Annie Poon is a stop motion animator who gave a lecture at the BYU Museum of Art in 2017. Her animations are done with cut out pieces of paper that are drawn on with ink. Annie shared that a lot of her artwork was influenced by the idea of play: she and her twin sister used to put on plays with paper and make little paper people, and this came back to her when she was in college in New York City much later in life, when she was an adult and married, and really influenced her work.
Play, paper, stories, childhood experience, and depression all were big influences in her artwork. Several of her animations are recreations of games she used to play as a child, or stories she liked. She also has done several animations based on her depression.
"The Split House" is one animation that she has worked on over the course of 10 years, and has several influences. The scenery was both influenced by the town of Split, Croatia, where she served her LDS mission, and also the start of bipolar disorder, which she began to develop, it sounds like. Split families also play a part in this idea as well. She references specific people from her life and also C.S. Lewis books several times.
I was really impressed by the technical idea of using multiple layers of plexiglass in paper animation to make darker shadows. It made a beautiful effect in her films.
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Aundrea Frahm
In the archives of studio seminar lectures given in past semesters, I found a presentation by Aundrea Frahm of the Art Ed. department at BYU. Her giant kaleidoscope, titled "We Revolve Ceaseless" was on display in the MOA between 2015 and 2016, if I remember correctly. I adored this piece when I saw and interacted with it, and was very interested to hear about what went into the creation of it.
The first thing that struck me was how helpful working with others was to the creation of Frahm's artwork. She mentioned how in constructing kaleidoscope, someone walked by, asked about it, and recommended someone who could help her build it better. She contacted him, and he ended up helping the piece function better! Students designed a 3d model of what the metal parts by the motor would look like, a friend of a volunteer had access to an industrial sander and wanted to help, and a store donated the mirrors to her when she pitched her project to them. Asking and finding people who are willing to help was really important to the project, and makes me feel better about attempting projects that I do not have the physical abilities or means to make myself!
Aundrea mentioned in her lecture that collaborating with other is important to her because she likes giving other people different experiences that they wouldn't get otherwise. She said people she works with - often engineers - say they are not artists and can only draw stick figures. To this Aundrea thinks, drawing is just one avenue to art - art can be bread baking, construction, anything. That point of view is really related to contemporary art, I believe, and new forms that artwork can take. Sure, art that can be shown in galleries is slightly more limited, but the idea of finding art in many different practices I believe will really help develop the creative mind!
Aundrea's advice to artists is to just make work! Good work, bad work, important work, non-important work - just make a lot! I think this makes sense because earlier Aundrea talked about how she had the idea first and inlaid meaning and contextualization into the work later in the process. I thought these two ideas work together well because sometimes I start making work that feels silly or unimportant, and as i work on it, a deeper importance or meaning can come through. So doing work, whether it is good or bad can help in the creative process and in coming up with ideas or what is important to you that you want to talk about.
The first thing that struck me was how helpful working with others was to the creation of Frahm's artwork. She mentioned how in constructing kaleidoscope, someone walked by, asked about it, and recommended someone who could help her build it better. She contacted him, and he ended up helping the piece function better! Students designed a 3d model of what the metal parts by the motor would look like, a friend of a volunteer had access to an industrial sander and wanted to help, and a store donated the mirrors to her when she pitched her project to them. Asking and finding people who are willing to help was really important to the project, and makes me feel better about attempting projects that I do not have the physical abilities or means to make myself!
Aundrea mentioned in her lecture that collaborating with other is important to her because she likes giving other people different experiences that they wouldn't get otherwise. She said people she works with - often engineers - say they are not artists and can only draw stick figures. To this Aundrea thinks, drawing is just one avenue to art - art can be bread baking, construction, anything. That point of view is really related to contemporary art, I believe, and new forms that artwork can take. Sure, art that can be shown in galleries is slightly more limited, but the idea of finding art in many different practices I believe will really help develop the creative mind!
