Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan is an amazing and inspiring sculptor. His work has been described as humorous, provocative, disrespectful, tragic, hyperrealistic, and more!

Here is a link to a video of his work being installed at the Guggenheim in New York.
This museum was recently discussed in my modern art history class. Many artists dislike installing their work here because they feel that their art competes with the architecture itself and it is a difficult design for display. Watch the video to see how Cattelan overcomes this obstacle on a grand scale!

David Molesky

While on the topic of water paintings, I must include the work of David Molesky.

He's done a series of water paintings that are very realistic and yet he includes a lot of color.

In some of his paintings it seems as though the water is appearing figural or at least personifying in some way. This is just an image of water, nothing else, and yet it is extremely energetic and alluring.

David Hockney

Ok first of all, I love David Hockney's website and how you have to agree to not copyright any of his images prior to entering the site. All artist's should have that feature. 

Secondly, his work is great. He is yet another artist who exhibits a true and well warranted appreciation for nature and color. It is evident through his portfolio that he has done several series of subjects in his work, which is a great way to enhance your skills and understanding of the subject matter. Furthermore, he has experimented with various forms of art media and artistic expression, including stage design. I too try to dabble with series in my work and I am not yet limiting myself to one medium. 

"A Bigger Splash" 1967 acrylic on canvas

I chose to include this image because the water relates to my own work, but his other pieces are worth looking at!

John Stoney

I came across sculptor John Stoney when I was researching the art educators at the University of Texas. Among their sculpture professors, I was especially drawn to his work. Much of it seems to be about animals and the environment, but with a very unique twist that is very much his own.

This sculpture is made from plastic and aluminum; entitled "You Can't Go Home Again." I love the way he sculpted the waterfall, which is an element of nature that I'm particularly interested in. Talk about natural beauty. The detail of this work shown below changes everything about this beautiful piece though and further relates to my own work:

This fallen whale creates a narrative and thus makes this piece powerful and emotional.

Claes Oldenburg

I've been studying Swedish sculptor Claes Oldenburg in my modern art history class recently. He's famous for his large scale, humorous sculptures like those shown below:

This images are so straight forward, but when shown publicly at this enormous scale they become such a statement! I wonder what one of my own sculptures would say if it were done at this scale and placed in a public venue? 

This is the first image that I ever saw of Oldenburg's and I have loved him ever since. Here he is created an environment with his sculptures, which is exactly what I wish to do with my various sea creatures. He sets each individual art piece behind glass and they are transformed into a pseudo bakery. Whereas my sculptures behind glass will be transformed into a pseudo aquarium.

Red Swing Project

Another organization that I learned about through E.A.S.T. is the Red Swing Project. This project is designed to "inspire playfulness around the world" by placing red swings in random locations. It would be hard to walk by one without jumping on for a swing. 

Their website provides information on how to get involved by hanging up your own swing or donating materials. It's simple and straight forward; I love the concept.

This particular swing is located in Chicago. While walking through East Austin during the studio tours I noticed a couple swings hanging around town, one of which was being heavily used by both children and adults. Sucess.

Austin Creative Reuse

I went to E.A.S.T. (East Austin Studio Tour) a few weeks ago and found a lot of inspiring artists and ideas. Among these includes Austin Creative Reuse, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conservation and creativity based on the reuse of materials, basically.

I love the idea. This organization seems to be fairly new, as they are in need of much help still. I think most artists are inclined to conserve and do well for our environment, so I can certainly see this organization taking off quickly.

How we can easily help:

• Donate items like art supplies, materials, buttons, toilet paper rolls, etc. etc. 
• Join their volunteer mailing list

Ray Troll

Another friend recently introduced me to the Alaskan "fin artist" Ray Troll. He appeared on the Discovery Channel during Shark Week, one of my personal favorite weeks of the year, exhibiting his artwork that all shares a common sea theme. My friend Alex saw this program and informed me of his shark art, because I am currently sculpting a great white shark. However, after looking at his website, I am drawn to his sculptures of Alaskan fish that he collaboratively created with sculptor Gary Staab.

The subject matter and 3 dimensionality obviously relate to my work. The fact that these fish are a part of an environment of fishes relates to my senior show proposal, and yet each of these animals stand alone as individual pieces of art. Furthermore, as can be seen by the two fish here, it seems as though Ray and Gary have created individual personalities within each fish. This is a crucial element of my own creatures.

"The Night Megalodon Came to Call" pen, ink, watercolor, 2000

I love the humor!

