New Understandings

Just recently this week i presented a few of my works to my Language and Culture Anthropology class. I realized my professor Dr. Lisa Gezon wanted to place me in a situation that would further back up my understanding of my current research paper. After studying abroad and becoming exposed to the Parisian Jazz clubs i wondered why English was used as a Language of performance. My paper would be why English was validated as a language of performance regardless of the negative ideologies of it. The part that i was stuck on was the relationship between competence and performance. In order to be a competent singer there has to be concrete understanding of the language used, and performance is using that language in a action. The audience is the sole motivator for competent use because they critique the performance and determine if the performer was a competent communicator. Then i started to think if the responsibility is all on the performer but the judgement call is made by the audience ,why shouldn't the audience be responsible for competence in performance. What if they don't know or understand the performance though they chose to be there, and made the wrong call?

Which was my situation when presenting to the anthropology class although ,their mind was open to understanding which encouraged me greatly. I realized that from creating art to talking about it artists go through a linguistic code-switching, using terms relevant to the audience at the time. Between this transfer meaning gets lost , interpretations are interjected and the piece takes on something new. I guess what I'm wondering is if artists are competent in the language of art? or interpretation or broad understanding ? of language and worlds outside of our own?

Love her description of music and how she layers the sounds and influences into her music, similar to the way i want to create my patterns. Well actually her description is a description of her pattern of creation and relevance. I want to make patterns apparent in every faction of life, because it creates and initiates creation.I additionally like how it contribution to the composition as a whole is place and chosen for the music based on its interaction with its other parts.

Evolution of Thought

These are my artist statements from the past year speaking on my process with my current works. I found it interesting how idea of creation and my thoughts my works have evolved and changed .Yet there speaking on the same thing a personal growth of self and perspective. The first statement was my first the last my last.

1

 

I use art to explore the various factions of identity and the corroborative perspectives communicated through many cultural personas. Creating a story for each piece I depict the opposing ideologies of the assumed and actual identity of self, within the social context and a given environment. The conflicts dealing with identity are self-afflicted in order to resolve or understand the unconscious and conscious plights occurring with the development of an identity. I challenge myself to identify not with a persona created from stereotypes or self-denial, but one of an assimilated culture. A culture of experiences, memories, life lessons, and people that are influential to the socialization process. I examine culture and its meaning focusing less on racial and class identity and more on the personal adaptations to life.  Experimenting with, culturally foreign contexts and adapting them to self, creating a parallel of understanding. Creating pieces with the intent to reveal some truth not only to myself, but to the audience. The pieces are reflective of a reserved elusive perspective with a caution of divulging too much. The pieces are reworked until a resolution Is reached: an acceptance of self not only within my community, but within what I've created. I assert my perspective but in respect to the evasive views of my identity, coming to the realization that I am defined by being undefined.
I'm using these pieces to document the beginning of my growth into the articulation of my perspective. Including my socialization and the components of my thought process reflecting all, but assuming nothing. Abiding by an analytical nature, I take note to emotions and subjects that I've suppressed as issues, and acknowledge that I am plagued by them, although I deny them power. During this process I grow into acceptance of my vulnerability and us the works as resolutions to my conflicts. Allowing my work to grow to represent accurate symbols of my past and a benchmark to my growth. 

2

I use art to explore the various factions of identity and the corroborative perspectives communicated through many cultural personas. Creating a story for each piece I depict the opposing ideologies of the assumed and actual identity of self, within the social context and a given environment. The conflicts dealing with identity are self-afflicted in order to resolve or understand the unconscious and conscious plights occurring with the development of an identity. I challenge myself to identify not with a persona created from stereotypes or self-denial, but one of an assimilated culture. A culture of experiences, memories, life lessons, and people that are influential to the socialization process. I examine culture and its meaning focusing less on racial and class identity and more on the personal adaptations to life.  Experimenting with, culturally foreign contexts and adapting them to self, creating a parallel of understanding. Creating pieces with the intent to reveal some truth not only to myself, but to the audience. The pieces are reflective of a reserved elusive perspective with a caution of divulging too much. The pieces are reworked until a resolution Is reached: an acceptance of self not only within my community, but within what I've created. I assert my perspective but in respect to the evasive views of my identity, coming to the realization that I am defined by being undefined.

I'm using these pieces to document the beginning of my growth into the articulation of my perspective. Including my socialization and the components of my thought process reflecting all, but assuming nothing. Abiding by an analytical nature, I take note to emotions and subjects that I've suppressed as issues, and acknowledge that I am plagued by them, although I deny them power. During this process I grow into acceptance of my vulnerability and us the works as resolutions to my conflicts. Allowing my work to grow to represent accurate symbols of my past and a benchmark to my growth.

3

Through art I create a realm of understanding; exploring the relationships between self and environment, by defining contributors and developers of my perspective. By examining my own socialization process, stemming from an assimilated culture of: experiences, memories, life lessons, and people: I begin to understand my identity as an artist. Through utilizing various mediums and processing to produce art of the same theme, 1 find that similar thoughts can be articulated differently. I mentally process through my art to find relevancy in common and foreign themes and contexts, using myself and those within my immediate community as a frame of reference.  Through my examination of culture and its contextual meaning, I focus less on racial and class identity and directly on the personal adaptations to life, creating a parallel of cultural understanding. My works document emotions and subjects that I’ve suppressed as issues, as well as cross references to Christian, psychological, and afro-centric themes. Themes that represent both an issue and solution to my development, and are ambiguously depicted to reflect my abiding nature to acknowledge all, but assume nothing. During this process I’ve grown into acceptance of my vulnerability and us the works as visual acknowledgements and resolutions to my conflicts of identity and ideals. Allowing the development of my art and perspective to stand as a symbol of my past and a benchmark to my growth .

