Sunday, February 21, 2016
Beyond The Blues Show at the Columbia Art Center
Submitted two collage works for the show Beyond the Blues at the Columbia art Center Gallery in Maryland. Show runs through February.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Important Writings/Journals Created By Three Well Known Visual Artists
The Journal of Eugene Delacroix
One of the great documents of art history and literature where this seminal artist who was so important to the French Impressionist talks about a broad range of topics: his paintings, his life, the paintings and sculpture of other artists; new literature and the music of his day. Baudelaire called Delacroix "the last of the renaissance painters and the first modern."
The Diaries of Paul Klee
The Bauhaus master, so important to early European modernism, and contemporary art education, he records the events of his inner and outer life from age nineteen to forty. He talks about a broad range of personal experiences as well as many of his essential ideas about his own artistic technique and creative process.
The Painter's Mind
A Study of the Relations of Structure and Space in Painting
by Romare Bearden and Carl Holte with introduction by Ralph Ellison
The Great American collages Romare Bearden and Author Carl Holte write about the relations of structure and space in painting by examining old master compositions and the application of the principles they deduced.
Bearden is described as a late modernist artist; Hilton Kramer wrote about Bearden that he used forms that "derive originally African Art, then past into modern art by way of Cubism and are now being employed to evoke a mode of African experience." This is technically not a journal or diary, but Bearden talks about observations and ideas derived from his life long investigation of great works of art that have direct bearing on his own work.
One of the great documents of art history and literature where this seminal artist who was so important to the French Impressionist talks about a broad range of topics: his paintings, his life, the paintings and sculpture of other artists; new literature and the music of his day. Baudelaire called Delacroix "the last of the renaissance painters and the first modern."
The Diaries of Paul Klee
The Bauhaus master, so important to early European modernism, and contemporary art education, he records the events of his inner and outer life from age nineteen to forty. He talks about a broad range of personal experiences as well as many of his essential ideas about his own artistic technique and creative process.
The Painter's Mind
A Study of the Relations of Structure and Space in Painting
by Romare Bearden and Carl Holte with introduction by Ralph Ellison
The Great American collages Romare Bearden and Author Carl Holte write about the relations of structure and space in painting by examining old master compositions and the application of the principles they deduced.
Bearden is described as a late modernist artist; Hilton Kramer wrote about Bearden that he used forms that "derive originally African Art, then past into modern art by way of Cubism and are now being employed to evoke a mode of African experience." This is technically not a journal or diary, but Bearden talks about observations and ideas derived from his life long investigation of great works of art that have direct bearing on his own work.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
What is Drawing?
A mapping out
A fleshing out
A flushing out
An indulgence
An addiction/obsession
An escape from boredom
A confession
An encounter
An evocation
An encapsulation
A prying or teasing open
A prayer
A form of worship
(the divine, the beautiful etc.)
A meditation
A conversation
A dialogue with the past, present and future
A dialogue between the internal and the external
A dialogue between the seen and unseen
A dialogue between the know and unknown
A concept/mental image/ creative idea visualized
A physical act documented/ a record
A pattern of marks arranged with purpose and intention
An ordering/ reordering of form and space
A configuring/reconfiguring
A revising/redefining
A constitution/ a reconstitution
A conjuring/ excavating/ exposing
A visual poem
An event
A story
A journey through time and space
A discovery made
A truth found
A portal
A door
An unlocked door
A door kicked open
A doorway to access and process thought/feeling
A possibility
Visual communication/ a visual language
A graphic representation
An illustration
A diagram
A transcription
An abstraction
A political statement / an act of rebellion
A visual statement/ a proposition
A form of inquiry/investigation/ study
A laboratory for experimentation
The way/ a way
A way of seeing
A way of thinking
A way of being
A way of being present
A way of being present
A way of being projected through marks on a flat surface
A way to generate, develop and sort out ideas visually
A way to play with line
A way to define and solve problems
A way to run away
A way to leave ones mark
Evidence of ones existence:
(I draw therefore I am)
Cooper 1/23/16
Cooper 1/23/16
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Wonderfully Surreal Hand Drawn Animation
This animation short, About Face, created by Chris James in 1978
involves animal and human transformation and wonderful caricatures of many
famous people. The music is by Claude Jouvin and camera work by Julian
Holdaway.
