Artist Response: Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness, Worlds within Worlds

2003, mirror maze installation, mixed media

Ryan Mcginness is a well renowned painter and artist.  McGinness lives in New York City and his studio is located in Chinatown New York.  This lecture was extremely crowed compared to the last lecture I went to.  McGinness began by proving to the audience that he was from Virginia Beach and very proud of that, showing us his drivers license to prove it.  McGinness explained to us that his first interest with art and design began at a very young age. 

I liked that McGinness explained how he created his paintings.  McGinness starts off sketching, and then makes his sketches into solid forms.  Then he brings the forms into the computer and finally creates screen prints from the computer images in which he uses to paint.  He seems to follow this pattern for most of his work especially for his work he did for the VMFA where he created paintings based on the permanent works of the museum.   One specific piece that Ryan McGinness showed us that I found most interesting was “Worlds within Worlds.”  McGinness created a maze of mirrors generating decals of sketches and drawings he made displayed on the mirrors.  The mirrors then reflected the drawings onto each other continuing and repeating the images forever. 

In regards to my questions about McGinness and if he gets lost in his art work I don’t believe he does because he works with only so many objects (subjects) on each painting.  McGinness also chooses exactly where he will place each design on his paintings.  McGinness mentioned during his lecture that the paintings aren’t planned at all then he continued to say that he has tried to plan paintings in the past however it has never successfully worked out or felt right. 

Quote

“Color is a secondary color- everything has to work in black and white first.”

Three words: graphic, design, bright

Idea 9: Surroundings

 Surroundings

–noun

1. something that surrounds.

2. surroundings, environing things, circumstances, conditions, etc.; environment: He was too sick to be aware of his surroundings.

3. the act of encircling or enclosing.

–adjective

4. enclosing or encircling.

5. being the environment or adjacent area.

Relation to my work:

Surroundings are the area around a given physical point or place.  Surroundings can also be objects and physical items that are in relation or are near someone or something.   In my project I am photographing women in their spaces and the objects that surround and define them in some way.  People and their surroundings is a large part of my project since I am photographing women in their spaces.  Often when I photograph the women I have things that represent their personalities or something that identifies them within the space. 

Quotes

Articles

http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2011/01/24/people-and-spaces/

Artist Questions: Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness

You use a mix of different mediums when creating your work such as paintings, sculptures and you take into consideration the environment that you display your work in.  How do you decide which medium to use when creating a specific piece?

Your paintings are very bright and have many layers to them making them appear to be graphical inspired.  Do you ever get lost in all the layers when creating your work?

Artist Post 9- Ellen Gallagher

Ellen Gallagher

Ellen Gallagher was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1965.  Gallagher studied at the Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston Massachusetts.  Gallagher creates her art through painting, drawing, collages, and films.  Finding inspiration and motivation in advertisements and popular magazines Gallagher is attracted to the language of these objects creating narratives in her work stimulated by the characters of the advertisements.  Narrative based stories inspired from found materials have enthused Gallagher.  Gallagher has received many awards such as the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship and the American Academy Award.  Gallagher has had her work exhibited in a vast variety of museums including the Whitney Museum of American Art, St. Louis Art Museum, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco.    

Gallagher has a very interesting process to creating her work.  First she creates the scale in which she is going to work on, and then plasticine is used to create claymation.  Next Gallagher builds a grid of pages from magazines relating each object to the next and finally she glues the sheets to the canvas.  Gallagher starts from one corner of the canvas working her way across and down.  Gallagher stated in relation to her process that, “There’s a kind of improvisation that happens. You’ll do about nine wigs a day, or nine prosthetics a day. And they relate to each other over time. You can see shifts which is also why I like to show more than one painting together, because they mark quite a long time period in making.”

I am attracted to Gallagher’s work and how she uses a vast range and mix of materials when creating her work.  Also I am engrossed by her style, Gallagher often used vintage magazines when creating her work which is appealing to me because of my love for everything vintage. 

Quotes

“The work comes out of my desire to create an expansive, fluid realm that is both the concrete historical fragments it is made up of and the new form it describes.”

--Ellen Gallagher

“I really get excited by this idea that a printed material can be so widely distributed.”—Ellen Gallagher

Ellen Gallagher, "Feminine Hygiene"

2005, Courtesy Two Palms Press.

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Ellen Gallagher, "from Preserve series"

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Ellen Gallagher, "Pomp- Bang"

2003 (detail)

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Ellen Gallagher, "Millie Christine" from "Deluxe"

2004-2005 13 x 10 inches

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Ellen Gallagher, "Mr. Terrific from "Deluxe"

2004-2005 13 x 10 inches

Aquatinit, photogravure, and platicine

Interview: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/gallagher/clip1.html

Website: Ellen Gallagher does not have a website.

