Do you ever wonder why people pan for gold? Seems like a lot of time and effort, right? But when those few nuggets are found – eureka! - all that work pays off. This helps explain why I keep looking at students' artwork. So much of it isn't promising at all. But, once in a blue moon, a discovery is made. This past Fall, Laura and I made one of those rare finds at Univ of Virginia... Ashley Williams is a rare gem. Hanging in the hallways outside the artists' studios, two large works on paper caught our attention. We were floored. Craftsmanship, detail, layered imagery, provocative subject, and very very fresh. Ashley's work had it all. Luckily she was in her studio and we were able to introduce ourselves. From there, Laura and I have been working to get Ashley's work out to the public. An obvious decision for us was to take her work to the Affordable Art Fair in NYC. She agreed. We’re psyched. This is the kind of stuff New York needs. And we can't wait to get the reactions. On a local level, Ashley is currently participating in a student show at the UVa's Ruffin Hall. A reception is being held this evening. I strongly recommend you find the time to attend. See firsthand what has us all aflutter. A little about Ashley: She is from Roanoke, Virginia and will receive her Studio Art and Art History degrees this spring from UVa. She has already been awarded the prestigious Aunspaugh Fellowship and will continue her studio work at UVa next year. She has studied classical drawing in Italy and has exhibited in various artist shows around Virginia. Ashley is also a gifted creative writer (not hard to imagine based on her painting). About her work, Ashley says this: Like the city streets, the modern world floods our bodies with information. Scientific advancements and improvements in communication technology mean that it has become increasingly difficult to extract the useful from the extraneous. In response to this, our bodies function as a system that both absorbs and discards sounds, statistics and images. However, this internal system is inefficient. We cannot contain everything and the process of filtering out information can cause us to overlook what is most important. Stillness is sometimes necessary. My art, in some ways, is about reclaiming what has been filtered out by embracing the confusion, diagramming and displaying it. It is a process, I think, similar to long-exposure photography. Like the earliest Daguerreotypes, the lens is left open long enough for images to crowd the picture plane, overlapping each other until, like the famous shoe shiner in "Boulevard du Temple", something important begins to surface. It is only through observing and accepting the whole, that we eventually find our focus.
April 17, 2009
April 13, 2009
JOACHIM KNILL is today's ArtistADay
If one is fun, and twice is nice, then three must be the charm.
First, Randall Stoltzfus was the featured artist on ArtistADay.com. Then, a Migration fav, Susan Jamison, was featured. And now, Joachim Knill, Migration's Polaroid photographer extraordinaire, is today's ArtistADay. We have reason to be excited about this: The attention for each of these artists explodes from this exposure (Randall has received over 13,000 visits and is currently ranked #3 in votes). ArtistADay.com has a very large following, and, more importantly, it is a discriminating following. So, today, go to Joachim's page, take a look, vote, comment, and contact me if you need any more information about his work.
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I find the timeliness of Joachim's selection to be exceptionally appropriate. For starters, the demise of Polaroid has been a hot topic recently. This month's Art and Antiques cover story is titled "Polaroid's Last Shot" (by Sheila Gibson Stoodley). It is filled with great perspectives from some notable artists like Chuck Close, Elsa Dorfman and David Hockney about the importance and uniqueness of Polaroid images. Chuck Close says, "There's so much more information embedded in it than can be seen with the naked eye – unbelievable detail and real physicality."
For those of you who have followed artPark, you are already familiar with Joachim's utterly unique and masterful work (read my early review here). Although many artists rent Polaroid's large format 20"x24" camera to capture their work, Joachim took the extra step and built his own camera. His, however takes 20"x30" photographs. You may read that as a minor difference, but, in reality, it is a monumental. The hoops he had to jump through to convince Polaroid to allow him to use their film in his camera rather than theirs would deter virtually every other artist. Not Joachim. And his persistence has paid off.
Creating his handmade surreal worlds, adding the drama of stage lighting, and capturing them on large format Polaroid film with his one-of-a-kind camera has drawn rave reviews. Laura Parsons of The Hook said, "Say 'Polaroid' and most people envision waving a hand-sized snapshot in the air, drying it as the image emerges... But what Knill's 20x30 single-exposure photographs have in common with those pics is what the Grand Canyon shares with a creek bed – i.e. they're technically created the same way, but the former is, how shall we say, considerably more eye-popping."
