Above is the performance itself. I didn't go as well as I would have ideally liked it to, but given the experimental nature of this whole project, this is something I expected. Ideally I wanted everything (except close up shots of the canvas) to be symmetrical, and this symmetry was broken once I brought the cup to the foreground. Other than that, the whole process was simple and worked well. I added some transitions and different camera angles to keep the whole video visually interesting and to not be monotonous. There were some happy accidents, such as my body staying in the middle between the two pedestals as I grabbed for the basin, and that added to the whole contrast of the scene and made it even more interesting to look at. The black thermal I wore as well added much more of a visual "pop" then I originally thought it would, so that was nice. above are concepts of the canvas and a general storyboard. All steps were followed in the storyboard, but I also added additional scenes in the video itself, such as the closeup view of the canvas, the perspective panning up the canvas, and the closeup shot of the basin with the dirty water dripping in it. This has been the most experimental piece of art I've ever done. During the course of this project, I really wanted to expose myself to techniques and new ways to portray objects while also integrating film. Nearly everything the final product is made of is symbolic, and I wanted to convey what the overall idea was without any explicit details within the work itself, I wanted the art to speak for itself. The whole process involved sewing cut up stuffed animals into canvas, then attaching yarn with hot glue, and then used coffee grounds distribute throughout with rubber cement and acrylic gesso. Black paint was also used to intensify the look the coffee grounds gave. I then filmed in gallery 10, the act of me pouring a pot of hot water over the top of the canvas and letting the water filter through the intricacies of the piece, picking up anything it can in its path, and ending up in a glass basin beneath the canvas. This was then poured into a tall glass and then brought into the foreground. The amount of water that ended up in the basin wasn't nearly as much as I would have liked or nearly as dirty I as I would like, but nonetheless I got dirty coffee water.
Before I get into the details, the overall idea of this piece is memory and retention, especially at that of an older age when we start to forget more and more of our past, masked over by recent experiences. With that said, the piece is composed of stuffed animals from my childhood. They're cut up and some have their faces inside-out for a more macabre effect. The fact that they're cut up represents the sparseness of memory and that we don't always remember events in their entirety unless we search out each piece of that memory. In regards to arrangement, the cut up pieces were arranged to what I thought was visually interesting, they weren't arranged chronologically or in any other fashion other than strictly visual. The stuffed animals altogether represent my past. Yarn was used to express neural connections but also acted as a more intricate space for the hot water to filter through. Different colors were used to compliment the different colored animals as well as, again, to make the overall piece much more visually dynamic and interesting to look at. The colors could also represent a "colorful" past, full of different experiences and events, and noticed how it's masked over, but not entirely, by coffee grounds and black paint. The used coffee grounds represent modern me. I drink tons of coffee and it's become a really important factor during my first year here at Siena, and I've been collecting coffee grounds since the start of the winter semester, so just like the stuffed animals, they've been used. They're dark, practically black, and this is in clear contrast to the colorful yarn and animals. The coffee grounds and black paint represent recent memory and what I have become accustomed to. Mostly everything nowadays for me is routine and nothing too exciting, the complete different to when I was a kid when I was exposed to tons of new experiences and everything was interesting to me, expressed by the color. Color altogether plays a major role. As I've mentioned, the range of actual color seen in the piece represents my childhood experiences/childhood in general, and the black represents recent experience and recent memory. Notice in the video that I'm wearing black all over, black pants, black thermal, black glasses. This is to further accentuate the modern "John", or what I am now. The mug I'm holding is also dark (not black, although it would be ideally) and has the Siena emblem on it, and I'm drinking from it as I walk in, further reinforcing the idea that coffee is a part of my adult life in addition to the grounds on the canvas and pouring a coffee pot of hot water over the canvas. The height comparison of the Siena mug and tall glass is also important. The mug is shorter, representing recent memory, and the glass is taller, representing past memories and all my experiences (of course the height in relation to each other isn't exact in how they're proportionally related, but it gets the idea across). The finished product, the glass filled with the water filtered though the canvas, represents my current memory, but this can be applied to anyone. We all forget a lot about our past, but the personally important parts stick with us as (yarn, stuffed animal fur, etc.) well as some other events in which we don't know why we still remember them. I wanted to make sure as well that others could relate to this piece. Stuffed animals are almost always considered a piece of childhood, while it is generally agreed that older individuals drink coffee, so the distinction between the two can be uncovered and understood based on our cultural context for each of them. Overall, I'm proud of this project's outcome. It ended up working out a lot better than I initially thought given how different and experimental it is. I found it a good way to finish my first year in Siena's art program.
This project reinterpreted Gustav Cailbotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day, as pictured above, while retaining the umbrellas. The Art 21 theme used was "secrets", and the three creative strategies used were: coded communication, silhouettes of shapes, and expressive line. Overall, the painting has to do with lies, in this particular case, cheating. This piece, through working with it, has quickly become an emotional attachment to me. A lot of myself, specifically that of past relationships, is poured into this piece, but not explicitly. I wanted to make it as abstract and indirect as possible (while at the same time being aesthetically appealing) but just direct enough where someone can sort of get the idea as to what the figures were, humans/individuals and maybe a trace of its symbolism.
The coded communication, which is done in morse electric telegram messaging, reads "Lie" and is seen on the sides of the building in the distance as well as in red paint on the yellow figures, and also on the rectangular shape between them. The silhouettes are of people, or other bodies. These represent association with the figure with the red dot for a head. In fact, the warm colors in this piece are of association with this figure. Notice the targets all over the figure's body and those colors' distribution throughout the painting. Expressive line wasn't used primarily throughout the piece, but it's there. (I didn't fully read the criteria before I started the painting, so it was sort of implemented late into the process which is a fault on my part). The intentional expressive lines are the wavy ones, which represent uneasiness/disorientation. This again is symbolic, and all ties into to a specific idea within secrets. I enjoyed this piece overall. Even though I made errors early in the work, It turned out to be one of my favorite pieces ever for me on a personal level, as a lot of my emotion was translated into this piece while still retaining the original paintings proportions and general placement.
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