Aundrea's advice to artists is to just make work! Good work, bad work, important work, non-important work - just make a lot! I think this makes sense because earlier Aundrea talked about how she had the idea first and inlaid meaning and contextualization into the work later in the process. I thought these two ideas work together well because sometimes I start making work that feels silly or unimportant, and as i work on it, a deeper importance or meaning can come through. So doing work, whether it is good or bad can help in the creative process and in coming up with ideas or what is important to you that you want to talk about.
Abstract: Paula Scher
The Netflix documentary series, Abstract, features an episode about Paula Scher, a graphic designer and painter in New York City. She works at a co-op firm called 'Pentagram' and has worked designing for the Public theater and Shakespeare in the Park for years.
In regards to typography, Paula talked about ways that changing small details in a letter can give the viewer an entirely different sense of time and feeling - the letter E can be moderne, vintage, classical, or illustrative. The small changes in typography can change the appearance and mood of whatever it is advertising or saying! This is important for me to keep in mind as i use a lot of text in my paintings and drawings, and should keep in mind the mood i want to display when i write on my work.
Paula's paintings still incorporate text, but more as a mass of information. She does paintings of maps that are covered in writing that dictates characteristics of the place -a map of demographics, a map of county names, and map of zipcodes, etc. She said she went back to painting because she missed working with her hands, and wanted the physical part of creation back, instead of just designing on a computer. I also thought it made a lot of sense how Paula combined what she grew up with - her father was a mapmaker - into her current artwork! Paula also mentions how important it is to be in a constant state of play - that ideas flow best when you let your subconscious take over.
"Design needs to take human behavior into account" - Paula says this in regards to creating signage that people can interact with, but I think it also applies to fine art. Thinking about how your painting will be received or viewed allows you as the painter to tweak it in a way to control perception of it. If I know viewers will be depressed by the content of my work, i add colors, i add funny text, i add other figures, and that will change the way people view it.
In regards to typography, Paula talked about ways that changing small details in a letter can give the viewer an entirely different sense of time and feeling - the letter E can be moderne, vintage, classical, or illustrative. The small changes in typography can change the appearance and mood of whatever it is advertising or saying! This is important for me to keep in mind as i use a lot of text in my paintings and drawings, and should keep in mind the mood i want to display when i write on my work.
Paula's paintings still incorporate text, but more as a mass of information. She does paintings of maps that are covered in writing that dictates characteristics of the place -a map of demographics, a map of county names, and map of zipcodes, etc. She said she went back to painting because she missed working with her hands, and wanted the physical part of creation back, instead of just designing on a computer. I also thought it made a lot of sense how Paula combined what she grew up with - her father was a mapmaker - into her current artwork! Paula also mentions how important it is to be in a constant state of play - that ideas flow best when you let your subconscious take over.
"Design needs to take human behavior into account" - Paula says this in regards to creating signage that people can interact with, but I think it also applies to fine art. Thinking about how your painting will be received or viewed allows you as the painter to tweak it in a way to control perception of it. If I know viewers will be depressed by the content of my work, i add colors, i add funny text, i add other figures, and that will change the way people view it.
Yang Yongliang: Fall into Oblivion
On April 3rd, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts did a screening of Yang Yongliang's art film, "Fall Into Oblivion", with a skype call to the artist in China afterward for a Q&A.
The Film was around an hour long and focused on a person in full kendo regalia. The main character would leap between modern Japan and a lush island, often freaking out and trying in vain to remove his kendo mask. While the film had no dialogue, there were music and sound effects accompanying it, and the music was similar in my opinion to ocean wave tracks and white noise. Several visual symbols accompanied the main character as he walked through the world, namely a white cat, crows, trains, and the character's panic attacks.
My understanding of the film was that this character was out of place in the modern age: his traditional kendo uniform which he could not remove no matter how hard he tried stuck out in the contemporary crowds of downtown Japan, and he panicked as he was not able to conform. In the interview with Yang Yongliang afterward, he spoke about the setting as a dreamscape and mentioned how crows formed the guiding presence between the two worlds the main character was transitioning between.