Gallery: Gagosian Gallery, Jan 22- Feb 26, 2011, West 24^th St. NY, NY

Works Cited

Ellen Gallagher. Art21.  26 March 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/gallagher/clip1.html>.

Ellen Gallagher.  Gagosian Gallery.  26 March 2011. <http://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/2011-01-22_ellen-gallagher/>. 

Artist Lecture- Kiyomi Iwata Response

Kiyomi Iwata

"Essentially what I do at the studio is play."

3 words: Texture, wires, reflections

         Kiyomi Iwata is an internationally recognized artist.  I really enjoyed Iwata’s lecture, which was very small and intimate.  It was the first artist lecture that I have attended that is not a photo/film lecture in the past two years.  I found it completely fascinating to hear an artist who uses a different medium. 

         Iwata showed us the vessels that she makes and how they inspire her to try new things when making them.  For instance, one specific piece Iwata showed us she said she hung the piece on the wall in her studio to examine it and after she did she noticed shadows that reflected off her piece on to the wall.  Kiyomi Iwata stated that she “ liked how the shadows on the wall were intertwined and shared the same weight as her sculpture did.  I really enjoyed how she examines and will continue works even after she thinks it is complete.  My favorite quote from Iwata during the lecture was, “sometimes an accident happens and you like it so it happens.”   Meaning that when something you think is a bad accident occurs when creating something and then you notice that it changes or helps your piece in an unexpected way that you embrace it.   

            Another thing that I found interesting during Iwata’s lecture was that she uses all the stages of production of her materials.  Traditionally, Iwata uses mostly silk from its first stage of production to the very final stage where she uses the ends and scraps of the rejected silk ends. 

            Kiyomi Iwata didn’t answer my questions.  However, one question someone asked after the lecture that I found interesting was that Iwata works in a large range of scales and what curves her decision on what piece should be what size.  Iwata said that she works very intimately with all her work.  Iwata stated,  “It’s good to work small, digest the piece, figure out the projects flaws and then move on to larger pieces.” Overall, I really enjoyed Kiyomi Iwata’s lecture.

Artist Lecture- Laurel Nakadate Response

Laurel nakadate

1.) You often seem to use yourself, as a model in both your video and still images, is there significance to this?

2.) Women and sexuality appear to play a repeating role in your work, what is your interest in relationships between people and sexuality?

3 words : failures, travel and amusing

“Documentary is a conversation with the real world”—Laurel Nakadate

Even though Nakadate, 35, has been investigating the theme of sex and power for a decade, she doesn't claim to have come up with a conclusion. "I think artists are always trying to mine material that they don't necessarily have the answers for,"

I really enjoyed Laurel Nakadate’s lecture.  I found it interesting how she showed us work from when she was eighteen years old to illustrate to us how you learn from experience and improve your work and concepts over time.  I also appreciated how she discussed trial, error, and her failures with us and how to accept them in a good way.  The idea that she has made several films, went with the flow of things and found locations the day of shooting was surprising to hear but reassuring to know that things will all work out if you have hope and believe in what your working on.  I felt a bit remorseful when Nakadate was discussing the research and dedication she put in to all her older work because technology was not as readily available as it is now.   Such as in her piece, “Oops”, 2000 when she had to watch MTV for a week to learn the dance moves from Britney Spears music video.  Art changes overtime with technology and sometimes I forget that so it was appealing to hear it again from another artist.  

Idea 8: Yoyeurism

Voyeurism

   Dictionary

-An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.

-       practice of spying on people

Yoyeurism is a way of watching and observing people.  One technique to observing others is watching them without them being aware of it.  The voyeur can observe their subject from a distance or using hidden cameras or two-way mirrors.  Yoyeurism plays an important role in my work because I am observing women in their spaces, I wait until they are in their own moment to take a photograph of them in their space. 

Quotes

“Of the two forms that voyeurism takes in our time -- watching other people have sex and seeing other people's homes -- the latter is by far the more interesting and, in so many instances, the more deeply personal.”

''London, happily, is becoming full of great men's houses, bought for the nation and preserved entire with the chairs they sat on and the cups they drank from, their umbrellas and their chests of drawers. . . . We know them from their houses.”---- Virginia Woolf

Article :

 Brubach, Holly.  New York Times Magazine.  7 October 2007.  23 March 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/ehost/detail?hid=11&sid=e09824fe-fd53-48a2-96eb-70aeefe0bccb%40sessionmgr14&vid=5&bdata=JkF1dGhUeXBlPWlwLHVybCxjb29raWUsdWlkJnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=27925444>.

This article is about how there are two different types of voyeurism in our time, watching people have sex and observing people in general and their personal spaces.  This article mentions and bases this information off of Dr. Johnson’s Doorknob: And Other Significant Parts of Great Men’s Houses. Which is a collection of photographs by Liz Workman who documented famous and prestigious men’s houses.