"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