Yang is very interested in the relationship between rural and urban spaces, as shown in his photography that I looked at through informational pamphlets. Applying this interest to film meant approaching it in a different way: instead of clever photoshop where the rural mountainsides are made of skyscrapers, as in his photos, Yang instead focused on leaping from place to place and transitioning as if by waking up from a dream.
My favorite part of the film was the end, when, after a gorgeously choreographed kendo fight with a different uniformed kendo man, the main character takes a second kendo mask off the wall (presumably his fallen opponent's) that seems bubbling with something inside it, goes to the top of an urban building, and releases hundreds of crows from the mask. I think, as crows represented the guiding force between the two worlds, that he was giving up leaping from world to world and would stay in the modern setting.
The Film was around an hour long and focused on a person in full kendo regalia. The main character would leap between modern Japan and a lush island, often freaking out and trying in vain to remove his kendo mask. While the film had no dialogue, there were music and sound effects accompanying it, and the music was similar in my opinion to ocean wave tracks and white noise. Several visual symbols accompanied the main character as he walked through the world, namely a white cat, crows, trains, and the character's panic attacks.
My understanding of the film was that this character was out of place in the modern age: his traditional kendo uniform which he could not remove no matter how hard he tried stuck out in the contemporary crowds of downtown Japan, and he panicked as he was not able to conform. In the interview with Yang Yongliang afterward, he spoke about the setting as a dreamscape and mentioned how crows formed the guiding presence between the two worlds the main character was transitioning between.
Yang is very interested in the relationship between rural and urban spaces, as shown in his photography that I looked at through informational pamphlets. Applying this interest to film meant approaching it in a different way: instead of clever photoshop where the rural mountainsides are made of skyscrapers, as in his photos, Yang instead focused on leaping from place to place and transitioning as if by waking up from a dream.
My favorite part of the film was the end, when, after a gorgeously choreographed kendo fight with a different uniformed kendo man, the main character takes a second kendo mask off the wall (presumably his fallen opponent's) that seems bubbling with something inside it, goes to the top of an urban building, and releases hundreds of crows from the mask. I think, as crows represented the guiding force between the two worlds, that he was giving up leaping from world to world and would stay in the modern setting.
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
GÜLRU ÇAKMAK Lecture!
On Wednesday, March 27th, I went to Gulru Cakmak's lecture at the Utah Museum of Fine Art. Gulru is a scholar on French artwork and is from Turkey. However, the topic of her lecture was not on a french artist, but rather on a Turkish artist who trained in France and then went back to Turkey. This artist is Osman Hamdi Bey, and the lecture focused largely on one painting of his, "At the Mosque Door", seen to the left.
The high interest in the painting is mainly due to Hamdi showing a progression through history in a still image. The mosque that composes the top 3/4ths of the painting is not referenced from one particular mosque in Turkey, but instead uses elements of different mosques built at different times. For example, the solid, huge blocks of stone make up the earliest mosque architecture, and then the carved band of writing and design was implemented in mosques built in a much later time. Even further in the future, the blue stained tile came into play. There is not real mosque in existence that looks like this, but there are many mosques built at different times through history that have specific parts of this mosque. Some of the figures in the foreground, specifically the fancy ladies on the left, represent the contemporary time this painting was created - 1891. At least 4 different periods of history are shown in this work, which is important because it shows how Turkey has changed and evolved, and the new cultural influences of modern dress interacting with traditional ideals and traditionally minded individuals.
This lecture was interesting to me because I appreciated how minor details could have such a major aspect on the theme. It's definitely a lot to research, and Hamdi must have know than many viewers of this work would not understand the message employed by these small details, but he did it anyway. Hamdi was also one of the only artists in Turkey working in oil paints, and this was due to his French education. I like how he crossed cultures by taking what he learned in France and applying it to Turkish themes.