Just discovered him in class it was really exciting to me how he altered the regular square shape of a canvas and made forms through which he could build from to make new forms . Quite astonishing.

Ambiguoity

Being known is seen is a factor of being powerful right? I tend to think there is power in being unidentifiable. Assumed associations can be avoided , associations I believe is the downfall of individualistic thought. Present an opinion and audiences want to allocate imagery and ideals that had no association with the opinion at all. If you are unidentified there are no misconceptions ( i think of misconceptions as opinions that are stated as fact) of concept just opinions and naturally occurring ideas : based on the given circumstances and background provided. I nurture this type of thinking... which is why i relish the disjunction of abstract pieces. That "give you alot but at the same time nothing at all" (factors i find in the work of for instant... Basquiat) story telling is way more thought provoking  then giving a gleaning of concept disguised in a very clear narrative. The directive of the artist wont mean anything if the audience already has a preconceived notion of the perspective. So what do i do to disguise the voice behind the message? I neutralize it with patterns... culturally relevant ones and not the kind mass associated with "races" or "class" but individually based patterns constructed of the subjects socialization process of the past and present.

Katherine Dunham op Holland Festival (1949) 

 

Zhe the Gender neutral term

 

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun

Concept

Music influences art. Here are some of my favorite conceptual artists.

Quadron- Buster Keaton

Sia "Soon We''l Be Found"

Bjork "Wanderlust"

Santigold "Big Mouth"

Little Dragon "Brush the Heat"

Sense a/the common themes?

Week 1 -Thoughts and Reflections

6:42 am

It's hard to access when it is appropriate to use a passive or active voice. Do you want close assimilation with your art piece and subject matter, or would you rather done an impassive culturally relative one (that leaves not much to risk, no public examination). I find myself wanting to do that sometimes as an artist setting out to have a certain perspective but a neutral identity, and ended up doing the opposite. Yet the audience can make a connection irregeardless of self- or societal reference as long as it’s detailing understood contexts of a certain culture. Although worldwide there are similar understandings of "environment”, even if interpretation varies. Moral of the story is that anyone can understand and even connect with a clearly communicated and socially relevant perspective. Anything else outside of that is well, abstract ideals.

"Morning" Yusuke Nagano

"Morning" Ysuke Nagano  

"Happy Ending" Yusuke Nagano

Yusuke Nagano incoporates mixed contexts in the forms of symbols and creates a mixed theme piece, my current endeavor .

Keith Haring

"Unititled" 1982, Keith Haring

"Untitled" 1982 , Keith Haring

I dont know why I didn't think of Keith Haring until now, as far as my interest in patterns, abstract thought, and the use of symbols. Many of his "man forms" remind me of the European sign figures that gained much of my interest, during my study abroad trip.

"Pieta"

"Black Soap

"Afloat"

          Last semester ( Spring 2012) was my first exposure to printmaking.  I enjoyed it and found it  interesting that I could use printmaking to communicate the same themes that i carried over from ceramics--->painting. The product was extremely different though , my handling of the mediums took me to a extremely tedious perfectionist place( which happened alot in painting), where i would rework or redo a piece until i was satisfied. There are pros and cons to that but it wasn't until my final print "Afloat" that i just allowed the piece to communicate to me when it was done or how it should be worked. The themes in this class were a crossing of contexts from different realms of art, era, and understandings. My "Pieta" was a reference to the love of a mother and how the emotions communicated in Pieta are not that much different from the emotions arising after the birth of a child. The image of the woman is my really close friend, and as this is her first child i wanted to commemorate the experience and growth(that arises during motherhood). While also bringing to light the instinct of love and caring and how naturally it occurs.

"Black Soap" was my first print, at the time I was completing portraits in Oil Painting class and wanted to cross reference one of my images. I chose a distorted smashed and pulled image of my face and created a story of self-examination and critique. Referencing black soap as my under-layer as i cut and peel away my culturally known facade. The reality of me is as dark, natural, and clean as "Black Soap"

"Afloat" is an image of my sister/friend Ochuole , its of an memory. Ochuole does natural hair and was actually the person to convince me , and later on help me start my dreads ( which are now a very well known part of my identity). When we stayed together we had sessions of meditation with incense lit from within a smoke box( that had little holes to let out  the smoke). Instead of meditating i would watch the smoke which would place me in a mode of meditation. Smoke forms are so calming ,playful, and sensual which is why they intrigue me. I wanted to use there forms in a sketch so while Ochuole was doing a friends dreads i drew her and juxtaposed smoke forms for dreads. 

 

Grice's Maxims( ideals of conversation and perspective)

Maxims of Quality:

• Do not say what you believe to be false

• Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence

Maxim of Relevance

• Be relevant with questions and answers

Maxim of Quantity: Make your contribution as informative as is required

• Do not make your contribution more informative than is required

Maxim of Manner

• Avoid obscurity of expression
• avoid ambiguity , be brief, be orderly

Silly Job Interview- Monty Python

Sometimes you just can’t get it right, But you’ll eventually figure it out.