Janet's statement

When I was a child, my father played the organ at church and my family went every Sunday to mass. I attended Catholic school all of my life, my very religious grandmother lived with us and reigned over our family with a rigid notion of right and wrong, and I distinctly recall visiting my mother’s parents and walking in on my grandparents sitting beneath the giant portrait of Jesus of the Sacred Heart while saying the rosary in hushed and chanting voices that both terrified and mesmerized me. These things have yet to leave my consciousness, and I am interested in making work that responds to these memories of my Catholic upbringing.

I am fascinated by Christian saints, particularly female martyrs, and the Virgin Mary and have found that their stories of passionate devotion to Christ, their denial of worldly pleasures and the destruction of their physical bodies through torture be a rich resource upon which to draw for my work. The fragmentation and deformation of saint’s bodies resonates with me as I struggle to make peace with my own upbringing that demonized the sensuality of the body and placed value on restraint and self-denial. I am intrigued by a religion that tries to deny the messy reality of the body, yet seems to embrace the grotesque in depictions of saintly martyrdom, in the passion of Christ, and in a weekly re-enactment of the consumption of body and blood. I wonder about the persistent connection I have to a religion that offers these dualities, and I am drawn to the beauty of its iconography and inherent message of love, and at the same time repelled by the brutal and restrictive way it often negotiates humanity.

Most recently I have been altering slip-cast statues of saints and the Virgin Mary through combining them with parts of other molds. I replace the heads with heads of other animals, I mask over faces with colored under-glazes or gold luster and in doing so hope to subvert the idea of how these icons function in the context of religious statuary and Catholic beliefs. I leave the seams exposed to echo the mold making process, but also to suggest the fragmentation of the martyred saint’s body, and its reduction to a collection of parts. I also use the seams to frame intimate spaces in which to carve, hollow out or fill with color, the placement of these spaces shifts from figure to figure, creating a visual narrative across a congregation of individuals.

My work reflects my attraction to the space between the beautiful and the monstrous, between the vulgarity of the body and the purity of the spirit, between the order of ritual and the irrational nature of faith

Jeff's statement

I create and adapt. I dismantle and destroy.

Ale's statement

Currently I am a second year student at The Ohio State University, working toward my MFA in Dance, where I am focusing in performance and choreography. My choreographic processes are based on questions that drive me to generate a piece. Currently, these questions include: cultural differences, human relationships, and society. Once an idea is in my head, I start asking more questions regarding that motivation. I then improvise in the studio in search of movement qualities. I am intrigued by culture, with people’s interactions, and with small details, and the use of movement to generate a reaction in the audience. My motivation is my needs to feel and say something, which I base introducing a problem and issue. I am interested in pieces that make me think, and that moves me as a human being. In my work, I create physical, emotional and spatial tension, through using text, simplicity, and ambiguity. As a performer I like to immerse myself in what I am doing, and work to obtain the quality of the movement that the choreographer wants. Dance is an amazing and important tool in my life that I like to share to the world.

Jame's statement

As an artist, I like to make my art to make people laugh. I think humor is probably one of the few things that everyone can agree on. Just like a smile is universal, humor is too. Whether or not someone smiles or laughs at the same thing, something will always make them laugh and smile. That’s why I think humor is so important. That’s also why much of my art has a strange childish side to it. To me it seems that when you grow up, you lose a lot of the things that would have once made you laugh and smile, and quite honestly if everyone really had a choice of growing up would you really choose to? That is what I like to do with my art, to make people laugh at something that maybe they wouldn’t have thought of as being funny and to bring back a little bit of being a kid again.

John's statement

As I sit down to write this, I am humbled by the task. How do I say what I want to without sounding trite? In other words, its all been said before…


I want to create to counterbalance those who destroy. I want to intrigue. I want to entertain. I want to provoke a response, good or bad. I want to notice and be noticed.


I want all of this but need none of it. I only need to produce.

Cole's statement

As an artist I work to relay concepts and ideas to others and express myself through various media. Art is more often than not a loaded issue proposing a question or striving to deliver and answer. Sometimes art should just be created for the purpose of having a good time and giving an individual a sort of playground. I believe that from time to time a person should not worry about providing some sort of enlightened statement but instead give society something to laugh at.

Make sure not to take yourself too seriously all the time.

