First Residency Summary

After the residency was over, I was a left a little bit bewildered by what I thought where at times very conflicting views of my work. How technically, it is, controlled and nicely finished, and how some of it has emotional substance, and part of it, from what I perceived, might be thought as, a little vapid. The compositions I choose to use in my work creates the illusion of space by using and manipulating the way light strikes the subject, and the way the shadows are cast, not by adding a background, witch allows the emptiness of the format to become part of the work, and permits the viewers in, usually looking slightly down from a point that creates a certain uneasiness, an illusion of intimacy and, hopefully empathy with the subject. While at the same time acting as a barrier or window that separates it.

When it comes to the way my subjects are placed in the page, Teresa pointed out something that was echoed by several other people, that the shadows are as much a subject as is the object casting it. The way I use color as a reflection or projection of of the character that it is coming from, and how it adds a feeling of nostalgia to the general composition and helps evoke an idea of the past and the tribulations that it lived through, and speaking specifically about the piece “Bee”, on how it inhabited the space  it occupied in the composition, witch has a large percentage of empty area above it, and tells a credible story of the fall.

One commentary that caught me somewhat by surprise, was how there wasn’t much of a mark in the works I did with acrylic tints on velum. Again, Bees and wasps. To the point where an original was looked at first as if it were a reproduction. In hindsight, I should have inquired if this detracts from the particular piece. In some ways, because of my own perception of an almost mechanical quality emanating from these images, I’ve been including and experimenting with mixing into some of my work more traditional materials, as in watercolors and oils, and trying to let the distance from the image dictate how much of the “mark” is visible, and how it relates to my ideas, perhaps relinquishing some control and worrying a little less about detail and allowing what I would usually see as mistakes to become “character”.

About my 3D work, the mummified lizard ties in with the rest of the bugs, as it deals with death, nostalgia and longing, and the techniques used parallel more closely the ones use in the rest of my work, but the series of Urns and or containers, even though, come from the same ideas, there is a disconnect between this particular pieces and the rest of my work. It was a common critique concerning the different bodies of work I’ve made, how they appear to be made by different people, when shown as a single body of work. How there is an almost sublime quality to my watercolors, yet a sense of harshness to the oils on panel. Mike mentioned how the shadows were a unifying factor, he recommended a book by Victor Stoichita, -A Short History of the Shadow- I am thinking about converging them at some common point, or simply concentrating on one of them and taking it as far as it can go, but at first I do plan to experiment, mainly, because I have been limiting my self to mostly figurative work, and Deb and Judith, both mentioned to artist that have enticed me. Joyce Pensato, with her almost scratchy

and free application of medium for portraits of usually recognizable cartoon and other media characters, and Annette Messager, whose installations use drawings, photos, toys, among other objects, and the impaled taxidermy animals wearing stuffed animal heads, both a little macabre and disturbing, but still amusing and perhaps fun.

Tony mentioned artist that have used insects in their work in history, as Jean Henry Fabree and his entomological studies, and Hans Hoffman, who used bugs and critters as subjects for his detailed Dürer like paintings, and how I can use them as a way to rethink my own work, and to see it from a different perspective. In the same way, Judith recommended that I sit in in as many contemporary art history classes as I can, an find a place in witch my work would fall in to. She mentioned artist like Walton Ford and Alexis Rockman,whom deal with environmental issues and how man relates to this.

I usually pick a subject that in my point of view fits the idea I am trying to convey, with out sometimes considering other cultural meanings it might have, and how it may be perceived by others. I can usually explain where my work come from in a personal way. But I realize that sometimes you do want it to be perceived as closely to what I meant it to be. So I should understand the traditional meanings of the characters I am portraying, and use the way on witch I do this as an emotional complement to that portrayal.