Made Manifest

MADE MANIFEST

Solo Exhibition - August 1-31

Oak Park Public Library

My core objective with this exhibition is not to present "paintings" but to show an array of ideas. I see every 'object' I make as an opportunity to clarify my vision. Specific applications of paint or technique are lower in my priorities of process, because my interest in expressing my ideas come first. That being said, I'm offering a twist on different materials, such as my use of gold and silver leaf, various shades of glitter, and embossing powder. These materials are typically considered as craft and design mediums, but my interpretation of these materials offers opportunities to distort preconceptions. It's apparent that I'm in love with a specific color green, which has many connotations to me. My usage of found imagery is also a primary interest. The appropriation of imagery is an additional meaning to me. Many people ask me if I drew the images (I did not), but they reiterate a specific theme and expression I'm trying to convey. 

Made Manifest is my first solo exhibition. In planning the works I'm showing I wanted to express my interest in narrative, spacial effects on two-dimensional surfaces, and to  challenge myself to get more exposure as a working artist. It's been a thrilling and an arduous process preparing for this show and I'm very excited to continue my practice and share more of my ideas and visions in the future.

The show will be on display for the entire month of August. The opening reception will be on Saturday, August 6 (2 to 4PM).

 

Painting Fancy

I really liked painting in college and grew to love the process of finding different styles and materials to work into my pieces.  Part of my process with paintings or any art I'm currently producing is based around the idea of 'fancy things', so this is a good time to remind myself and to articulate myself to anyone who reads this blog and for anyone looking to interpret what I make down the road.  Fancy Things is my personal idiom, or expression, that encapsulates my interest in history (loosely interpenetrated), architecture, nature, my favorite color, which is sea foam (jadeite) green, and many other things.  

In creating anything I usually feel like an archeologist who has to dig away at soil to unearth a discovery.  With other artists, it sounds as though they are piling on soil onto a mound to wait and see if something is growing to become something amazing.  I feel as though my 'digging' is articulating my world of splotchy, jagged, elegant objects, places, and people.  It's a world of fashion-like poses, heroic and composed.  However, I find the heroism of the people who sometimes end up in my work seem too perfect.  They need jagged spots of paint and random touches of gold leaf to somehow prove the imperfections of their established disposition, possibly their hopes and ambitions, or maybe their imperfect virtues.  

I was really interested in linear forms in college.  I did hours and hours of sketching and have many sketch books to prove it.  I would draw lines for very for a very long time and the more I drew the more I discovered that not all lines were created equally.  When I started painting I did patches of different colors and sometimes would draw lines over and under the patches.  I began incorporating fabric patterns into my work, sometimes used the colorful cartoons showing people in the articles meant to be created.  I loved the transparency of the tissue paper-like material.  I loved the predetermined lines upon the paper that seemed to guide the composition of the painting I was working on.  I would use glaze to apply the pattern that involved painting under and over and all around.  

These days I feel like I'm trying to uncover a world that is juxtaposed with being formal, balanced, and classical in a sense, to a world that is disjointed, asymmetrical, and sometimes alienated--this is represented with my usage of appropriated imagery that I rip out of outdated children's books.  For me, I am not trying to copy the image, but reinterpret it.  I'm fighting its original context and introducing it to a new language.  I want it to be my fanciful world of light mossy green with clouds and veils of gold that reflect light and thoughts.  Francois Boucher is my inspiration to capture the quiet subtle love between new lovers hidden within a walled garden, surrounded by lush greenery and trees that exude innocent, but passionate romance.  Yet, within that garden, there are dark undertones that are lurking that imply forces of danger or impediments that could disturb the innocence of the scene.

With my new work I hope to keep expressing my world of aged illustrations, flat mossy green, imperfect lines, jagged texture, along with some highlights of gold.

  
The final point I'd like to make is that with the way I paint is not about the 'process' or how long it takes me to produce a painting.  It's about the idea and whether or not what I'm making achieves my expression in the correct way.  I ask myself if I'm expressing the correct idea through what I make?  Am I exploring my materials correctly and to their full potential?  Fancy Things allows me to return to aesthetic and intellectual passions and interests that continue to inspire me.  And ultimately, the questions help direct me to express a world that happens to be fancy.