Artist that Draw due 3-30-12

Trenton Doyle Hancock, Imported but Beautiful, 2010. Screen print, collage, stencil shaped paper pulp, 91″ x 126″ x 3″. All images © Trenton Doyle Hancock

Countless battles have been fought between good and evil, but none so vivid as the animated icons in the work of Houston-based artist Trenton Doyle Hancock. In Hancock’s ongoing narrative, good is represented by what the artist refers to as “Mounds”  vibrant and colorful symbols, while the evil “Vegans” are confined to a black and white underground world. This power play comes to life in Hancock’s painting, collage, sculpture, and performance, but most recently through traditional paper and print making techniques that the artist experimented with last year during a month-long residency at Singapore Tyler Print Institute. A sampling of this monumental undertaking titled A Day Ahead, A Head A Day was on view over the weekend at the Pulse Contemporary Art Fair, seen for the first time in America. To me his power struggle with good and evil with his “mounds” and “vegans” defines the painting, collage and sculptures. his materials that fuels his passion are the stencil shaped paper pulp that helps him to print make his visions.

EXTRA CREDIT towards mitterm 10pts

Fotofest of Houston  is a model on so many levels, when I walked into the exhibitions I noticed that  the work is always high quality, multicultural, international, and provocative; the curatorial themes are fresh, thoughtful, and relevant; the exhibitions are everywhere because they collaborate with everyone, and those partnerships extend across decades because they are generous and professional; they honor the artist - by design, every participating artist is elevated professionally through exposure to curators, collectors, and new audiences, along rich history behind the meaning of each photo; audience members are enriched and educated by the exhibitions and programs. I chose Illusions by Tatiana Antonuk who is one of the young artists of the 21^st century, who describes her piece of art work as Reality, which is colorless with its grey sky, grey buildings, grey outerwear on the passersby. I believe that the
Events that happen very seldom are neutral because reality is colorless in an artist’s eyes. They are neither good nor bad, they have no color. Major part of life passes in a dream. Falling into a reverie doesn’t always mean wasting the time though>>. Inexplicable representations that would never appear in a real world may be born in a dreamland. Those bright, unearthly, magnetic illusions attract, inspire, seduce and reject. They make up for lack of impressions with themselves and become so tangible that you may feel a temptation to stay with them forever. This series is about it. It is how the person with a help of bright colors, warm tones and symbolic objects tries to transfigure his cold and shabby everyday live, every time deeper and deeper plunging into illusions and more and more losing touch with the reality.

Artists That Draw (blog #6 Due 3/30)

or this week's blog home work I would like you to do some quick research on an artist from the following list (choose 1)

Julie Merehtu

SUH SE-OK

Trenton Doyle Hanckock

R. Crumb

Once you have familiarized yourself with their work, choose one piece to discuss in your post (it will be helpful to upload an image to your post) Focus on how the medium of drawing is important to the artist's work and how it functions in helping the artist convey their meaning. Remember to prove all of your claims with physical descriptions of the work.

Virtual Museum Visit

I found the website for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to be easy to navigate.  The galleries and collections of the museum were easy to find and browse.  I liked the tools that are included which allow for narrowing by time period, artist, materials, medium, etc.  The online listings for the art that the museum is not currently showing were also good, because even if I were able to actually go to the museum I would not be able to see these pieces.  I could easily spend a few hours browsing art on their website, because I quickly found many things that interested me.  I did not expect the museum to have a collection of medieval arms and armor, as I am used to seeing those at history museums instead of an art museum.  This collection immediately got my attention because of my interest in medieval times, and 30 minutes had gone by before I knew it. I was able to learn more about things that I am interested in, and will be spending more time browsing the collections later.