Ray's statement

Keep it simple. Although I enjoy the complexity of many artworks, I've learned in the past few years that my personal style is to avoid "overdoing it". When I can finally look at a piece and be happy with it, I stop myself before I begin adding unnecessary features that detract from the work. What I've found is that the simpler a work is, the more ways an observer can interpret it because there is less to narrow down their perception of it. Sure, I've made complex pieces before that have taken weeks, pulling all nighters to get them finished, but I've never been as satisfied with those pieces as I have been with a painting that took me no more than a few hours. It consisted of a hippo floating on a cloud over a plain blue sky. When I completed that painting, I realized what direction my art was heading, and I didn't have a choice.

Aaron's Statement

Art, for me, is a modality of social constructions. It is the ability to assert a sense of the unimagined and re-envisioned, whereby we all engage in perceived realities. These realities, based both in aesthetic perceptions and through theoretical constructions of meaning, are pathways to the social configurations in which we live and inhabit. Art provides important outlets for understanding the worlds of culture in which we live.

Laura's statement

I don't really feel what I make is art. It is more like therapy. I get these thoughts and feelings inside of me, and the only way to relax or get through my day is if I expel them. I guess what I am trying to say may sound selfish. But I make what I make for myself primarily, then maybe for other people. I cannot count the times that I've painted a painting or wrote a short story, never to show it to anyone else. I was compelled, driven to create it, but not for any fame, fortune, or attention. I do not like too many eyes on me. I feel like I have enough eyes on myself already. I used to put contact paper (the kind you line drawers in old houses with) on the walls of my bedroom, that way, when I woke up in the night with one of those ideas that drove me crazy, I would not have to stew until morning. I would grab the Sharpie on my nightstand and run over to the wall and just get out what ever it was: a word, a phrase, a picture, a scene. I feel weird making art as an assignment, because my brain never works that way. Which is why, even though I love art and all forms of it, I could never bring myself to be and art, creative writing, etc, major, because I have to do things on my own terms, which means on my own time. I let it flow when it's there. You can't squeeze water out of a dry rag. I have no idea if this paragraph explained why I make art. I suppose, like most of the things I create, it has meandered into something else. But maybe that is art too.

Bol's statement

As a self-taught artist, my most significant source of inspiration is the unforgiving nature of life itself–to overcome odd challenges in the pursuit of safety and comfort. In life, I live art. With each new artistic accomplishment, my life has experienced positive and lasting change, which motivates me to create more.

As young boy in a Dinka village in Sudan, I made toys of clay soil for entertainment. I never anticipated that I would eventually learn three-dimensional computer modeling techniques. At the age of six, I used art to record a personal dairy as civil war tore apart my village, separated me from my family and exposed me to different countries and harsh wilderness (as one of 35,000 children known as the Lost Boys of Sudan). Despite my young age, my mind still retains all of the snapshots and nightmares that clung to my eyes, especially the everyday battles between real-world predators, the unforgettable final memory of my village and the cruel acts of the government. I illustrated many of these events with stick figures drawn in charcoal and natural pigments upon walls, cardboard, soil and any other available surface in the refugee camp. My drawings provided clear explanations of our hardships to journalists visiting the camp that couldn't understand our language. After the start of my basic schooling, my creativity flourished through imagination, memory and observation. My skill was recognized and implemented to illustrate educational images, scientific diagrams, local emblems and contagious disease awareness posters for the community.

My artwork predominately functions as a universal language spoken in a new community to share a message that extends beyond what words can express. My current art intertwines traditional and modern techniques in conjunction with visual and conceptual aspects. I have immersed myself into art culture to examine the relationship between various media, possibilities, values, nature, diversity, culture and development in art. I am investigating art-making traditions and analyzing how society changes through art. I see the positive impact of digital media in my current work as I execute various renderings using traditional styles. The enrichment of digital media has stimulated my mind, particularly in dealing with all available chances, ongoing theories, practical and trans-formative concepts.. The enjoyment and excitement of seeing things in unique perspectives, especially with computer modeling, four-dimensional video and digital image manipulations fuel my current art exploration.

Nicole's statement

My work investigates ways of recreating cultural narratives through the poetic use of styles and conventions that have come out of Western traditions in ceramics, sculpture and architecture. Both of my parents were avid collectors of an array of types of collectable objects, ranging from model tractors and cars to coins, books and Santa Clause figurines, giving me a particular closeness to the complications of how objects come to symbolize cultural and personal value systems. I am interested in exploring how the sets of signifiers present in Western traditional formats such as the bust or the neo-classical ceramic platter combine to reinforce colonial and class power relationships. Through a process of focused abstraction that is generated in part through referencing a large range of historical influences, and through displacing an object through its representation in different media, I test the limits of the socially generative power of traditional symbolic formats.

