Research process:
Central Questions Answered:
- What is important to you? What questions do you have on this topic? What do you not yet know about this?
- Lately I’ve been very easily affected and flooded with emotions whenever faced with troubling news or systematic social and political problems. I know in the logic part of my brain that these problems are not all mine and that I can’t really fix them, at least not soon, and definitely not alone. I have been struggling with feeling overwhelmingly personally responsible for the injustices in the world. How can I contribute to the world in a way that actually makes a difference, but won’t cause me emotional turmoil in the process? How do people even become activists? How do I care about issues that matter to me without feeling personally responsible for them? Will doing more help me to feel less responsible? I want this project to discuss these issues, for it to be about my struggle with feeling personally responsible for issues outside of my experience or control. In addition, depicting the feeling of being immobilized by this situation, therefore adding to the cycle of feeling like I need to do more.
- Is it related to the questions or concepts addressed in the first project or not?
- I think that a while they are both very different, there are lots of similarities between the concepts addressed in the first project and the concepts that will be addressed in this project. My first project was an abstract painting and large-scale on raw, unstretched canvas and was a visual representation of my emotional and headspace. This next project I foresee being large-scale as well, perhaps even bigger. I haven’t decided how realistically represented the figure is going to be but I imagine it will have a good deal of stylization to it, therefore similar to the abstraction of my last project. Both projects also are dealing with energies and communicating internal struggles and feelings onto a visual plane that can be viewed and critiqued. I do not yet know all of the details of what the painting will be but I am very excited to see how this project turns out and to get started on it!
- Where can you find sources of information to answer your questions?
- I included the sources of my research below. I think I might need to do more introspection and research perhaps during the process of creating the project as well but this was a good start I think.
Sketchbook Entries as Research:
Journal Entries as Research:
- I journaled about my personal experiences and why this has been such an overwhelming part of my reality lately. This process was very helpful I think to deciding the turns that this project is going to make.
Articles Used as Research:
“Artists as Activists: Pursuing Social Justice”
- I was interested in seeing other artists who use their art to communicate their feelings and attitudes towards certain problems or issues in the world so I chose this article as a resource. It was very helpful and inspiring to see how people can make a difference through their passion.
- Some quotes from the article that spoke to me in specificity to this project:
- “Some might say that the world is a mess right now. Others point out that it could be worse.”
- “Throughout history, art has reflected its time. Art mirrors the aesthetic standard of the day and also provides a window into the historical context of the time.”
- “This exhibition entangles such hot-button issues as wealth disparity, immigration, racism, gender and equality issues, reform of the criminal justice system, and gun violence. Voice and visual image combine to form a powerful commentary.”
Artists as inspiration:
- Alexandra Levasseur
- I am really drawn to this artist’s work because of her use of figures in such expressive and surrealist ways to convert emotions and existential thoughts, all of which are areas I am exploring in my own art.
- Elaine de Kooning
- I am really inspired by Kooning’s use of color and how she abstracts figures through the use of dynamic and clear brushstrokes.
- Edward Dagas
- I chose Degas as one of my artist inspirations for this project because I like his play of strokes and colors in realistic and representational scenes. I am pushing myself in this project to include figurative subject matter and want to reference Degas’ technique towards this practice.
- Bernice Bing
- I admire Bing’s use of color and overall formal technique that she applies to her paintings. I appreciate her variations in mark making as well which is something I hope to emulate in my next project assignment. I like the quality that her paintings have where they seem to be blurry or hazy or abstracted interpretations of real scenes yet the subject matter is not clear at first.
