Benjamin's statement

Remember, art may or may not be true. Because, all truth is independent inside the sphere of influence upon which it has been placed. It is specific to the single entity that holds the ability to discern between truth and error. If one has not this ability, they are in ignorance. If they then are ignorant, then they are innocent. If they are innocent, then they cannot be held accountable to any law, statute, and are not held down by the laws of justice or mercy.

Let art-makers be true, should they possess the ability to discern and make known truth and not embellish the falsehoods of half-truths, lies, deceit, innocence, ignorance, the unknown, the rigid, the stale, harsh, evil, rancid, gooey, slimy, stinky, stupid, dumb, and retarded within their artworks.

To those who know not the truth, don’t worry about it, you may or may not be right about the art you make in its relativity to truth; Unless, truth is important to you.  It is to me.

Truth, even though independent, when applied will always be true by it’s own evidence. It is a one-sided Boolean. Hurrah!

Truth is gauged by how long it will hold. The longer something remains true, the deeper the truth. Its influence is further in. The further in the influence the more pure it is. The purest form of truth is the one that connects inside the deepest part of your being, one that stretches you, you feel yourself grow, you expand, the truth is warm and growing, you become truth. You want this; you need this. The purest form of truth will make you all that you can become.

Art may or may not hold this. Of this, we are judges. Time alone, is no judge. People vary, but the pure sure form of truth will prevail inside the one who knows. Truth is unchanging. It is the sure rock, surer than anything people may see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. It goes beyond these. It tells you who you are. If you care about that, this may be important to you. It is to me.

Search truth. Detect truth. Live truth. May the truth, be known.

Katelyn's statement

It's taken me my whole life up until now to realize that I'm not perfect. Not perfect like I'm
entitled and nothing I can do is wrong, but perfect as in I expect the art that I make to be a success
every time. Perfect colors, perfect line weights, perfect anatomy.. everything. I used to spend countless
amounts of stress and effort trying to get what I make to be exactly the way it should be. In the end, I
would wind up disliking whatever I could make because it was never exactly what I wanted. After a
break from the art-making process, and a change of scenery by attending University, I was able to wrap
my head around the idea that sometimes accuracy isn't everything.

One of the ways I was able to use imperfection successfully in my work was through animation.
After doing it the boring way to learn the basics, I could really stretch my wings and complete two
films I can really be proud of. By working on an animation without the pressure of it being completely
visually accurate or “perfect”, I could let the emotion and movement be the major strong point of the
film. If I had to bog myself down by making the animation completely technically animated,
comparable to Disney or Miyazaki, I would have been incredibly discouraged a long time ago.

Perfection is something that I will always strive for in my work but the definition of it has
changed. No longer do I use it as a comparison of my own work to other's, but rather as a never-
attainable goal that keeps me working and creating. I hold steadily to the phrase, “never become
complacent with your work. Once that happens, you will cease to create anything great.”

Emily's Statement

As a photographer I strive to tell a narrative in a physically compelling way. As a

video artist I use my foundation of photography and give the concept a new platform. I

am working this double-edged sword so that I may be able to choose the most

appropriate medium and create resonating art. With these two mediums, I can either

create a documented narrative or present a staged scene to achieve the appropriate

concept.

In my most current video art project, I use still photography to create a stop action

narrative in a staged environment. As my art grows within video, I would like to

experiment more by using a documentary approach to tell the narrative of an individual.

In both documentary and staged approaches, I enjoy using humans as my main

subject. Whether it is a model or a person off the street, I like to capture my human

subjects within their environments to create an evoking imagery. I believe that my work

in both photography and video ban be linked by my use of human subjects, the telling of

a narrative, and the formal characteristics I chose to emphasize, like composition,

consideration of color, and the use of space and depth.

My practice first requires a concept. Then I chose which approach, documentary

or staged, would be most beneficial to portraying that concept. From there I search for

the right human subject. If I am searching for a person to document, I research and talk to

people groups in order to find a person with a relative story to share. If I am looking for a

model to use I take into consideration whether I want them to look natural or staged, the

gender, and their personality in front of a camera.

