Artist Statement!

COMING REAL SOON!

Barry McGee

Barry McGee was a graffiti artist during the 1980s, but he became particularly well-known for his murals and gallery installations. His work incorporates text and imagery from contemporary urban culture, as well as found objects, which combined seem to always comment on the human experience. I first learned about Barry when I was in middle school, but he is an artist who I keep coming back to. His trademarks, the almost grotesque cartoonish faces that seem devoid of much or any emotion, are my favorite aspect of his work. They seem to betray a hidden character within all of us; they carry a strange realistic quality that a traditional portrait would not have.

Information about the above mural

*video interviews with Barry McGee*

New prints from OBEY GIANT

*Obey Giant is a street campaign by print artist Shepard Fairey

Ingredients:

When I become frustrated or just stuck and don't where to go next, the answer often comes to me in the form of a new media, technique, or material. It's sort of an 'exploration = evolution' way of thinking I suppose, and it has always had satisfying results for me. Labeling oneself a 'painter' or 'printmaker' can be self-restricting sometimes. Although I fancy myself a 'printmaker', not all of my ideas really lend themselves to print media (though of course you can be very creative with it).

Despite the general theme or content that I might be dealing with, what I really want to do with art is provoke a pretty specific reaction. By presenting an image or collection of imagery that has something amiss, something that seems contradictory to our normal way of perceiving, I hope to momentarily confuse my audience. I want people to investigate, question, and reevaluate the way in which they see the subject matter as well as themselves.

While this type of reaction can be achieved through the use of opposing imagery as well as through more technical means, such as color choice or scale, the use of a new or different material can have the same effect. This is something that I have only recently thought to explore, but I have already found inspiration in clear plastic gloves, thumbtacks, plaster, cardboard, linen, sand, and bricks. To me these materials could be used either on their own, or in conjunction with other media that I work with in order to create that element of unease and confusion. It is important, however, to consider the physical and visual implications of any new material or found objects.

Despite the fact that new media and materials are exciting and definitely a progressive step for me in my experience, I still often think in terms of screen-printing, relief printing, and lithography. Not only are the results beautifully graphic and multiple, but the process is marvelous. Your body performs a series of steps and then repeats them over and over, becoming like an art machine, with usually very gratifying results. The inherent need for layering in designing a print also forces me to organize my content. Printmaking is also very connected with drawing (especially litho), which I love to do. I also always find myself returning to painting, perhaps for its wild, expressive nature, but also for its solace.

Juan Muñoz

*Juan Muñoz piece on the Barceloneta beach

While studying abroad in Barcelona this past spring, I had the chance to see a lot of wonderful art, both old and contemporary. To me Spanish art, and the culture as a whole really, carries an inherent exoticism. It might have something to do with the beautiful and arid landscape, the music or the cuisine, but it always existed for me as some fantastical realm far away, old and wild. Spanish artists are great characters, with unique flamboyance and swagger, very passionate and overflowing with personality. I met several artists as well as young writers and curators in Barcelona; they all seemed to come from a different time. They fully embodied the romantic ideas of their titles with all their energy and a distinct quirkiness. I think that there is something to be said of their 'passion', a word that has become cheesy in our culture, almost shut away by our need to be suave and cool.

Nevertheless, much of Spanish contemporary art is influenced by American contemporary art and post-modernism. Installations, text based work, video and sound work, performance, interactive and public projects are the main artistic language in Barcelona. I stumbled across the work of an artist by the name of Juan Muñoz on the beach in the city. I didn't even like this particular sculpture all that much, but I decided to research him further for my contemporary Spanish Art class at the local university.

