She has had many exhibitions, many of which are in Europe. Her current/upcoming show is taking place from March 29-21 in 2019 in Paris. Her past exhibitions include: "Je suis une couleur" (October 2018) in the Chandran Gallery, San Francisco, "Four Conversations" (April 2018) and "Sous le soleil" (October 2017) in the HVW8 Gallery, Berlin, and "Je pleure comme je ris" (March 2018) and "L'Amour et la violence" (March 2016) in the Galerie M, Toulouse. She is represented by the HWW Art + Design Gallery.
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I finished the background with a stencil of a flower. Not sure if I want to add more artificial flowers to this painting. I also projected the image I found and traced it onto my canvas. It took a very long time measuring out the spacing between each flower, but I'm glad I was patient with it. There were multiple points where I wanted to just PAINT and stop measuring, but I think the wallpaper-y effect would have been lost without that patience.
The lunchtime lecture held Kirk O'Brien focused on the history of comics and censorship. It was really interesting seeing how the government thought that the negative influence of comics was so wide reaching they believed direct interference was necessary. It was really interesting seeing how comics translated the mood of the times into their work. I feel like with traditional art, general moods or ethos of larger periods are always a subtler subtext to the piece. With comics, I feel like it's more directly connected with the audience, and the artwork and content more explicitly relates to the times. For example, the controversial EC comics were dealing with opioid addiction and police oppression. Even though the Comic Code Authority became a tool of oppression that squashed the political ideas they didn't like, the underground, subversive comic movement kept these controversial ideas alive. I'm really interested in the intersection between the government and art. The previous lessons about censorship of artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe were really eye opening. Comics, of course, have a different history of censorship, since comics are not really a "traditional" form of art. The Comic Code Authority had a direct influence on the growth of American comics, and it was interesting seeing how the 1950s, a time of a fear of communism and racial equality, was so far reaching. We often learn about this time period in the context of the suppression of political activists, and it was interesting to see how it affected comics. I found it especially interesting when O'Brien read out the Senate guidelines of what themes would cause a comic to get banned, including:
This new project is kind of a call back to something I did sophomore year. I had a sculpture project with artificial and real flowers and the real flowers would decay as the display continued on. I had the idea of a painting with the same concept. I knew I wanted to have a painting that used more "chonky" paint, similar to this reference photo I found. I also found the photo I wanted to use on my painting, and painted a base coat. I hope I haven't bit off more than I can chew, since this is the largest canvas I've ever worked on.
Over the break, I was able to complete my Q2 project! It was super fun the entire time. I kept thinking about my experiences in Model Congress. I only regret not being able to finish in time to submit to Scholastic. But I was able to add this to my art portfolio for a couple of colleges, so that's good.
I started with a base coat of blue. I sketched the lady and painted over the shadows/midtones/highlights with acrylics, making sure there wasn't any blending so it could be stylistically distinct. I measured and taped six quadrants for the lips. I got a lot of podcast-listening in making this piece! The entire debacle of the Confederate monument conversation is exacerbated by two unfortunate events; first, the entire debate has become an extremely contentious point that flares strong emotions of both sides, especially in the wake of Charlottesville, and second, the nostalgia for a "country" that never actually formed has thrown in a slew of misinformation that isn't conducive to finding an actual solution. The actual "art" aspect of the monuments have been thrown out of the picture, and this non-issue has become highly politicized and racialized. This disregard for artistic considerations and pedestal-ing some goal of appeasement of a political ideology, I believe, resulted in the absolutely frightening Arthur Ashe statue on Monument Avenue. While paraded as some progression in racial equality, the Arthur Ashe statue was just something for Richmond to point at and say "hey, we may have Confederate monuments, but look at our token black statue. There's no issue with this street anymore, haha, we were never the heart of the Confederacy." And, of course, compositionally, it looks more like Arthur Ashe fending off a bunch of demon children crowding around his knees than anything else.