I enjoy the relationship between photographer/videographer and subject,

especially the opportunity to get to know their life story, or in a staged situation, it is

intriguing to create the subject’s story. This is important to me because I believe that

the value of life is found in relationships. I would love to harness this value of life to

influence and inspire others. We are shaped by the relationships, big or small, positive or negative, in our lives. My practice with both mediums allows me to personally grow

through my relationship with the subject. It also enables the viewer to be influenced

by their relationship with the subject and concept. I am continually attempting to

successfully display one’s story or reveal one’s personality within a single image or

a small series of images, which will then enable me to better display it with video. It

excites me to join together what I love to practice and what I value most in life.

Through this connection between my subjects and I, I hope to create photography

and videography that evokes a response and leaves a lasting impression on the viewer.

This can be a difficult task, but when executed properly, it can result physically and

emotionally as something beautiful. This deep beauty captured within art is what drives

my practice.

Amany's Statement

I like expressing myself and my opinions using art because it allows me to use very attractive and interesting ways to prove and perform my point of view. I like to let people see the world through my eyes and think the same way my mind does. Art has a huge impact on kids and adults. I also like how much fun people gain when they enjoy a piece of art. Thus entertaining others and enlightening them is very important issues to me. Moreover, art allows my to use abnormal ways and helps me achieving the impossible that cannot be achieved in the real life.

Joshua's Statement

As an artist who takes pictures, I feel obligated to document experiences that
describe our temporal nature, known more commonly as life. As humanity reaches
new heights of exploration, of discovery, creation and invention—some may argue
that today humans are better than the day before. Like the prescribed recipe for
evolution, we are designed to operate within social norms, to produce a better,
smarter, and stronger generation—for the betterment of mankind. I am interested
in illustrating this cycle of preservation, our attempts to remain fossilized in an
environment which will always prevail in our erasure.

I am jealous of those who believe in the afterlife. For those who do not
believe, we recognize that the true reality is consciously unbearable. A trip to
blissful heaven is a clever disguise for an eternity of nothingness, but better yet
proves to be an elegant example of checks and balances derived by those in power.
It is this idea that gives me anxiety; it is this idea that keeps me awake at night. My
art serves as a catharsis—freeing me from my fear of the inevitable.

Through contemporary photographic processes, the photograph operates as
a document to the performances that are shown before the camera. Viewers are
perceived as unaware voyeuristic participants of the bizarre rituals shown. My
performances, often including the manipulation of the body surface, become the art
itself. The fear of suffocation, the tangibility of the material, or the feeling of the
execution of an unknown action is what I find most interesting. Through the
photographic window, viewers are invited into these intimate illustrations of the
sublime.

Molly's statement

When I make things, my first thought isn't whether or not it's artistic. My main goal is to make something I'm proud of and something that people will enjoy watching. I truly believe that the chief purpose of art is for people to enjoy it. When I make anything I tend to make it silly or funny and I actually have difficulty writing, drawing, or filming anything serious. There are enough serious things in life. Art should be fun. So I guess that's my statement: art should be fun and enjoyable, and that's always what I try to do.

Cory's Statement

 I create art because I enjoy the challenge.  I enjoy the challenge of finding an idea, and even if I don't particularly like or enjoy the ideas I develop, I enjoy molding and building these ideas into a final product that I can look at with satisfaction.  Art, for me, is the struggle to find satisfaction in your ideas.

Chris' Statement

I guess I like to 'see' things and therefore have always been a visual learner as they say. I think this is what drew me into photography as my medium of the art world. I don't think everything I create is art, but I’m not sure if it's what you create that is always art, maybe the art is in how you create it. Art is the ultimate problem-solving tool. When I look at how to photograph something. When i see photos that lack vision i wish that the photographer just asked what else they could have done to put some life in it. I think that is the art. Recognizing the life in something and what it took to create that life.