Muñoz began making work around 1982. He had studied in New York City and I think that the influence of minimalist art, as well as post-modernism and the work of newer conceptual artists like Bruce Nauman is very apparent in his work. I like that he took what he could from all these different philosophies and ways of making art and ended up with a very personal and continuously evolving result. His art is very much concerned with context and association, Muñoz manipulates space and consequently the viewer. He wants you to develop a relationship with his sculptures and installations, which is something complex, but I think his work lends itself to this approach. As a viewer your role is shifted and you become an integral part of the work. Through the use of subtle 'tricks' and illusions he attempts to expose our human weaknesses in terms of perception and communication. I love art that makes me do a double take and think about how we look at the world and even ourselves. For me Muñoz' work is an experience, something that I hope to achieve in my own work in the future.

*For an interview with Juan Muñoz, click here.

For more images, click here.

Introduction

It's always a little strange to look back and wonder how we ended up where we are today. For me, however, it is a simple reminder of how art has been there with me the whole way. I have been making art for most of my life; it is something that I can always come back to, a place in which I can always find new meaning and motivation. With art, the world is quite literally your oyster. There are endless visual and existential possibilities. I love that I can take inspiration from anything and produce my own unique interpretation for others to see and think about. It is the same satisfaction and excitement that I would imagine a scientist deriving from designing and executing their own experiment, never entirely sure what results to expect.

Making art is always an experiment, whether it be with colors forms, texture, composition, new materials or techniques and processes. It is also so on a more conceptual level, dealing with juxtaposing loaded imagery, the subconscious, or even telling a story. There are far too many different approaches to choose from. I like to work in a variety of media, including acrylic and oil paint, gouache, watercolor, pen and ink, and collage, but I especially love printmaking. The flat, graphic quality of prints first grabbed my attention through the massive lithographic posters of the turn of the century. The flat but vibrant planes of color and high contrast line work of Lautrec, Cappiello, and Cheret led me to pursue printmaking, which I soon discovered to be a medium with a lot of room for creativity. Although I also enjoy exploring many different themes in my work, the notion of identity, and its deconstruction, has been my main focus recently.

What defines identity? There is more to it than "identity is who you are". As people we all individually identify with communities greater than ourselves, with society, collective entities that often dictate certain protocols, perception, and cultural codes. So, to an extent, we are what they

say we are, or what we are supposed to be. As a person of mixed racial and ethnic background, I am quite familiar with existing in and identifying with two different groups at once. Although I identify with two unique cultures, I am often pressured to choose between the two, which makes me sometimes feel that I am not a part of either camp, but in my own grey area between the two. What interests me about all this is picking up on the tools and methods that people use to identify themselves, and then visually re/deconstructing them. Some examples might be clothing and fashion, social cliques, race, language, and nowadays, technology.

I have played on these particular ideas primarily by mixing and matching imagery that does not feel like as though it is supposed to be mixed. One example would be an image of a black man with white hands. I have also gone more in the direction of social commentary with a series of "Gangster Portraits" portraying minorities dressed in stereotypical thug attire but brandishing Nerf dart guns. Text is another subversive tool, one that is particularly important in that it implies a message and a language, it implies communication, though it doesn't necessarily actually say anything. As a culture study I hope to create a series of poster advertisements in which the names of the products are spelled as they are really pronounced in Texas and the southwest of the United States. Shoes would become "chuz", and chicken would become "cheekin".

Font itself, such as wingdings, as well as computer languages such as binary code and html also fascinate me. The technological feel of these texts led me to search for more technological/electronic imagery to combine with human means of identification such as clothing, organic imagery, and even human anatomy. My most recent show, "Electric Cactus," a collection of ink and wash drawing and prints dealt primarily with this type of imagery, fusing plants and circuitry as well as lights and microphones.

My work is intended to twist and mesh reality that throws the viewer off initially, but hopefully has them leaving with their unique interpretation and a thought or two they might not have had otherwise. I aim to continue experimenting with the subtle juxtaposition, or rather marrying, of contradictory imagery in my work, though not all my content is based around this approach, nor related to identity or technology. I often feel a need to return to painting and drawing, whether it be traditional still life or an abstract expressionist 'search for self'. I also enjoy doing work as a designer and poster artist.