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Degree

BFA, Kent State University Honors College, College of the Arts / School of Art, 2012.

Abstract

On April thirteenth, I held the closing reception for my senior show, entitled "Nameface", in the Sculpture Gallery of the Art Building. The show consisted of twenty two diptychs, or pairs of paintings, hung along the walls in a continuous, horizontal line that also included a television showing an animation, as well as a link to namefacelook.com, which is an accessible archive of the work for free, public consumption. Each diptych displayed a portrait of a famous art dealer or collector on the left beside the palette used to paint it on the right. Both were done on canvas and stretched over identical, eight inch by ten inch wooden panels. I found that in the gallery, and on the website, each piece was viewed in a matter of seconds. The consistency of the show's components, in composition, content and material, allowed the viewer to immediately think of questions about the creative process, particularly about how the source photos related to me and my societal context, and how the palette paintings related to the portraits. The first questions that every person asked were: What are these abstract paintings? How do you know these people? The twenty-two portraits in this series were painted from photos of people that I do not know. Each painting is a slowed down representation of my daily internet activity on 'Scene and Herd' as an artist and an art news consumer. I feel an anxiety towards the prestigious presence of dealers and collectors, even in photos, because they represent people that I don't know but care about because if they cared about me then it would be easier for me to make a living from my art. This inexperienced yearning for their acceptance, combined with a total lack of personal connection, motivated me to download, transfer, print, archive, and reproduce their snapshots as a series of paintings and online images. Upon completing the paintings a week before the show, I realized that promoting a redefined awareness of 'Scene and Herd's' existence was the work's main intent. This understanding of each diptych as two arrows, or links, to their photographic source inspired me to build the website and the video, in an effort to provoke a critical analysis of how looking at 'Scene and Herd' affects how I see my paintings as objects designed for criticism, and ultimately, acceptance or rejection.

Subject Headings

Fine Arts

Committee / Advisors

Gianna Commito (Committee Chair)
Darice Polo (Committee Member)
Navjotika Kumar (Committee Member)
Paul Sampson (Committee Member)

Pages

42p.

Document number: ksuhonors1342727402
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ksuhonors1342727402

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