Marta Penter

A friend recently introduced me to Brazilian artist Marta Penter. She does some amazing photo-realistic paintings of women, with her focus on the lower half of the body. I too have an interest in painting legs and feet because they are so curvy and intricate. I also enjoy foreshortened perspectives of figure drawing, in which she has an obvious interest. Unlike myself, Marta paints in predominantly black and white and I have to admit that I love the results. I would be less successful in black and white however because I'm not a photo-realistic painter like Marta. Among her many series, Marta painted subjects on the beach, which was why she was initially recommended to me.

Somos uma somos duas somos três, 2008

Somos jeans sedas e veludos, 2008

Nude Painting

Here are some pictures of my latest painting. I worked from a model and I really love the composition, which was in part influenced by Jenny Saville.
I was better this time about taking progress report pictures:

                                    

                    

My Next Painting

Ideas for my next painting:

This image came from a desktop wallpaper

I like the positioning of this particular octopus. Disregard the background.

I'll combine this octopus with an Eric Fischl style beach scene. He'll probably be attacking the hott girl in a bikini, so then it will be a sex statement since octopuses have a lot of sexual connotations. 

click here for image info

Another idea for a painting entitled "Killer Whale" will be a play on words, inspired by Robert Deyber. This whale will be carrying guns, knives, weapons of all sorts... get it? Killer whale. It would also be a animal rights statement against the whaling industry. Save the whales! 

more ideas to come...

Eric Fischl

Eric Fischl seems to have experimented with a very wide array of subjects and composition, as well as medium. I too intend to experiment with these, but for now I'm still on my beach kick, which fortunately Fischl has dabbled with as well. And they are truly amazing!

"Untitled (Brice in Pink Shirt)" 2006

This is a perfect combination of beach imagery and figural imagery, both of which I have been focusing on lately. The way these figures are arranged appears so natural, as if this could be a photograph. It captures everyday activity on the beach. None of these figures are idealized nor is anyone being attacked by a shark or viciously sun burnt (though I do love those compositions). It's so natural, so honest. 

"Beach Scene with Pink Hat" 2006

Similar thing going on here. I love it, but if I were doing this I might vary up the sizes, shapes and skin tones of the people shown. They're all looking a bit too athletic and Caucasian for me. But the composition is great! Very busy, and again very natural.

Conrad Ruiz

Conrad Ruiz is another artist who has done some amazing Great White Shark imagery. His is done in water color and is much less polished than Aramis Gutierrez's. I particularly like the chaos in the brushstroke and wide range of color use. There is so much energy here. I would like to do something similar, but perhaps further expand the sense of fear here.
Unfortunately I cannot upload an image of his shark entitled "Rough Riders."

Aramis Gutierrez

Another contemporary American painter Aramis Gutierrez does some remarkable work! I'm really fascinated by all of his paintings, which include figural paintings, water paintings, bright color use, contemporary subject matter. All of which are subjects that I'm very interested in my own work.

 "Brooke Shields" 2010

I love the combination of the title and the focus of the body. The viewer would likely not associate this image with the modern actress Brooke Shields if it weren't for the undeniable title. There is not much detail here; it is especially lacking in the background and in her shirt. The panties, for me, are especially reminiscent of contemporary culture and they are the focus of the image.

"Brief Return of the Megaladon" 2006

Something about the Great White Shark is fascinating to me. I too have played with several images of the shark in printmaking and sculpture. Gutierrez's rendition is so different from mine, but it still emphasizes the strength, force and vicious mouth of the animal. I really enjoy this image and will likely play with the same subject again soon.

"Floridian" 2005

"Lazy Sunbather" 2007

Robert Deyber

Robert Deyber is a comtemporary American artist whose paintings I'm in love with! Some are a play on words, some are a play on images, but all of them make me smile.
I recently fell in love with early 20th century surrealist Rene Magritte; after looking at many of Deyber's paintings I can see a great connection here. Both artists force the viewer to disassociate the form with its literal meaning. It's genius.

Here's an example of a play on words, entitled "Reign Deer"

In "Pulling Hare," Deyber shows the historical sculpture "Winged Victory of Samothrace" (which now stands beside the Mona Lisa in the Louvre) being drug on a dolly by a hare. You could go several places with the meaning here, but there's no doubting the art historical humor. 

"Diversity, Ethnicity and Minority Status in China"

I recently went to a presentation given by artist Tulu Bayar concerning a minority group in Northern China, the Uyghurs. Tulu is a photographer and a professor of art at Bucknell University. She visited the Uyghur region of China during the riots and presented her personal experiences with the aid of some of her own photographs and videos, which I particularly enjoyed.

She began the presentation with some basic facts and information about the region. This started out slowly, but I believe that information was necessary as most people in the auditorium weren’t familiar with the area, myself included. For example, China has a population of 1.3 billion people, but her visit/anthropological study focused on the autonomous regions like Xinjiang, where the Uygher people are located. Of the Xinjiang region, 40% of the population is Chinese but 60% is minorities.

