my brain and what it likes.

As for how and why my brain works, its hard to say. I am drawn to a lot of different things in the world of art but right now am still on my kick of creepy things, as I previously discussed. I've been having a hard time with putting into words exactly why i am doing things even though i know what i want to do. So thats what i'm focusing on right now. Putting my thoughts into more elegant wording than, i like creepy things. My paintings for example I want to have an ominous and sinister feel, which i create through light and shadow with stains. I want the viewer to get this feeling and still think that it is a beautiful piece. That last statement is what i'm going for with my ceramics as well. above is one unfinished painting i have and a piece from last years ceramics class.
I get stuck on something and I'll work with that until i'm frustrated or bored and need to move on. Lately I've been more drawn to darker or more chaotic (whether it be in color of composition) work than I used to be more interested in, especially with painting. I had been looking at a lot of realistic figure painters, but not so much anymore. I've been going on gasllery guide and just going through all of the galleries on their list skipping around to different artists. I added a link for Leslie Bostrom. I just looked at some work of hers online in the Brenda Taylor gallery. Jorg Madlener is on that site as well, he's got some cool things. I found Nancy Cohen on the Kouros gallery site. I really love her sculptures. the shapes she creates are just beautiful in a kind of delicate way. She ,ay be inspiring to my future work. Nikolai Makarov's paintings have a beautiful use of light and haziness that made me think of how it relates to my paintings. Mishiko Hoshino, also on the link list, works with lithographs. The light and dark in there, along with the raw feeling, is something i've looked at. There are links to the galleries these artists are on on my list. Melanie Fischer has some pretty cool installations. worth looking in my opinion. Her site is on the list. Al Wadzinski i just found through NY Studio Gallery. I love his sculptures. The forms are really awesome. The materials and the colors and textures really excite me.
As for things i don't like, i can't pin anything specific. i'm an indecisive person and everything depends on the situation for me. So i really have the potential to like something in any genre, it just depends. i've actually been looking to find someone that i don't like as an example through these galleries but to be honest it's taking a long time to find someone i feel strongly enough about that i dislike. But you can get a feel for the art that i really enjoy from my past blogs as well as this one.

DIY and critique

Alex- Interesting blue creatures, they make make me curious. But I am wondering what the presentation is about. Why are they laid out on a pedestal with the darker blue rug underneath? I think they could be very interesting and exciting with perhaps a different set up and surrounding. I am left asking why?
Lauren-I know your intentions for the piece, but i did enjoy the way it was set up in this manner and unglazed. I am excited to see more, though the amount you have currently still has a presence to it. I liked the parts where the tiles were layered and you had volume to it.
Abbey- I loved the paint job you gave to this piece. Very gross and beautiful. I want more of it though. or perhaps bigger but with the same attention to detail. as if i were walking into a boneyard, though i know with the amount of time a boneyard would be excessive.
Pam-Beautiful work. I'm glad you had some with detail in the pottery and the different glazes. I really enjoyed the first group on the podium a lot.
Ashley- I assume this is going to be exhibited with your other work thats about your life. In which case i like the idea of a quilt made up of pieces of you. I liked the top left one and the bottom right one the most. They seemed more completed compared to the other squares. I hope that this is going to become an actual sized quilt.
Steph- I like zombie things, so i enjoyed this. The last sequence I feel was the strongest because it was the most visually interesting with the incorporation of the stop motion and what was happening to your body. And i liked that you opened your eyes in the last second of the film. Music was good.


Cecily Brown is one artist i have recently looked at. Her work is "overtly sexual" though there is so much paint on the canvas along with the paint application that you have to really look at what she is painting. Olivier Aboucaya is in his late 40s. i just stumbled upon. I don't know if i usually even liek work like this but i really love the color and composition in his paintings.

As for a how to, I have not learned anything technically art related, other than melting clear glycerine soap gives you a cool texture that you can give as much pigment to, though expensive. I did however find on youtube how to make a green screen for cheap! Though you do need software called wax. But the actually material you can just use green posterboard. The video explains much better than i can. link is on the link list

2nd post

I am amking a figure that is supposed to be tryign to come through this membrane sort of thing. This idea abviously is going along with my creepy thing i have going on. Right now im tryign to research what material to use for the membrane. I found a few options, some being in the links i posted. I may use a large sheet of rubber latex but i have to search around more. Resin is also another option, which would turn out a ittle differently tyhan i originaly imagined but i'm not sure yet. Theres a couple of websites that were helpful in this process. The first image in my head looked something liek what i had above.
The most recent dream i had is not quite relevant but there were two guys trying to attack myself and someone else. So this other person slit one of the guy's throat and then i hit him in the head with a spatula and it fell off. As i was wondering if i killed him I was told not to worry because he could still breath without his head on. Weird.
Since we are talking about dreams and i have been thinking about nightmares, one visual memory that has stuck with me is a dream i had over the summer. I was in a house that was possessed by some demon spirit. I went into the basement that was broken down and dark. There was a hole in the wall maybe about a foot wide and 6" vertical. It was around eye level. I felt the presence of the demon in there. It was quite creepy. I am trying to make a painting out of that memory.

^ (Those are a couple pictures of Adrian Arleo's work)I want to continue the track i was on last semester in ceramics, which would be working with the figure. I have been looking at some ceramic artists such as Judy Moonelis, Adrian Arleo, Mark Burns, Debra W. Fritts and some others. Also the photographer Roger Ballen has inspired me with eery feel of the in his work. My first piece is either going to be a sort of mutated torso melting onto the floor, or i am going to start working on a smaller scale of a different project i have in mind. I've enjoyed giving the figure a creepy feel and i also want to add some sexuality into my work which i have started to work a little bit with the past semester but i did not execute the project i had in mind. Basically i have a whole bunch of ideas i just don't know exactly what ones i will be accomplishing this semester.

here's some artist websites. there are also a couple of sites that are of interest to me and may influence my work.