Tag: critique
-
David Hockney artist talk
David Hockney gave an excellent artist’s talk at the Getty on September 10, 2015. I was so inspired that I talked it up to everyone I saw the next day. (A few hear the same pitch on the day after as well.) Skip to 7:14 if you don’t need a refresher on Hockney’s artistic credentials…
-
Toying with History master post
Toying with History by Colleen Wampole Abstract and Introduction How history repeats itself Quantity of representation Quality of representation Means of representation Conclusion and Works Cited
-
Toying with History: Conclusion and Works Cited
[This is the final part of a thesis paper about the series Toying with History. Here is the master post.] Conclusion I began this artistic inquiry by asking whether or not the present is dependent on the past. After assessing sexism in contemporary politics and creative fields, I conclude that changing our traditions will only…
-
Toying with History: Quality of Representation
[This is part four of a thesis paper about the series Toying with History. Here is the master post.] Omission inflicts all the evils of censorship: it stifles first action, then words, and finally thought itself. Censorship is even harder to detect when masked with a simulation of representation. Examining the state of gender parity…
-
Toying with History: Quantity of Representation
[This is part three of a thesis paper about the series Toying with History. Here is the master post.] Before familiarizing ourselves with the quality of women’s role models, let us examine the quantity of women’s representation. It is well and good to know the history of feminism and resolve not to backslide, but we…
-
Toying with History: How history repeats itself
[This is part two of a thesis paper about the series Toying with History. Here is the master post.] In any critical comparison of the present and the past, it is de rigeur to mention philosopher George Santayana’s much-quoted claim that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (qtd. in Schwartz…
-
Toying with History: Abstract and Introduction
[This is the first installment of my final MFA thesis paper. The master post is available here.] Abstract I use my paintings to playfully invite serious conversations. The series Toying with History examines representation through a feminist lens. I began this series with the following question: to what degree are women still misrepresented in our…
-
Predicting the future: A spectrum of irony
[ Last summer my MFA class was tasked with predicting what in five years we would describe as the quintessential art of 2014. What, with the benefit of hindsight, will today’s art world look like? It’s an interesting, albeit quixotic, mind game. Here were my thoughts. ] Identifying trends in your field is simply part…
-
Doll collection: Princesses
The D*sney princess dolls spark some fascinating conversations. (It’s part of why I repainted them three times.) I keep second-guessing this set of costumes. I’m on my third draft, so I certainly hope it’s a worthwhile notion. The overall drift of the project was one of dressing up is reinforced by references to young girls…
-
Incorporating criticism
I mentioned some of the feedback I received from the first critique of term in this post. The task during the week following was to use those suggestions and criticisms. I experimented with and modified work from the spring critique in five different ways. The more I thought about the spring crit, the more I…
-
Spring critique 2014
This Saturday I presented this term’s artwork for review by my peers and professors. Here are a few photos of how it was arranged for critique. I’ve been asked to explore more display options. Cutting them out and presenting the dolls in site-specific installations was one suggestion. Removing the black mat boards was a…
-
Mark Reads: “You are not prepared”
“I honestly want to give y’all a set of reviews that are devoid of the usual sort of expectant cynicism that comes with media criticism. Not that the world is ~bitter forever~, but I want to approach a new fictional world without preconceived notions of what it is. ” –Mark, review of Pushing Daisies (S1Ep1…
-
Mission statements
My go-to newspaper just printed a brief editorial about their mission statement. As I read it, I noticed strong parallels between what the editor had to say about his paper and what I’ve been trying to do with my artistic practice. As Marshall Ingwerson says: “We have a bias, and we’re owning it. It’s…
-
Confronting and kowtowing to the canon
[ part 2 of the essay which began “To Thine Own Self Be True” ] Collection #1 ”Shades of Santayana! Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it; ergo, those who can remember the past may overcome it? What does it mean, in a society replete with simulations and reenactments, to overcome…
-
To thine own self be true
[ Then again, consider the source. ] Selfies are easily dismissed as narcissistic or kitschy, but the urge to self-define is neither new nor unimportant. The convention of using physical likeness to express individuality applies along the continuum of portrait images in visual culture: it links lowbrow selfies to high art portraits of Rembrandt. By…
-
Highlighting women as creators (via paper dolls)
My recent paintings experiment with and assess the personal impact of the artistic canon. In superimposing the art historical canon over my own paper doppelgänger, I engage in a form of portraiture similar to what Svetlana Alpers refers to in The Art of Describing as the “historiating portrait” (14). Such figures “are distinguished by looking…
-
Crit/studio visit (with Rebecca)
How do you depict the intangible thing that is faith? What does it look like? Does it carry any of the flavor of past efforts to visually represent the same invisible thing? Rob Matthews has found some workable ways to approach those questions. I have similar questions, but need to keep working on my approach.…
-
Crit/ studio visit (Margery Amdur)
First up, I’m adding something to my list of ambitions: hone my critiquing to the level of Margery Amdur‘s. 1) She showed a lot of stamina with doing crits at an equally energetic and committed level for an entire afternoon (and an extra hour and a half, from what I observed). 2) Then, when she…
-
Studio visit/crit (Dan Reidy)
Sometimes critiques stop me in my tracks. It can be as simple a thing as needing a day to process all the new insights (or to recover from the shock, dismay, and general malaise). Today’s critiques had the opposite effect. I love crits that involve concrete ideas as well as generalized market/critical feedback. Some things…
-
Studio visit/crit (Jess Perlitz)
Jess Perlitz was kind enough to give me some advice today. Some I can’t talk about just yet because…it’s still at the secretive idea-gestation phase. [Edit: It’s no longer secret. She advised me on early stags of the project described in Coming Clean, parts 1 and 2.) She brought a lot of common sense into…
Colleen Wampole 