After this information was given, she got into some much more exciting stuff and this is where she showed us her beautiful photographs. There were also a couple videos taken with a flip camera, one of which took us through both the old and new cities of Kashgar.

I was most intrigued to hear about her communication issues while there. She was only able to communicate with her husband through a friend who lived in Beijing. This was in order to not promote organizational activities during the riots. Regarding the riots, I was shocked to hear that Beijing news was treating the issue with little significance. Tulu first heard of the riots from her husband, who was in America, while she was in Beijing! Other communication issues included her communication with the Uyghur people, but she was able to use her native Turkish language.

The topic of religion came up several times. She interviewed a young man who was an English major but when the topic of religion came up he was very hesitant to admit that he attended mosque. Furthermore, if an individual there works for the government it is illegal to speak about religion with your own children or to own religious publications. I can’t imagine this being a government instituted law.  

Overall, I was pleased with her presentation especially because I had no knowledge of the region beforehand. When speaking with others who attended, however, I did hear some mixed reviews about her credibility and her pace. It’s important to understand that she is an artist and this was an anthropological study that she undoubtedly used for inspiration, not a scientific research trip.  

My 5 Year Plan

My tentative 5 year plan is as follows:

2011: finish artist packet, finish website, make art for senior show
2012: Senior show, graduate with B.A. in Art
2012-13: Get full time job in Austin area, while still working on art and researching the perfect grad schools; Apply to grad school, get accepted and quit said job (I guess I'll have to delete this post once I find that temporary job. ha.)
2013-2016: Go to Graduate school somewhere outside of Texas for my M.F.A. in Painting, Sculpture, or some other art related study. I may graduate in 2 years, but I'll allow for 3 since I will be attending with only a B.A. and I hear it's harder to complete an M.F.A. without a B.F.A. We'll see...

Alternate plans include, but are not limited to:
1) Marrying Mr. Rich and Perfect & staying at home in the mansion all day making nothing but art
2) Being discovered and having my art career fall into my lap somehow
3) Falling in love with the aforementioned "temporary" job and staying in Austin forever

Artist Statement

My artist statement is very rough right now, but here it is:

     My work, both in paint and sculpture, tends to depict nautical subject matter. This is, in part, due to my personal love for the beach and the great memories that I associate with it. I feel that most viewers can relate to this sense of nostalgia towards the beach, and I hope they find comfort in my work. I want my viewer to experience nothing but positive emotions while looking at my art, as that is what I experience while producing it. There is too much negativity portrayed through art and the media these days. I want to create an escape from this. I want to remind people that there is still much beauty in the world around us, whether it is the simple beauty of a straw hat or the mysterious unknown of the ocean. 

     In paint, I am no stranger to color and this is fully intentional. In addition to my subject matter, I feel that my heavy use of color will evoke blissful, joyous emotions. I try to include a wide array of hues and values from all over the color chart to produce a more energetic composition. 

     In sculpture, I prefer to sculpt creatures that are very textural. In doing this, I find that my viewer usually wants to touch my pieces to get better, and more literal, feel for the piece of art. I love evoking this sense of curiosity. I want nothing more than to lure my audience with bright colors, creative compositions and subject matter. 

My Biography

            Kelsey was born in Austin, Texas, where she currently resides. In addition to growing up in a city that values art, Kelsey came from a family of artists, so she had much exposure to the art world. She has worked at her family’s jewelry store shadowing her father, a jeweler and artist, for the past four years, which has fueled her interest in custom design, three dimensionality and sculpture.  She currently attends St. Edward’s University where she will graduate with a BA in Art in May of 2012. Her main focus right now is ceramic sculpture, though she is also very interested in oil painting and pastel drawing

Points of Balance

     I have a senior art exhibition coming up in early May of 2012, entitled Points of Balance. I've been working on my pieces for this show already, so I may as well share my proposal:
     First of all, the location of my pieces will be inside a glass case right outside the St. Edward's art gallery. I'll put in three shelves on which I'll display various sea themed sculptures. For now, I think each of the three shelves will be divided according to the levels of the ocean. Like, the top shelf will be the surface where I'll have some suspended sea gulls, a great white shark plunging out of the water, etc. The middle shelf will be where all of the normal critters are found, like an octopus, etc. And the bottom shelf, my favorite, will be home to the deep dark ocean floor dwellers like an angler fish.
     The purpose here, and with all of my art, is to evoke excitement from my audience. I don't want to depress anyone with this piece, and I don't see how I could... unless maybe a shark attack victim was to view my work, in which case I understand. Furthermore, the ocean has always been a mysterious and wonderful place for me. So this piece will have a lot to do with nostalgia, though I'm still in the process of putting all this into (better) words for my artists statement, which will be posted here when I finish.
     I'm really excited about this piece, but I have tons to do yet. I only have four sculptures made (octopus, angler fish, school of fish, and great white shark), but I want around 10. Of those four though, only two are painted. I also want to experiment with light in the bottom dwelling creatures, so I'll need help there. And lastly, I need to paint backdrops on canvas for each of the three levels/shelves. Wow.