In this day of CGI animation, About Face has an
appeal in its rawness of line, which pulsates with life and energy, and in its
direct application of media, which appears to be a combination of color
pencils, ink and watercolor. The accidental and unpredictable way the
hand creates and manipulates media, following the artist's creative dictates
are on full display, making the viewer aware of the drawn and painted quality
of the image and by extension aware of the presence and action of the
artist's hand as creator.
This is indie animation in the pre-digital age; it
is the imperfect hand drawing imperfectly conveying an idiosyncrasy that
expresses a dreamlike quality, conjuring ethereal and hallucinatory images in
thin air. The wild and violent
metamorphosis of human and animal figures and transitions from scene to scene
gives me the impression of what might happen if Salvador Dali and Afred
Hitchcock were to collaborate, creating something intensely psychological,
disquieting and phantasmagoric. In fact, Dali and Hitchcock have collaborated
once in the movie Spellbound (1945). Beyond the obvious similarity of the
musical treatment in Spellbound, About Face seems to tap into the visual
language and mood from Spellbound’s dream sequence and another Hitchcock movie,
Vertigo. The dream sequence in Vertigo also uses hallucinatory
transformations and flashing colors to give the alarming impression of a
nightmare.
About Face
is animation at its best revealing the movement of the imagination with no
limits, where anything is possible, the witty comedic shift to the surprising,
to the absurd, to the threatening and to the terrifying".
Spellbound (1945)
Vertigo (1958)
Because I am discussing surrealism and the cinema and made reference to Dali, it would be fitting to present his 1929 surrealist classic. A short movie he collaborated on with Luis Bunuel called Un Chien Andalou. They created the film under the principle that " no idea or image that might lend itself to a rational explanation of any kind would be accepted.
Thursday, January 14, 2016
The Modernist Grid
The grid is a ubiquitous sign of modernity. It is a schematic that is a universe tool in organizing visual information although it is more associated with modern art and architecture, science and technology, and modern cities.
The grid can mirror the vertical and horizontal edges of a page, canvas or screen. It emphasizes flatness, straightness, and the materiality of its support. It can function as an organizing structure as in the case of Chuck Closes painting Emma, or as form itself as in the case of Mondrian's and Martin's paintings.
As an organizing tool it guides the disposition of elements within the two-dimensional plane. It can function as an invisible or visible structure. It activates the entire space into a structured field. It is a rationale for why and how parts are placed within the space.
The grid can mirror the vertical and horizontal edges of a page, canvas or screen. It emphasizes flatness, straightness, and the materiality of its support. It can function as an organizing structure as in the case of Chuck Closes painting Emma, or as form itself as in the case of Mondrian's and Martin's paintings.
 |
| Emma, Woodcut print 2002 Chuck Close |
 |
| Composition in Red, Blue, and Yellow, Piet Mondrian |
 |
| On A Clear Day, 1973, Agnes Martin |
As an organizing tool it guides the disposition of elements within the two-dimensional plane. It can function as an invisible or visible structure. It activates the entire space into a structured field. It is a rationale for why and how parts are placed within the space.
Tokyo Dolores Japanese Dance, Performance Art
Tokyo Dolores is a Japanese performance art project that brings together acrobatics, anime, fantasy and folklore, Japanese pop and subcultures, street fashion and elaborate costumes, and pole dancing. Tokyo Dolores collaborates with artist, costume designers, videographers, and other creative people during the production of their live performances. They explore the deep and complex spirituality of Japanese girls.
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