Matt's Statement

I create art because I like comparing my perspective with others’. I like hearing what people think of my visions and ideas. There are a thousand ways to look at something that inspires you. Go to a gallery or look at an animated video, there are renditions trees, faces, buildings, food, etc. – all of these things are seen differently by every artist. Not a single work shares an identical look. It amazes me how people can manipulate and interpret common things. Creating art an experiencing others’ art is extremely fun for me.

Ali's Statement

I am an artist because it is only in art that I am able to express the person I really am. I am able to free myself from the expectations and pressure from other people. I can open up my soul and release my true being without being judged for the person I am at heart.

a statement

Through my choreographic pursuits it is my deepest intention to reveal honest and
vulnerable expressions that display an expansive definition of technical skill. Working in this
manner allows me to contribute to the field of dance by continuing to embed the democratization
and inclusiveness into choreography and performance. I aspire to present work that awakens the
unconscious/subconscious body-mind and to use the language of the moving body to convey
what might not otherwise be articulated in words.

a statement

Consider it Vertovian of me, but I believe the purpose of art is to do nothing more than imitate or, perhaps, emulate life. This isn’t to say that a realist painting is any more valuable than an impressionist or even experimental work of art. When it comes down to it even works such as Matisse’s blue nudes attempt to display and tell us something about life.

However, it becomes rather conflicting because art will never actually be able to succeed in imitating life, but that’s part of why I continue to strive to do it. That failure teaches us, or at the very least me, about life more than any other great accomplishment could. We learn from our failures and not our successes. I wrote down a memory the other day that will possibly express all of what I’m trying to say more clearly than a strict statement could. It was a memory I had as a child when I felt like God.
      
My father showed me how to create “infinity” by placing two mirrors across from one another. Of course my mother ruined it by pointing out God created everything that let us have the mirrors at all. But for a little bit I felt like the creator of something. That’s when I started making art. That’s when I devoted my life to trying to feel like God again. And that’s when I chose to pursue a life of intentional failure.

a statement

I am not an artist.
An artist is an enthusiast, someone who creates something intentionally, whole-heartedly.
I create “art” for the sake of a grade, in a class, taught by an artist, surrounded by artists.
I do not make for a feeling, for thoughts or ideas, emotions, or to tell a story.
Just follow the syllabus.
This is not to say that I do not enjoy creating art, because I do.
Does this make me a fake?

I enjoy the process of bringing into existence a new form, a new shape or object.
I do so without an ultimate goal.
I create in the moment, without thought or emotion, no plan.
Only process.
Adding and attaching.
Subtracting and erasing.
Working.
Touching, feeling, breathing.
Moving.
I care only for aesthetic.
Does this make me superficial?

Only skin deep.
My work has texture, pores or facets if you will.
Caves and mountains and valleys and boulders.
This probably stems from being raised in nature.
It is clean and healthy.
Trees and fresh air.
The smell of wood.
Blisters from working the land.
Working the material.

Always tidy, neat, and very particular.
Like my life.
Never messy.
Life is messy.
It is beauty.

It is large and voluminous.
It is bright and obnoxious.
Or white as snow.
It is intriguing to the viewer.
It is secretive and revealing, at the same time.
Yet, has no meaning.

Maybe that means something.

My creations are never gory.
Never dark.
Far from depressing or sad.
Maybe a little dramatic.
Light-hearted and carefree.
Simple objects.
Clean lines.
Obsessive compulsive.
It is maddening.

I am creative.
But.
I do not want to be an artist.
I want to be surrounded by artists.
Surrounded by creative minds.

a statement

One could imagine that the shapes on this page can align minds.

a statement

I am an artist to evoke emotion in others and to share beauty with those who cannot find it in their everyday life.

a statement

Art for me is a genuine chance for me to be me. I love to see other people’s art just as much as
creating it because, if you know the artist has a reputation for being honest, you get an inside
look at their deepest feelings and thoughts. I do video for my profession, but it is i for a major
fashion company and there is not much opportunity to be creative. Where I am always open to
show my creativity is in my music. When I am finished composing something new, weather I
create something in relation to my mood at the time, or interpreting a story, I know that the time
and hours that I have dedicated to that piece is the most genuine time of my life that I spent
well.