Acrylic on Terra Cotta Clay, 2011

Self-Portrait

Hokay so, here's my "finished" self-portrait! I'm really pleased with it, but I'm sure I'll go back and rework it one day. For now though, I might go crazy if I keep looking at it. There's something very introspective about working on a self-portrait, more so than any other subject matter. 

I used a photo as a reference to complete this. As you can see below, I have a skewed vision of myself when I work with only a mirror. This self-portrait was done a week prior to the painting above. Maybe the hair resembles mine? Everything else belongs to another person. 

Below is an image of the progress of this painting. I really struggled with the eyes at first, it's amazing what those small details, like shadow, can do. 

 

I'm working on a self-portrait right now. I will post a picture when I'm finished. In doing this I realize how interested in color I am--especially unnatural colors like violets.
So then, here's a little inspiration from a contemporary British painter:

Jenny Saville's unnatural color use and painterly quality is something that I'd like to mimic. This painting is entitled The Transvestite, which is hard not to love. The emphasis on her anatomy is crucial. Furthermore, I would like to work with a curvier model in some of my next figure paintings/drawings.

Another from Jenny Saville entitled #4, from the Closed Contact series. This is such a unique figural representation! Yet it is a natural rendering; we can easily recognize what is happening to her body here. More than her body though I am attracted to this woman's face. I would love to use glass against models' faces to create really expressive paintings. However, I would use brighter and more unnatural colors.

Boo

I'm such a halloween nut. I love dressing up; I love scaring people; I love candy.

So, today I went halloween decor shopping with the intention of turning my apartment into the house of torment. While at some store I found a canvas with typical pumpkins and ghosts artificially painted on top and I got another artistic vision.    (!!!)
Basically, I want to paint and sculpt my own decorations for each of the best holidays (halloween, Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, etc). I'm sick of the commercial symbols for these awesome holidays so I would make some really unique interpretations.

I decided to look online and I came across www.halloweenartists.com, where I fell in love with Ron Byrum and Karen Harper. These artists have made a career based solely on halloween art. Now, I'm really just looking to save a little $$ on halloween decor, but how cool are these people right?

by Karen Harper

A World of Possibilities

One of the greatest obstacles that a young artist like myself faces is getting started. How do I market myself? Where do I show my work? Etc? It's overwhelming and yet very limiting. And for someone like myself, who sits and waits for things to fall on my lap, it's especially stressful.

I'm inspired by artists such as J.S.G. Boggs, who makes art in the form of money and then purchases items with his own currency. That takes some serious balls because, as you can imagine, he's been in trouble with the law. I would love to witness one of these transactions to see how Boggs barters this art to an unknowing vendor. He's obviously very good at promoting himself and art in general.

Another inspiring artist is Navin Rawanchaikul, who turned his taxi cab into an art gallery. In doing this he is forcing people from all walks of life to acknowledge art.

Those are two very different and yet very successful approaches to marketing your work. I hope that one day I'll be as creative. For now, however, I'll probably stick to traditional venues like the following:

• Doyle Coffee Shop at St. Edward's University---where photos of my sculptures will be shown in the near future!
• The Starbucks Coffee Shop in Bee Cave, Texas-- conveniently located next door to my family's business
• Segner's Jewelers---conveniently owned by my family ;)
• Sophie's Garden Hair Salon--In my home town, where my best friend is employed
• Magnolia Cafe---I have no official connections here, but I'm a huge fan of their queso

Here Goes Nothing!

Well let's see... As mentioned, I'm graduating with a BA in Art soon, 8 months to be exact. As a natural worry wart I'm nervous, to say the least. So my goal within this blog is to organize my options, document any new discoveries, and brainstorm some potentially awesome ideas for future projects. Ultimately, I hope that my readers (who amount to a whopping 0) find some inspiration throughout my struggles and if anyone does, I want to hear about it! Furthermore, I hope to gain a little optimism and sanity through the process :)

I do feel that I'm in need of a few disclaimers before I get started though:

• First and foremost, I am not tech-saavy. I apologize that my background image tiles in a distracting manner at the bottom. It makes my skin crawl a bit. 
• Nor is writing my forte. Please pardon grammar mistakes. I used to think that I'd be the next Shel Silverstein but my TAKS writing tests consistently proved otherwise. So I up'ed the ante and decided to become the next Van Gogh instead.

So here goes nothing!