artist statement

my work has no defined medium or boundries. my work is often my own interpretation of real world politics, and social issues. I strive to express opinion and provoke thought, using irony, humor and truth. i beleive that the modern artist must do more than dwell on realism. my paintings are paintings, not photographs. a painting must be viewed differently than a photograph. i view my work as a window into another world. in this world, i feel that i have to show the viewer more than they already know to be true.

i dont think anyone reads this, but there is a gallery opening this friday at the chase gallery. the artist is Joseph Piccillo, hes a really interesting mixed media artist.

rough artist statement

The age that we live in is an age where art has no definitive identity. Over the course of time, art has gone through many different stages. Prior to impressionism, art was widely known to be a realistic depiction of life. Things like the invention of the camera changed this ideal forever. The camera forced artists to search for something more; therefore not only changing art, but also changing the artist. The artist was forced to have more of a personal connection with his work. This change brought movements such as impressionism, and abstract expressionism. Currently, there is no major art movement, and most artists are not famous celebrities featured on the cover of life magazine.
Artistic direction is surely something every artist struggles with in the modern day. The work that I produce is not necessarily confined to any medium. I feel that the evolution of art now forces the real artist to work with a variety of different mediums from printmaking, to film, and from painting to sculpture. I feel like there needs to be a change in our modern world. Too many people are still hypnotized when they see a hyper realistic creation. I respect people who have the talent to portray exactly what they see in an exact fashion. Unfortunately, these hyper realistic works very rarely offer anything useful to the world of art. The modern artist is responsible for more than an accurate depiction. Rather than aspiring for this realistic depiction, my work is often my own interpretation of real world politics, and social issues. The world of art has naturally manifested itself into more than aesthetics. It is no longer all about what the viewer sees, but rather what the viewer feels, and takes away from the work. Through my work I strive to express opinion, and provoke thought, using irony, humor and truth.

i forget if we were supposed to be keeping track on our blog of what exhibits, and lectures we have been going too. the last two shows i have been to are the george nick show at the naga gallery, and also a belgian painting exhibit at the BC mcmullen meuseum. i also went to most of the exhibits on campus, my favorite being shoot the family. as for lectures, the fa2d dept usually has one every wednesday, and i have been to a handfull of them.

over the past few months, i feel like my artistic direction has evolved into a multitude of different subjects that i could take in many different ways. while i have always had strong concepts involving politics, and social issues, i have also started to have more traditional ideas. this semester began by putting politics in the back seat, while i began to become obsessed with painting portraits, and the figure. this focus i put on the figure lead me to a series of paintings involving my own face in a very simplistic style. aside from this, i have also started to become interested in landscapes, and the abstractions that can evolve from them.

i think my unusual,contour portraits were succesfull in many ways, and i also think i could take it further. with that said, i think i will put that on the backburner for my portfolio class, and focus more on social commentaries, and political issues. i plan on sitcking to the way i have always attacked certain issues. i do this by using alot of different mixed media such as paint, and silkscreening. the "made in china" painting i made is a good example of the way i execute my statements. i usually try and find, or create an ironic, funny, or thought provoking phrase that draws the viewers in. many times these phrases have earned me the title of being disrespectful, or a smart ass. i welcome both.

well, i am just updating everyone who doesnt read this blog on the progress of my project. i ended up venturing away from the idea i explained below and took it in a whole new direction. i feel confident about the direction i went in. im not going to explain it here, because it is not neceserry.

project progress

so i think i am going to continue with the idea/images i have posted below. my canvas is 6'x10'.

maybe i can print my face with "enemy of the people" over it. i dont know if that is too vague.

project

this project is giving me more trouble than i intended. at times, i feel like i have really good ideas that i think i can take further, and then other times i feel like im not ready to execute them. by ready i mean that i feel i should be more educated on the subject. i am also starting to feel like i am studying too narrow of a subject to create a whole body of work for.

the idea that i am thinking the strongest about would be a silkscreen. after reading alot about tibet and the chinese ocupation, i have realized that the 6,000 destroyed monestaries seems to be the most popular statistic. for some reason i came up with the idea to silkscreen something 6,000 times on a large canvas. the only problem is i do not know what. i do not want to print an actual monestary because i think that would be to literal. the image i am thinking of would be something along the lines of multiple monks meditating. here is an image that might work...


i dont know. i was also toying with the phrase "enemy of the people". this was a title given by the PRC to many buhdist supporters.

on the off chance that someone actually does read this blog, let me know what you think. i am kind of lost in this right now.

sand mandala

last week, i also had the privledge to observe the creation of a sand mandala in the brant gallery. early in the week i did not know what to expect. at first i was intimidated, and nervous to ask alot of questions. as the days went on, it became alot more confortable atmoshphere. i got a chance to talk to them, ask questions, and hear them talk about their culture. i think it is hard to say exactly what i took from the week. i think the majority of the things i leanred were not facts, or specific beleifs. i think i left the gallery with a different mindset. i think my thoughts may have not changed, but have just developed in a way that i can not understand. i dont want to go as far as saying this week was "life changing"; but then again, it sort of was. it doesnt change my outlook on life in any drastic manner. i just know that as i said before, what i got out of the visiting monks is undescribable, even though i know it is significant. that probably doesnt make sense.