-Drew Love

a statement

I am a visual communication designer. I chose to go in this direction because I like beeing creative. I think beeing a designer gives you something back, other jobs can´t do in this way, e.g. to put effort in a special work and create something new and see the endproduct and especially if the person I made it for is really happy with it, makes me happy and I know why I work for it so hard.

I try to orientate more in the digital direction learning to work with film, animation, movies, projections and touchscreens, so more the digital media.

 

For me this is important, I think the digital media is our future, like touchphones, laptops and so on are already. You can spread digital media much wider than a printed Object like a flyer or a business card. 

I love watching film and I love working on it, it´s my passion. I like the media film so much, because everyone can understand motion pictures it´s a worldwide thing and it connects people in different ways. If it´s only that they have the same interests in film or its a topic they can connect with... I want to create things like that, media where people can indentiify with and talk about.

a statement

Currently I am inspired by the limitations of the human ear’s ability to filter and
decipher content when it is overloaded with many audible sources simultaneously. When
we have too much discernible information that needs to be translated at once, momentary
confusion is created. We become unable to distinguish the origins and definitions of sound
as they begin to overlap and pile up. Could you detect your friend’s voice through the
soundtrack of 5000 commuting people in a subway station during rush hour? Amid any
auditory chaos we begin to listen for something familiar so that we can focus on, and find
relief in, the recognizable, like sailors searching for a lighthouse from the deck of a
battered ship lost in a stormy sea.

This year I began to record, edit, and mix, languages and sounds into abstract
compositions. This kind of sound composition is known as musique concrète. Musique
concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilizes acousmatic sound as a
compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the sounds derived
from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"
(melody, harmony, rhythm, meter, and so on). While making this work, I have been
thinking about isolation, transparency, eavesdropping, observation, and the overall
misinterpretation of familiar sounds. I have become interested in removing definitions from
the words, and the origins from the sounds, that I use to compose these sound pieces. My
intent is to exhibit an auditory emotion that exists within the phenomena of audible chaos.
These “sound environments” are a result of simultaneously overlapping multiple languages
and sounds to create momentary confusion when listened to. I hope to entice listeners into
attempting to translate the unidentifiable. I want them to find a connection to the emotional
content that exists beyond the literal definition and identity of the words and sounds they
are hearing.

Some of this work exists within the space of handmade clear glass capsules that
need to be investigated by using a stethoscope. These compositions are intended to be
listened to one person at a time, in order to simulate the isolation of thoughts inside one’s
head and give each viewer an uninterrupted chance to connect with each work. I make the
physical forms in clear glass because the material is unassuming, transparent, and has an
honest quality about it. What you see is what you get, or so you think. Most of the time,
sound cannot be physically seen, is relatively invisible, and is usually only recognized by
the vibration of our eardrums. The clear glass mimics the invisible/transparent quality of
sound that you cannot see, but it also acts as an window or separator, which I intend as a
way to physically replicate what I call “immediate vicinity isolation bubbles” or IVIBs: those
zones of imaginary privacy that seem to surround people as they nonchalantly talk about
their private concerns in public while using cellular phones. The glass physically separates
each of the works interior audio narratives from each other, thereby allowing each
composition of musique concrète to coexist in the same exhibition space without detracting
from one another. Utilizing this material allows me to build a transparent environment that
can diminish, or erase, the audible from the viewer without isolating their visual
perspective, thus creating the false sense of privacy that one has inside a phone booth. An
exchange of private dialogues take place and where every passerby is witness to the event
of that conversation even if they cannot hear it. I am giving the audience permission to
penetrate this separating layer and granting them access to a private interior where they
can eavesdrop, one person at a time, and indulge a momentary fascination.