Lindsay's Statement

My art is humorous and witty dance that is framed through the lens of the camera. There is movement in the human body, camera and editing all creating an experience for the viewer rather than a story. A distinct play on perspective and scale is often used as the dancers appear larger or smaller than they really are.

Steve's statement

I come to art from a world of standards and protocols. Information and organization dominate the landscape. In this world color, tone, shape and perspective have no meaning. This world is hidden by wrappers, boxes, buttons and knobs; all helping to mask the dirty details. Creativity and technique exist, but generally go unrecognized and unappreciated.
Despite their drastic differences, I am starting to see similarities between my world and the world of art. Experimentation, iteration, practice, calculation, processing and improvisation all work in both worlds. Both worlds also seem to have limitless possibilities, directions and methods of implementation.
I am not a complete foreigner to the world of art; something more like a tourist. For years I have been exposed to the works of many artists of all different levels, but never have taken an active roll in making art. It's strange for everything you make to be right there in the open, no wrappers, no boxes, no disguises, no cover. It's a bit uncomfortable to have your ideas criticized, defend your methodology and justify your decisions. These are the lessons that I hope to take from my foray into the world of art.

a statement

I am interested in this, that and everything in between. I wonder why that guy is wearing two different socks? Who kicked over that port-o-potty? Was there someone in it? Why did they use two different types of pavement to build that new road? I always want to understand more about the decisions people make in this world which in turn affect everyone in one way or another.

My day job is a photojournalist, so my instincts as a photographer is to document the daily life of people. It is hard to push away from that at times. In my art photographs I try my best to break away from my standards of a photojournalist by at the very least looking for something that is not normally covered for a newspaper. Many of my art projects are still a documentation of daily life (like photojournalism), but I tend to focus in on the small topics of life that go without notice.

I am in the middle of documenting tip jars and the personalization of them. Some places have simple jars, while others have large tubs with cute or dumb sayings on them to entice the customer to toss in their spare change. Another project is the documentation of what is very close to most people but goes unseen: underground tunnels, area's above ceiling tiles, etc.

Artists Statements seem to be hand in hand with art in general. Always changing, always staying the same. I could look back on this artist statement in 10, 5, 2 years and be somewhere else completely in my mindset as an artists, but to me, that is such a big part of art. Some artists can go about doing the same style and be successful for a lifetime, while other artists always have to adapt and re-think themselves to propel their creativity. I don't know which mentality I will follow, but I doubt many other artists know either.

a statement

It is true that 2-D artworks are objects, but they have traditionally been noted less for their flat qualities and more as a window into an illusionistic world. For this reason, 2-D work has always been of more interest to me than 3-D work. 2-D works present spaces and things that are both there and not there. While 3-D works also present representations, they share the same physical space as our bodies. 3-D works can also be regarded as bodies or subjects in our space. Audience members cannot enter into a 2-D space in the same way. While our bodies can share the space of a 2-D work, we cannot physically enter the spaces that are also represented or implied.

I have also been drawn to 4-D video practice. Video documentation has the ability to capture moments and events. Once captured, these framed moments can be relived from the cameraperson’s viewpoint. While videos share our space on a television or screen, the people and places captured are not actually there. As with 2-D work, we cannot enter into the represented space. It is only an illusion of movement through a progression of still frames.

This complex relationship between real/representation has been a persistent thread in my artistic explorations. My current artistic practice involves documenting how people interact with and relate to spaces using mapping tools. My work is also interested in interaction between the past and present in spaces. Ephemeral interactions are marked, traced and mapped. I want to imply absence and accentuate space through the dashed line, and yet accomplish this using a very physical, non-precious thing. I hope to highlight and also collapse perceived space using 2-D drawing strategies in a real space. I aim to facilitate drawings in and on the space, the objects and subjects.

a statement

I make art in order to explore and communicate about the nature of reality. Art allows me to make visible, tangible traces of strange moments of confusion, awe, and speechlessness. It creates the opportunity to engage in criticism of the severe disconnectedness of modern life. I am interested in art that creates the opportunity connect the mind to the sweating, substantial presence of the human body and the earth's natural processes of synthesis and decay.

a statement

My intent for the quarter was to create a fully interactive presentation of panoramic photographs taken within the Knowlton School of Architecture. I would classify the results of this project as only partially successful. If the goal of interactive media is full immersion of the user, a user interface should offer self-directed exploration across the appropriate topics as well as self-directed immersion in these topics at a depth decided by the user. If one school of motion picture editing emphasizes the invisibility of the editor, one school of interactive design similarly emphasizes the content and tone of the information while de-emphasizing the method needed to navigate across information.