artist talk

this past week i went to a lecture given by artist Brody Condin. condin is an artist from L.A, who is currently working in the Netherlands. when i was first introduced to condin, i must admit that i was not initially intrigued by his work. it was not until after he showed many of his pieces that i found it interesting. brody condin is most widely known for his game modifications. a game modification is taking an existing computer, or video game, and modifying it to do what you want. the first modification condin did was of the game "half life". he created a character that was his best friend, and filled an infinite room with the character. the piece was an instillation video of condin playing the game by killing his friends character over and over for 6 hours. another game modification that stuck out to me was a compilation of many violence oriented games. condin recorded a screen shot video of him playing each game while executing different ways to commit suicide. while he did not talk about his concepts or motives very much, i feel that they can be interpreted in many different ways. i think his work is sort of a social commentary on the violence that kids are exposed to on an everyday basis.

artist research

Banksy is a rising street artist who mainly works in europe. banksy uses multiple techniques including painting, free hand graffiti, stencil graffiti, and sculpture. for the most part, banksy is most noted for his stencil grafiti found on the sides of building, and streets all over europe and sometimes in the united states.

banksys stencils are usually acompanied by slogans. these slogans are usually anti-war, anti capitalism, anti establishment, and pro-freedom. some of banksy's stunts include:
- At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted 'We're bored of fish' in seven foot high letters.
- At Bristol Zoo, he left the message 'I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.' in the elephant enclosure.
-In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
-he put up a subverted painting in London's Tate Britain gallery.
- In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was found hanging in the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, the museum added it to their permanent collection.
- Banksy has sprayed 'This is not a photo opportunity' on certain photograph spots.
- In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.
this is only a small list of what banksy has done in the past 4 years. aside from street graffiti, banksy has more recently started to get involved in making statements about what the general public calls "fine art".

banksy also does more traditional styled paintings which are usually subverted versions of historically famous works. one example of this is a copy of monet's famous water lilly's. banksys version is fillled with old shoping carts and trash. while i think most of his subverted paintings are complete crap, and he makes himself look like an ignorant ass hole by doing them, the hip general public seems to love it.

fuck the free world

its ironic that the darfur genocide was brought up in the last class. it is something that has actually been on my mind for the past few weeks. its weird, but it brings me to tears to think of four hundred thousand people raped, and murdered...plus another 2.5 million moved from their homes. three million innocent people. 400 thousand innocent people dead. i don't understand how the united states can continue to support a worthless fucking war in Iraq, and then do virtually nothing to support the crisis in Sudan after openly admitting it was a genocide. i must admit that lack of action on the part of the united states does not suprise me. in great fashion, we went to "help" UN troops in the genocide in Rwanda, but we ended up fucking things up even worse. and on top of it all, after we made things even more hostile...we ran like a bunch of fucking cowards. i think its obviously clear that the united states will not get involved in anything unless there is some sort of a benefit. fuck the free world. the free world means there always has to be a winner. and the winner always has to get the prize. there is no prize in darfur, there are no rich oil fields, and no one needs to get revenge for their father. there is no such thing as a beautiful "free world". therefore, we will most likely continue to ignore Innocent women getting raped, innocent children being murder, and Innocent families being moved from their homes. we will ignore it because "we cant fight two wars at once"...well you know what?...we shouldn't be in fucking Iraq in the first place. let me tell you something...if me and a group of my friends went over to china and flew three planes into buildings, and then china went to war with the united states because we were Americans....George Bush wouldn't give a FUCK, and we wouldn't get any support from the government. that probably doesn't make any sense to you. it just means that if the united states were in Iraq's position, THEN we would all think that the war is wrong. but instead, we are over on our little island in the Atlantic ocean, oblivious to everything going on in the rest of the world. and because of this, no one gives a fuck. they don't ask questions. they figure that the guys who flew the planes on 9/11 were middle eastern...."fuck it...lets just go to war with Iraq!" and then the excuse turns from 9/11, to Saddam Husein having nuclear weapons. you know what?...if suddam Husein has nuclear weapons, then who the FUCK are we to tell him he cant have them? the guys a fucking scum bag who killed his own people...I'll give George bush that much, but we are not the world police. and ironically in the end, we didn't even find anything. i think all in all this whole paragraph did not make any sense, but what i am trying to say is that a single person can care about other people, but big groups of people don't give a fuck. the united states does not understand that lives matter more than capitalist interests...fighting a worthless war in Iraq is far less important than four hundred thousand dead people.

my project seems to be coming along in my head more than it is on canvas. i know exactly what i want to do, and what i am going to do.

jan. 25 class response

My inspiration from the ICA was found in the artist Marlene Dumas. Marlene Dumas is famous for creating large scaled figure paintings. Dumas finds a new way to look at and simplify the figure, and has no interest in anatomy or proportion. Instead, the artist focuses more on gesture and broad forms. after studying more of Dumas' work online i began to develope a loose style of blind contour drawing. After drawing my hand many times, i then began to loosly express the features of my face. For my response project, i plan on creating multiple portraits of myself and of others in this style inspired by Marlene Dumas. I think that this class period helped not only myself, but my other classmates begin to pinpoint the concepts they want to persue in this project. After receiving input on my ideas, i think that i am able to begin creating final sketches in preperation to start a final piece.