tools for pulling/putting things into different context

Continued work of text annotation/ seminar discussion

Painting on alternative materials such as glass or wood panels

Understanding why something was made in relation to how it was made

I feel that theory and practice blended  content better than any other week this week. My own practice on these two copies echoed the concept of working on content instead of process, and previous research on Seville fueled the question, “why am I doing this?” The concept that had the most important impact on me this week was during the Thursday morning seminar, when we were discussing abstraction and why it was important. The concept of what makes art genuine, and how valuable the thought put into a piece is has been stuck on my mind for the last few days, especially after experiencing the difference in quality  my “creative” copy and my “formal” copy had.  I feel like because I put a lot more effort into what I was trying to say in my creative copy, it turned out more genuine and real than that of my formal, which was basically just an exercise in mimicry.

For next week and in the weeks to come, I hope to focus on a few different things. Firstly, I want to be conscious about why I’m making the work I make, becoming less interested in how well it is going to turn out. Secondly, I want to try and become more objective and less self concerned when critiquing, discussing, and interpreting others. In other words, discussing wider topics, broader experience, less personal examples or opinions.

Welcome to my weekly reflection of Week 4! Things have really been amping up, and my pursuit of perfectionism has been feeling the pressure. Although the content of this week dealt mostly with the human figure and organic form, remnants of still life content has been sprinkled throughout. For this week, we read chapters on The Figure, The Global Scene, and Western Traditions in Painting Today. I found the Global Scene to be a really interesting depiction of art outside of Western cannon, and the contrast it had with that of the Western Tradition chapter. We also looked into the article called The Creative Copy, which helped give some explanation as to why we do a creative copy each week. Ways of Seeing, episodes 1 and 2, gave the most important content related to the human figure and more importantly, the nude, for me. It’s been helping me question what is a body and a figure, and honestly, helped my own personal view on the female body in relation to society.

In practice, we’ve been looking into indirect painting, glazing, acrylic grisaille, perspective, and value. I’m in love with the technique of oil glazing, although the acrylic underpainting required is challenging and time consuming for me. It seemed to eat up most of my studio time during the week, which left me little time to actually work with the glazes. In the future, I hope to work on my time management in the studio, and become less of a perfectionist when it comes to composition.

5 Terms

Grisaille- Monochrome underpainting, usually helps with color blocking or value work.

Indirect Painting- painting that is done in different stages and at different times. Usually premeditated before starting.Many Renaissance painters used this technique.

Transparent vs. Opaque oil colors- Transparent colors are more oily, and permanent, they lend themselves towards glazing. Opaque colors are more saturated, bold, and better for antipasto painting.

Gamsol- a paint thinner solvent, helps with glazing and washes of oil color.

Exegetical Essay- A form of writing that analyzes text, or a certain passage. By breaking down the meaning of each word, one’s understanding of the passage will deepen with this sort of writing.

5 Skills

Glazing technique

Exegetical Writing (I need more work on this, but hope to improve my skills soon)

Acrylic Grisaille painting

Canvas stretching (on the bars we made ourselves, how cool!)

Time management between painting homework, reading, and writing assignments.

This week was a struggle for time management of homework and assignments. I felt like I spent way too much time focusing on the underpaintings for both copies, which left me stressed and on edge during the week to complete everything else at a high quality level. I hope to spread my time out more evenly this week, which I’ve already began to do by making a homework schedule. I also felt that I didn’t understand the process and instruction for the Exegetical Essay as well as I could’ve. After reading my peer’s essays, I feel more confident, and hope to take another stab at it soon.

Week 3 was a bit more interesting in terms of physical studio work and technique learning than the previous two weeks. The readings from Painting Today, Landscape and Life and Death, were both insightful, although I felt that the landscape chapter had more impact on my work in the moment. I’ve never enjoyed painting landscapes, but being able to look into the history, origin, and why others are drawn to them helped me view them as something more than a pretty picture. On Color, by Amy Sillman was expressive and stimulated a keener interest in where and why we have the pigments we do,  and Thierry De Duve’s reading offered a perspective on painting and its “thingness” that I haven’t come close to envisioning on my own.

Duve’s podcast  on Immanuel Kant was perhaps my favorite content of this week for two reasons. Firstly, I am not familiar with Immanuel Kant, and Duve’s introduction and interpretation of his work helped me grasp the density without too much of a struggle. Secondly, once processing Duve’s interpretation, I was shown an entirely new definition of beauty that I’ve been thinking about with everything I see.

In this week, we covered the basics of direct painting, form, value, and perspective. Personally, I find direct painting and perspective a weakness of mine, so it was a pleasant surprise to find these paintings a bit less challenging than in previous situations. The hardest part of these paintings was the application of white in the formal copy, which has helped me learn that white will almost never be “fully white” in an oil painting.

5 Skills:

Direct Painting

Close listening of a podcast

How to cut wood with a jack saw

Creating stretcher bars from scratch

Oil mixing and paint application

5 Terms:

Ala Prima: Painting all at once/direct painting/thick

Orthogonals: Imaginary “searching” lines in a perspective drawing

Pharmakon:  A Greek word meaning color, drug, poison, or intoxicant

Ekphrasis: An essay that analyzes a painting or image

Formal analysis v. content v. interpretation: Formal analysis is the basic characteristics of what you see like line, color, or form. Content is what the painting is showing, like specific objects, fruit, house, table, etc.. Interpretation is what you think the artist is trying to say, and is something to be aware of while writing and analyzing paintings or text. (I feel I’ve been having some trouble differentiating these three when critiquing, and hope that the more I remind myself of their differences, the less blurry the lines between them will be.

The woodshop workshop was especially new and exciting for me, and creating my own canvas is an insanely interesting resource to be offered for this program. I do wish I had a bit more time and instruction during the process, due to the fact that the machines and material can be a bit intimidating. Although, I felt very accomplished after finishing it with the help of my studio mates later on.

Week 2’s themes were centered around the usual concepts that are key to a basic still life. We looked into value, form, and spacial awareness within a composition while working with charcoal and acrylics.

Our assigned homework included the Introduction and Landscape chapters of Painting Today, the introduction and chapter one of James Elkin’s What Painting is, and two podcasts that introduced artist Stanley Whitney.

These articles and podcasts help stimulate internal thought for me about skills that are useful before the act of painting has even begun. Color mixing, choosing medium, and what you want to say in a painting is just as important as the act of painting itself, and these assignments set the stage for development on skills like this.

5 Terms:

Scumbling: Dry brush technique

Claudianism: Romantic, pastel landscape style characterized by Arcadias of Claude Lorrain

Indexical: something that has a direct connection with its origin

Icon: Something that looks like something else

Symbol: Something that refers to something else

5 Skills

Acrylic painting on paper

Framing work (associated with still life)

Annotation/close reading of live lecture

Value and Proportion work (associated with still life)

Wednesday critique of week one’s work.

The combination of acrylic medium and value scales was a difficult technique to apply onto still life work for me. Because of my perfectionist tendencies, acrylics seem to be an especially hard medium for me to engage in due to their drying time and texture. In a way though, this helped me get more involved in the process, as frustrating as it was. I excited to continue our investigation of still life into an oil medium with more flexibility and varied technique next week!