I was able to achieve some degree of interactivity, including bi-directional scanning across the panoramic photos as well as the ability to choose from two magnification levels; however, this type of interactivity is far simpler to create using Quicktime VR technology while offer far more robust user control and feedback. The use of DVD Studio Pro to accomplish a similar level of interactivity required the creation of nearly five hundred programable menus, each with three to five hypertextual links. A more transparent and convincing navigation and visual feedback system would have required the addition of video tracks resulting in greatly increased programming, bandwidth, and storage requirements.

It is my belief that interactive technology affords an opportunity to create learning, entertainment, and art environments that allow users to engage in media in more effective, and for the moment, less traditional ways. The hope is to allow users to synthesize information in novel, unpredictable ways. Perhaps in this respect my project reached modest levels of success. I approached the creation of the photographs in a manner similar perhaps to that of axonometric drawings—that is, I attempted to create graphics rich in visual information (in this case spatial, lighting, and material) without introducing author-imposed bias, tone, or direction. In other words, my intent was to provide the user with enough information-rich data to come to their own conclusions.

a statement

The basis of the portfolio was to try and related all of the artwork that I have done over the years to the overall interface and style of the DVD. What all of my work trails back to is the concept of basic character analysis. Video Games, Comic Books, and various styles of Animation, (which are my influences when it comes to making artwork) all have one thing in common, iconic characters.

Whenever a genre of art is being recognize, there is always some sort of character or figure that best represents the genre as a whole whether some might believe it or not. Depending on the experience of art exposure to an individual, audiences may generalize painting the Mona Lisa, or generalize painting to the Old Rococo paintings of France. For video games, it could be Mario from Super Mario Brothers, for Comic Books, it could be Spider-man, and for Animation, it could be something from Pixar or Japanese Anime. In all of my artwork, I have a certain character that stands front and center out of everything else in the image or video. The character is relative the environment he, she, or it resides, it has a certain personality that can be shown by gestures lines, shadows, and placement or perspective. The purpose for my artwork is to entertain and enlighten the viewer to character-based situations that’s abstract and sometimes random to the overall influences I have as a developing artist. It may derived from a video game or comic book, but I try to stay as abstract to my own experimental ideas as possible.

The reason for the loose-beatbox DVD formula is to show randomness, but simple entertainment to my audience. My beatbox has a character of its own; it’s just as improvised and character-developed as Kirk Whalum on saxophone or Stevie Wonder on piano. I wanted my Image and Video buttons to move in the menu to show that they individually had personalities to relate to my own thought process of creating art in the first place. The overall choice of the dvd is to make sure the viewer understands that I am a person that has a range of ideas and character-based thought processes, whether it be completely random or not.

a statement

Eight Sentences

1. My work engages visual difference through the physical building
and juxtaposition of paint surface.

2. The techniques by which I generate these surfaces are only
important insofar as they can be deduced from a specific painting.

3. I employ a variety of techniques with no goal in mind and no end
in sight.

4. The paintings that interest me most have irreducible structures
that are arbitrary and complex.

5. My work forces no images. The arrival of the image, however, is
unavoidable.

6. Whatever is unadvoidable is also an end.

7. Work takes place within the physical and mental limits of my
humanity.

8. Painting's time, limitations and doubt make it appear outdated
to many people. These are in fact painting's assets.

a statement

As an artist, I hope capture any ideas that come to my mind: good or bad. I believe that art is a reflection of us and others. I hope that the art will speak to at least one person. If I have done that, then I have I have accomplished my goal. I will not be limited to the conditioning of the experience of my life and my past. I shall embrace the thoughts and ideas that come before. I think that part of being an artist is to not be biased of what in my work. I want to capture what exactly comes from my mind and even from others. In the past, I have limited myself to the art that can speak to all person. I believe that I must be happy in the things I create and that is the only way to produce the best work. As an artist, I will also try to understand the work of other artist to participate in the circle of creativity.