See more of Joachim's work here and here.
[Images include: 1) Circus; 2) Armor]
April 12, 2009
The difference a year makes
I went to the Ruffin Hall Gallery on the University of Virginia campus to see the first of this spring's weekly student shows. Since last year's closing of the Off-Grounds Gallery, I've been looking forward to these shows.
First up are the Aunspaugh Fifth Year Fellows (fifth year students) James Dean Erickson and Patrick Costello. I saw these two exhibit last year as seniors (read my review here). They both were awarded an additional year to hone their skills and their art. Erickson wowed me last year with enormous portraits of some of our down and out citizens, but Costello's prints didn't impress me much at all. So I went on Friday evening expecting more of the same. Surprise!
My first surprise was that both Erickson and Costello are doing basically the same thing. As students, my expectation was to see a change in style, maybe medium, something different over the past twelve months. Isn't that what school is all about: studying, experimenting, testing, finding your way? But, no, they both basically showed the same type of work they did last year.
Erickson is still making massive portraits, using scraps of cardboard as his canvas and a variety of media to get it all out there. He is blending cheap, throw-away materials and presenting it in a street savvy, graffiti style manner. This year, instead of the frontal, headshot portraits, he is doing full body portraits; and of the four exhibited, only two were of homeless men (I have no idea if these two people are actually homeless or not, so bare with me as I use the term generically). The other two were of blue collar workers - one, a janitor, the other, a cafeteria worker. Bridging the grittiness of the homeless to the employed did nothing for Erickson's work. His subjects suddenly are less relevant (my second surprise).
Although the theme of "Teachability" is clear (we all have things we can learn from these people) and successfully accomplished by Erickson, the power of the individual pieces is gone. The passion seems to have disappeared, and the ability to make those who live on the edge of poverty becomes less important.
Erickson's work remains technically superlative, but the comparison to how last year's portraits moved me to this year is a let down.
While studying Patrick Costello's prints and wall paintings, it struck me that Patrick is a mark maker. He makes marks. He makes marks on a lot of things. Last year, Costello's prints were very blah for me. I didn't read much into them. I now see that those failings were mostly due to presentation. This year, Costello has presented his work as an installation: He draws on the wall (should we give credit to Sol LeWitt?), he draws on inverted hung planters, he makes prints (framed in old desk drawers), and, with great success, Costello has made a stop action motion picture. Here is where the growth of Costello's work shines. Although he is still making the same marks, he has presented them in a new and highly successful manner (my third surprise).
Simple lines and concepts can be a real challenge for any artist. Leaving his lines lifeless on the paper was not successful. Animating them tells the story Costello is trying to convey: "people trying to figure out how to live in the world and with the earth in the face of human made environmental destruction."
Extending their respective college education for a year after graduation took Erickson and Costello in two different directions. For Erickson, I believe he would have been better off putting his student career behind him - his art was ready for the real world. Staying within the friendly confines of the university life dampened his strengths. Costello, on the other hand, took full advantage of the extra year and has found a much stronger format for his work.
April 09, 2009
PHILIP GLASS - In 12 Parts
Knock, knock. Who's there?
Knock, knock. Who's there?
Knock, knock. Who's there?
Knock, knock. Who's there?
Knock, knock. Who's there?
Knock, knock. Who's there?
Philip Glass.
Those are the words famed artist Chuck Close uses to describe the music of Philip Glass. So much truth can be found in the humor. Love his music or hate it, Philip Glass has cemented himself as the most important composer of our time. Personally, I love it!
The American Masters program on PBS is running a 2 hour documentary special tracking a year in the life of Philip Glass. The show is called Glass: A Portrait of Philip Glass in Twelve Parts. Laura and I watched it last night. Fantastic footage of a master artist. What really popped to me was a man with an unmatched passion to compose music. He is a man comfortable in his own skin whose first love is his music.
If you are at all interested in Philip Glass, his music and his career, I highly recommend you watch this film. Some of the best footage was looking back at the beginning of his career in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Those were heady days in the American arts scene.
[Image: "Phil/Watercolor," a portrait of the composer Philip Glass done in 1977 by Chuck Close]
April 08, 2009
April 02, 2009
Rob Jones
Fresh air art blogging.
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