Robert Lewis

a statement

What do I believe art is? If someone were to ask Anthony, "Anthony, what is art?" I wouldn't do a fine job of telling you; I could show you though. To me art evokes response, emotion, and thought. A broad definition I know, but I mean, what is art? It's subjective isn't it? It sure seems that way when one skims over the history of art in the public realm since the dawn of culture. Is it practical? Is it useful? Is it offensive? Is it just awful? Is it not art? Art is what I make of it. Out of the hum drum of everyday life, or out of the inner workings of my own mind. Art is in the mind. My Art and my concepts of art are mine alone.

a statement

As an artist who takes pictures, I feel obligated to document experiences that
describe our temporal nature, known more commonly as life. As humanity reaches
new heights of exploration, of discovery, creation and invention—some may argue
that today humans are better than the day before. Like the prescribed recipe for
evolution, we are designed to operate within social norms, to produce a better,
smarter, and stronger generation—for the betterment of mankind. I am interested in
illustrating this cycle of preservation, our attempts to remain fossilized in an
environment which will always prevail in our erasure.

I am jealous of those who believe in the afterlife. For those who do not
believe, we recognize that the true reality is consciously unbearable. A trip to
blissful heaven is a clever disguise for an eternity of nothingness, but better yet
proves to be an elegant example of checks and balances derived by those in power.
It is this idea that gives me anxiety; it is this idea that keeps me awake at night. My art serves as a catharsis—freeing me from my fear of the inevitable.

Through contemporary photographic processes, the photograph operates as
a document to the performances that are shown before the camera. Viewers are
perceived as unaware voyeuristic participants of the bizarre rituals shown. My
performances, often including the manipulation of the body surface, become the art
itself. The fear of suffocation, the tangibility of the material, or the feeling of the execution of an unknown action is what I find most interesting. Through the
photographic window, viewers are invited into these intimate illustrations of the
sublime.

a statement

I am an artist because it makes me feel alive. As cliché of a statement that may sound, it is one of the few things I do that make me feel that way. To be able to take thoughts and ideas in my head and put them into the world not only gives me a fantastic sense of accomplishment, but it enables me to express things I could not do in any other form. Working on movies in particular, be it shooting or editing, is the one activity where literally hours can feel like seconds. It’s something that takes me away from myself, and immerses me entirely.

a statement

When it comes to creating art, I don't even see myself as an artist (at least not in the traditional sense anyway). I'm more of an observer than an artist. It isn't the necessary action of making or creating anything, it's more the reflection and reiteration of what I observe. So I look more to the observing than the actual 'creation' of material.

a statement

“The idea hovered and shimmered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in case it burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.” – Phillip Pullman, The Golden Compass

The way I am working now is completely new and foreign to me. It is vague, mysterious, sub-lingual, and subconscious. I am trusting my curiosity, my intrigue, my fascination as never before. This is a radical shift for me: I have long defined myself as a planner who deliberately and consciously makes artwork that responds directly to an issue or concept. But in the interest of growing beyond the known, I have let go to see what happens when I follow my impulses and experiment freely without regard to outcome. What I am discovering is that there is more here than I could have imagined. I have become a jealous lover to this way of working, bristling at any voice or situation that might deny me it. I strive to turn this flickering infatuation into something strong, deep and lasting, permanently transforming my personhood and practice by integrating itself harmoniously with my more philosophical and topical intentions. Until then, I must hold it gently, unconditionally, and often.

a statement

My hope is that through my art people will be able to understand what I was thinking about, what I was feeling while making the piece. I enjoy creating things and making visuals. Being able to express myself through the act of making a piece is very fulfilling. The first priority is whether or not I'm happy with the final piece, but if the audience enjoys it and understands it as well, it's an added plus.

a statement

What I want my work to achieve as art is a hard question for me to answer because I can not be completely sure the answer of the question what is art. Art to some may not be art to others so what to make my work achieve what I want is not necessarily making it art but putting my mind down in video or film.

I just want my work to be remembered, not necessarily by all but at least by some and most of all by me. I want to look back and see my ideas unfold in front of me and be glad that now anyone can see a somewhat organized glimpse into my mind.

Maybe the work will not be art to some or even most but to me it will be a masterpiece, my masterpiece that will live on forever at least in my mind and hopefully in the minds of some others.