Friday, April 12, 2019
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art Opening
On March 22nd, I attended several opening receptions! The UMoCA had several shows open that night, including "Shady Acres' and "Sit Comfortably in a Darkened Room and Think of Nothing". I was very excited for the latter of these two, because it consisted entirely of the work of Heidi Jensen, who shares a name with one of my close friends in the art department. I was interested to see how far the similarities would go. Both do work about gender, which was a definitely current in Jensen's work in 'Sit Comfortably".
Jensen's drawings and paintings consisted mainly of hyper-feminine objects that were drawn together, creating new and incredibly foreign objects. The most common objects re-purposed in this way were ornamental fans, ruffled cuffs, and feather dusters - traditionally female items. The information card given out at the reception stated, "When drawn, [the feminine objects] regain the vitality and intensity of color they may have had when first created and used. The drawings pay respect to these things that women made and carried, objects that defined and displayed ideas of femininity. Jensen's reaction to them, however, is one of estrangement". While the drawings definitely had some bright colors - some consisting of neon reds and greens, the atmosphere of the artwork in my opinion was more gloomy and dark, which is supported by the title of exhibition. I personally didn't feel like the objects 'regained the vitality' they once had. Instead, I thought the artwork removed these items - the lack of colors and detailed marks pushing the pieces more into a historical, dusty cabinet of mystery. While the objects were combined, the historical aspect of the individual objects was hard to overlook. I don't doubt that this was Jensen's intention, and I personally agree with the statement that the objects bring a sense of estrangement. Overall, it was an interesting look at the aspects of gender that are often pushed into history, and how the objects interact in a contemporary sphere.
The Larger of the exhibitions up, however, was "Shady Acres", a multi-artist look at suburban spaces. I won't go into detail on these artworks, as there were several differing viewpoints, mediums, and artists. The artwork ranged from scrap metal sculptures composed of advertisements and signs, to photographs of things seen on streets, to a large cinder block 'house' with no possible entrance or exit. I thought this idea was interesting to have in Utah - where there are many suburban spaces and people have so many differing opinions on them.
The image above is of me in front of Erick Michaud's piece. I feel like it best captured how I feel about the suburbs.
Jensen's drawings and paintings consisted mainly of hyper-feminine objects that were drawn together, creating new and incredibly foreign objects. The most common objects re-purposed in this way were ornamental fans, ruffled cuffs, and feather dusters - traditionally female items. The information card given out at the reception stated, "When drawn, [the feminine objects] regain the vitality and intensity of color they may have had when first created and used. The drawings pay respect to these things that women made and carried, objects that defined and displayed ideas of femininity. Jensen's reaction to them, however, is one of estrangement". While the drawings definitely had some bright colors - some consisting of neon reds and greens, the atmosphere of the artwork in my opinion was more gloomy and dark, which is supported by the title of exhibition. I personally didn't feel like the objects 'regained the vitality' they once had. Instead, I thought the artwork removed these items - the lack of colors and detailed marks pushing the pieces more into a historical, dusty cabinet of mystery. While the objects were combined, the historical aspect of the individual objects was hard to overlook. I don't doubt that this was Jensen's intention, and I personally agree with the statement that the objects bring a sense of estrangement. Overall, it was an interesting look at the aspects of gender that are often pushed into history, and how the objects interact in a contemporary sphere.
The Larger of the exhibitions up, however, was "Shady Acres", a multi-artist look at suburban spaces. I won't go into detail on these artworks, as there were several differing viewpoints, mediums, and artists. The artwork ranged from scrap metal sculptures composed of advertisements and signs, to photographs of things seen on streets, to a large cinder block 'house' with no possible entrance or exit. I thought this idea was interesting to have in Utah - where there are many suburban spaces and people have so many differing opinions on them.
The image above is of me in front of Erick Michaud's piece. I feel like it best captured how I feel about the suburbs.
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