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Kara Walker - Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love Whitney Museum of American Art - Art - Review - New York Times

Kara Walker - Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love Whitney Museum of American Art - Art - Review - New York Times

Beautiful and then disturbing

In line with our curiosity and appreciation of Walker's work, Walton Ford is another artist whose are I find compelling on several layers. He paints highly detailed and beautiful watercolor paintings of animals, in a manner reminiscent of John James Audubon. Yet, on a closer look, his images are not in a manner reminiscent of Audubon. His animals are tortured, dieing, or highly sexualized, or all of the above. Let me know what you think (some of his work is like a car accident where you can't look away, but you know you should).








FYI, I just saw his work in the latest issue of Vanity Fair. I am inspired by this work and Walker's work, so I am going to go look at some classic illustrations and see what I come up with.

Colaboration inspired by Miro

This is a work in progress, and it might not work this time, but I think it is still a good exercise. This is the painting I was talking to you today about: I was inspired by your memory series and by a Miro painting I saw over this past weekend (at the Harvard museum).

Inspiration - Layers of Meaning - Creative Exercise: Feed Your Mind

Layers of Meaning » Blog Archive » Creative Exercise: Feed Your Mind

I came across this post while searching my bookmarked list of blogs - I really needed some inspiration today... I'm feeling swamped lately and need some creativity boosts.

Inspiratio of the Day: Fogg Museaum and Kara Walker

Kara Walker, Alabama Loyalists Greeting the Federal Gun-Boats, from the portfolio Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated), 2005. Offset lithograph and screen print. Image size: 24 x 35 inches; sheet size: 39 x 53 inches. Courtesy of Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston.


I just went to the Fogg Museum of Harvard University , and I am upset with myself for not going to this Museum earlier. It has one of the best collections of work that I have seen: One in which any city would be proud to have it as its Museum (let alone a University).

In line with the themes we have been exploring, the Fogg has an exhibition of Kara Walker's work which superimposes her signature silhouette figures on old illustrative depictions of the Civil War from Harper's Magazine. The contrast is very striking, and her work does compel you to think about difficult issues involving racism, sexism, and violence (all pushing and pulling against one another). Her medium of silhouette cutouts is very interesting too. It allows her to create images the are simple and playful at one look and then distorted and disturbing at a closer look.

Have you seen any of her work? I wish I could find more images online to show you of this exhibit. The image shown is a good representation of the pieces in this exhibit. She usually only has the black silhouette figures on stark white backgrounds, sometime displayed on a wall of a gallery space (so not confined at all), so this is an interesting change from what I have seen of her previous work.

Proposal

Okay, here is a draft of the introduction for our proposal (let me know what you think):

It is important to have an active soul: A person should constantly explore who they are, what they believe, and why they are where they are. Self-reflection is important, but self-reflection without more is limited and hastens bad ideas. The ideal should never be the stoic thinker, off in the corner, who develops grand ideas through reflecting on his own insular experiences, which are caged in by his own prejudices. Rather, the ideal should be open and honest collaboration. That is, working with others to develop and crystallize your own constitution.

"Sibling Revelry" is a celebration of the importance of collaboration. "Sibling Revelry" is a multifaceted essay on collaboration in the context of our digital age--a digital age that opens the door to effective collaboration to the greatest extent in history. First, "Sibling Revelry" is a visual art show, where my sister and I have been creating and will continue to create various pieces of artwork. The artwork will be (or is) 6" x 6" in dimension, and we will be done with this project when we have create 150 unique pieces of art (I will create 50, my sister will create 50, and we will have 50 pieces where one of us has started the piece and the other finishes the piece). The second part of our essay is the process itself.

For the past six months, my sister and I have kept a blog detailing each piece and detailing our various influences: Our critiques of each other's work, various artists that inspire us, and other discussions about this project and art in general. We are also putting our work in other online forums to get feedback and inspiration from artists around the world (other forums include, among others, MySpace, Etsy, Indiepublic, and Flicr).

The third and final part of our essay is a written essay. The written essay will be more expansive than a traditional artist's statement. We will tie all of our efforts together and place our collaboration in the proper context. We will look back and explore our blog and our various discussions in other forums to see where we were and where we ended up. We will study great artistic collaborations of the past; such as, the Pre-Raphaelites, Die Neue Sachlichkeit (the New Objectivity), and Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz. We will then reflect on whether and in what ways our individual work was enriched by our collaborative work.

Halloween Bookmark for Etsy

Let me know what you think

Cool image on Flickr...another inspiration of the day

Here is an awesome image on flickr: flickr photo

Essay Nz photo, titled Literary Art, comments says Part of the Talking Poles display, Tokoroa, New Zealand.

Inspiration of the Day: Steven Asseal

Steven Assel is a master in composition, painting, and storytelling. He paints scenes that draw you to deeply look at the images. I have actually been a huge fan of this artist since I saw some of his work in Art News in an advertisment for Forum Gallery in New York. The image in this post is typical of his work (he often uses the gold/yellow/red highlight in the background, which I find to be a beautiful element). Let me know what you think.