Studio Journal: Questions I Am Asking Myself

What does a contemporary cave painting look like today?
Do I create that? What compels me to create works that reference this old writing of the past, old slabs, caves, earth, dirt, cracks, scratches, symbols?
what other artists are working on the same ideas? or grappling with ideas of contemporary culture, contemporary life-style, how the planet is being taken care of, how people are reacting to all different types of scenarios today?
I would like to constantly be reading, searching for new source material, artists, articles, books, thoughts, ideas, references.

"Knowledge is power: the more you know the better choice you make"
-Barb Madsen

Notes:
Progress
Never Finished, always in progress
the nature of order, limitless, subconscious
self-finding self
individual
unique
is the end result the most decisive part of the process?
synapses of the brain
mysterious quality
prehistoric art
what is your intent?
Outsider Art
Flipped through, "Inner worlds outside'
book about Outsider Art.

all over image vs. having a definite focus?

Studio Journal: Looking to Gorky

Arshile Gorky's paintings have recently become my foundation for the research about my subject matter and painting style.

His use of line, shape, color, brushstroke, thickness, and composition greatly inform my work.
I feel that his work really touches on his sense of the world around him during his time. My sense of the world is a heavy influence in my own work--being able to connect Gorky's subject matter and tone with his use of mark and paint inspired me in more than one way.

Gorky, Agony I saw this painting in a book in the Art Library as I was skimming books on Gorky. Agony stuck out to me not only for its color and richness, but also for its complex composition and the emotion reaction that I felt as I turned the page and saw it. I could not keep my eyes away and I had a hard time moving past it.

The daring gestural mark and strong emphasis on this spontaneous looking arrangement of shapes creates an atmosphere, much like the one I am searching for

Studio Journal: Trip to Chelsea Galleries

Going into Chelsea twice within three weeks of each trip allowed me to feel much more connected to the art scene in New York.

I found work that truly spoke to the dialogue that is occurring each day for me.

 Angelina Gualdoni - Aysa Geisberg Gallery

I found Gualdoni's paintings to be very interesting and intriguing. There are many subtleties to the paintings that make them even more appealing to me, and I found that it was the strong marks colliding with the more passive subdued marks that created a layered image. This effect, this quality of the paint, of the surface, of the subject matter, caused me to question where my own subject and techniques arise from. 

Tracey Emin and Louise Bourgeois - Caroline Nitsch Gallery

These works on paper as a collaboration between Louise Bourgeois and Tracey Emin suggest ideas about abandonment, betrayal, lust, depravity, birth, and death.

Tracey Emin, in particular, with her use of text, line drawing, and gouache speaks to a very personal narrative surrounding gender, confrontation,  and vulnerability. These drawings were in "response" to Louise Bourgeois’ drawings, which I find to be a very interesting motivation and challenge in itself. How does one artist relate to another, while using their particular vehicle for making work. The vehicle for Tracey Emin's works was also something that I was looking at.

How does her use of writing, thin, simple line, figures, and sexual references speak to her subject matter and the messages she wants to bring forth with her work.

  

Studio Journal: William Kentridge Show, Boston, MA

Informing my sugar lifts in the previous post was the William Kentridge show at Mass Art in Mass.

Kentridge's prints speak to a free and strongly passionate need to create art. As I look at them, I feel compelled to want to express myself, seeing how his techniques can create an image that also works well with my own ideas.
The textures, strong lines, intense passages of multiple printmaking techniques create a whole world of surfaces, surroundings, and depth. My sugar lifts are abstract, but are based on an urge to create a dark strong powerful line, like those in Kentridge's pieces.

Studio Journal: Using Printmaking to Inform My Paintings

While I have not been able to fit in enough classes to have a printmaking and painting double concentration, I am committed to taking as many printmaking classes as I can. I really find that printmaking and painting are linking, in quite different ways that I would have expected when I first started printmaking, but now I find that my ideas can develop differently, turn in different directions, and can be totally new in a print.

Often times printmaking does not seem to work the same way for ideas in paint. Print is a very structured medium, often a lengthy process, where less can be spontaneous and intuitive. However, I have tried to the fullest degree to incorporate my painting style, such as a lack of drawing before hand, lack of necessary logical thinking, into my prints. It has not come so easy, but I have not given up.

Most recently I have been working on sugar lifts, which are a process in which one takes a mixture of sugar syrup and soap, applies it to a zinc plate and performs many steps to etch the sugary substance into the plate. When it is inked, the parts where the sugar was painted on will print black, as a form of intaglio.