On this day this is my artist and I accept that my views as an artist may change and hopefully evolve into something greater than it has become.

a statement

To be honest I don’t feel very creative this quarter. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like I’m in a rut. There’s just, so much going on out in the art world that it overwhelms and belittles me because I’m scared. Scared that one day all my creative juices will cease and I’ll never be able to make work that will get people to stop and look. I know that it’s just part of being an artist by questioning your work and accepting the fact that you’re not always going to have fantastic ideas pouring out of you at every waking moment and that there will be times when you feel like this. I also know that I will overcome this road block and realize that what I need to do is just relax and breathe. It’s like what I’ve said in most of my other art statements about stopping and enjoying the simple pleasures in life and to not let the negative vibes get me down. I want to create something, even though I might not know what it is yet, but just the passion there in my bones gives me the motivation and hope to know that I will achieve what I intend to do and that is create.

a statement

“If I don’t create, I cease to exist.”

+ Ingmar Bergman



Perhaps my most influential filmmaker couldn’t have said it any better. Existentialism is by far an area of philosophical study that I’ve given the most attention to in the last couple years of my life. Who are we? What makes us human? What makes me individual? These are the questions at the core of my existential quest. What I’ve discovered there has led me to the path of an artist.

The most fundamental truth that I’ve learned is that what makes us both human and individual is creativity. When we are being creative, we are being both original and individual. If we are not being creative, we are being robotic and mechanistic, just operating off of rehearsed input/output functions. Throughout the course of history, cultures and populations have thrived and ultimately perished. However, the art that they’ve left behind has survived the longest. This is a clear example to me of the power of art. Within each artifact is encoded information about the culture and the individual who created. For me, this is the blending of the two modes of existence in life, the individual and society. It is incredibly important for me to express my existence in this society. It is of existential necessity that I pursue art.

Another secret I’ve discovered lying in art is it’s evolutionary capabilities. Throughout history, the people who have progressed the mental capabilities of their society have been philosophers and artists. In today’s world this has not changed. So with this in mind, I have dedicated my life to the blending of both art and philosophy. Both have proven to be excellent investigatory mediums for the discovery of reality and existence.

In conclusion, I have discovered what Ingmar Bergman discovered. If we are not creating, our identity ceases to be known. So, for me, my outlet for creating takes the form of video. This has proven to be the medium that I gravity mostly towards. I’m still exploring the possibilities with film, and when one is in a constant state of exploration, one is also in a constant state of discovery.

a statement

In this video, as in my work in general, I play with images and concepts of power, sexuality, and identity. My work is an effort to stand outside the traditional boundaries of gender and family to create visual experiences which empower through self-definition, personal narrative, and re-imagining the worlds within. I use the figure as an anchor to re-channel emotion, to illustrate internal conflict, and to connect the viewer viscerally with changing experiential states.

I hope to construct a kind of springboard for personal mythology, embracing an internal struggle often set in or represented by abandoned or decomposing environments. This embodied collection of emotional memory lives somewhere between the figurative, the symbolist, and the surreal, and reflects influences such as Sally Mann, Bill Viola, and Robert Parke Harrison. The images are a catalogue of states, feelings, and histories skeptical of all personal and societal meta-narratives, even themselves.

A Statement

Statement

Attitude affects the perception of our surroundings. I investigate the attitudes that are the desire to change the landscape, and the understanding of a particular place. My work combines images of contemporary urban areas on the verge of redevelopment as a point of comparison to romanticized representations of the American landscape, topography, and historic ideals. Though the images document areas of American on the verge of disappearing, the finished work is not a direct homage to landscape before or after industrialization; rather, it is an assessment of the nation's seemingly limitless potential. Ambiguous in tone, the works can be read as a glorification of development or as a reminder of the price of idealized progress.

a statement

When I was younger I was told that I was smart enough to do pretty much whatever I wanted. I forgot about that for a long time, or rather I mistook that piece of information as meaning that I was meant to take on the most difficult educational path and follow it to the end. Not quite halfway down that road I realized that I wasn't taking the path I wanted. I wanted to create, to produce things that make people feel something. I wanted to inspire. I wanted to use both sides of my brain. Art gives me the opportunity to do this and with a smile. When I was younger I was told that I was smart enough to do pretty much whatever I wanted...so I choose art.