Addressing the issue of Charlottesville, there's no doubt in my mind that after such a horrific incident, there is no place for Confederate monuments in our modern society. Constitutionally? It would be difficult to make an equal protection claim, especially with the narrowing definition of that area of jurisprudence, and I don't see any other way to go about it. But Thurgood Marshall articulated (in a separate issue, but the principle still applies I think) that as our society progresses, and as we develop evolving standards of decency, there's a moral value in getting rid of anachronistic, barbaric relics, especially since Confederate monuments only exacerbate polarization and racial tensions. This article, I believe, really went through the reasons why Confederate monuments need to come down, especially in the wake of Charlottesville. It was in this event that Confederate monuments transformed from a conversation about their place in our state to a seething, violent argument that now circulates around "heritage" and racists. Mayor Signer says it best, the violence "added a poisonous envelope" around the monuments. Which is why it is extremely inappropriate to keep Virginia's monuments. With VA boasting a proud history of slavery (even separating from West Virginia because VA needed their slaves so badly they couldn't deal with the anti-slavery westerners, but we don't talk about that in this household) and being the home of many Confederate, slave-owning generals, it seems ridiculous there are still active Sons/Daughters of the Confederacy chapters. I understand, to an extent, the intrigue of having a historically loaded ancestry, but just because the person who died for his right to own slaves was your great great grandpa doesn't mean he died for a just cause. This is all to say, VA should have been done with these monuments long ago. Having white nationalists stupidly chant around a Thomas Jefferson statue with their Polynesian kitsch (10) should have been the nail on the nail to the already buried coffin. Lastly, predating Charlottesville, this debate has revolved around a slew of misinformation. First things first, the Confederacy was never a state. It had a president and constitution, yes, but none of that is legitimate if they spend their entire existence in a war about their own statehood. Nobody is "from" the Confederate States. Second, unequivocally, the Confederacy was not a war about states rights or whatever sugarcoat you want to put over it. I'm tired of hearing old white people say the war was fought because the elitist Northerners were oppressing the oh-so-underrepresented Southerners. They fought for their right to own human beings. And if you don't think that's true, you would have to tell the entire Confederacy to do that, because in their own Constitution they explicitly state they are fighting for the right to own slaves. And yes, there were political institutions beforehand that "oppressed" the South, I guess, if you count the downfall of the Missouri Compromise, but everything relates back to slaves. Thirdly, the monuments were not built to educate or remember. They were built in the Jim Crow era and early 20th century (when the KKK was being revitalized) because they wanted to make it clear to newly freed African Americans that the United States is not a home for them. They were built to intimidate (5). Essentially, this has been an inappropriate conversation ever since the first Confederate monument went up, especially in the wake of the violence that erupted in Charlottesville. The government should not be in the business of using its First Amendment right to revere a couple of traitors and glorify a movement of treason. I love the feeling of a new art project! Everything is still exciting and things are always going well! After the debacle of my last project, I took a long break from artistic thinking. I had a lot of ideas, but the last project kept weighing me down. I'm trying something new, stenciling, which is exciting! I am also excited about the content of this piece; people and wanting to feel like a wallflower but always feeling like the odd man out. This is Nathaniel!
For my experience this quarter, I attended a lecture given by Amanda Dalla Villa Adams on Japanese aesthetics. There was a lot less art in this lecture than I thought, but I still thought it was interesting. I had never considered another philosophy to beauty. The idea of wabi, simple/unpretentious, imperfect/irregular, and austere/stark art paired with sabi, or lonely beauty, isn't going to be making an appearance in my work, but it's definitely a nice new perspective to consider. I think I'm too accustomed to western beauty standards to try something that out there. I think it's interesting how different philosophical understandings of beauty originate out of different historical origins, and it'll be a factor I'll consider in studying different art movements.
There is not much to be said. I worked on this project, and it's terrible. I will need a consultation Monday. This is not the move, chief. I started outlining the face; terrible.
American society has long been deeply ambivalent about what constitutes as art, and government intervention in regulating this type of speech. Most recently, this can be seen in the arguments in Masterpiece, a recent SCOTUS case where one of the central tenets of debate was whether or not a wedding cake decorator created "art", and if that art can be denied to gay couples. While this specific case was decided extremely narrowly, to avoid answering this question, a lot of other SCOTUS decisions reveal contradictory decisions. For example, Walker v. Sons of Confederate Veterans make it seem like the government DOES have a right to free speech, and can coerce speech it doesn't like from being spread (specifically, Texas doesn't need to fund confederate license plates), while US v. American Library Association points in the opposite direction; the government has no right to free speech, and books can't be banned just because it's obscene. This is all to say, provocative and controversial art is one of the hardest tests to our commitment to free speech. I believe in a free society, every individual has the right to decide what art they want to consume (or create), and by allowing the government to censor art it doesn't like is a slippery slope to an authoritarian government. Using this logic, defunding art the government doesn't like is a form of censorship, even if it's not a direct black bar over a piece of work. I believe it would be most effective to use the ruling in Miller v. California as a basis as to what the government is allowed to regulate, which is when works are patently offensive and lack any artistic value. But who's to say what has artistic value? This test is broad and extremely to raise a challenge for because it is extremely difficult to prove something doesn't have artistic value for a reason, it's to ensure the health of our democracy. That's a lot of words (and governerd) to say, unequivocally, Giuliani's and Republican legislator's uncomfort does not outweigh the health of our democracy. To charge a museum director a crime for including Mapplethorpe's art is a remnant of our nation's Puritan heritage, as well as being extremely dangerous. Government funding to all art, regardless of its content, is essential. This means in Walker Texas should allow Confederate nameplates; this means in Masterpiece the cake shop owner should be allowed to deny his wedding cakes to gay couples. To commit to freedom of expression means to commit to expression we don't like. By allowing the last two examples have their way, we are protecting the art that we now, with hindsight, look to with admiration, whether this be Mapplethorpe's photographs or Sensation. |
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March 2019
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