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Photo Party Selfies!

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Photo Party Selfies- Bianca and the Boyfriend (Chris) and Ruby!

Nadia C Gonzales - Blog 08 - Alex Pardee

Alex Pardee is a contemporary artist who illustrates interesting characters in vibrant colors with each having their own persona and story. I found him when he was illustrating the artwork for my favorite band The Used in 2006. I was fascinated with the cd booklet and still have it to this day. I remember looking at it and realizing I wanted to purse art to give people a positive reaction as he did to me. I was so intrigued by his skill and use of color to convey the emotions of the music and lyrics. It was a successful way of bridging the gap of music and art.
Pardee also does commissions for book covers and many other bands. Although I feel there is stigma that illustration is not high art I believe it should be. I myself would not mind making art for books or musicians.
 

Nadia C Gonzales - Chuck Close - Blog 07

Chuck Close is one of my favorite artists of all time. He is an influential artist who took photo realism to a new level by creating a new technique that is original and visually pleasing. I admire that he has amazing technical skill and he expanded on that idea by doing something more than just traditional portraits. I feel like that is what makes great art stand out from the rest. My opinion on my art is that I can be too traditional and lack concept. I feel like I need to find a middle ground and mix it with new ideas and techniques. When I look at his art I feel like I definitely need to experiment more and not be scared of limitations or failure. I also feel that the scale of his paintings are part of what contributes to the "awesomeness" of his paintings. I know I need to make my art much bigger so I'm not forced to be confined to a small work space. When I receive that critique in class I automatically understood and will take that into consideration in my future pieces.

Raul Gonzalez 

Graduate student Raul Gonzalez has been a artistic mentor for me since I arrived at UTSA. His work immediatley caught my attention apon arrival at the art department. I noticed that he was one of the most prolific artist on the campus and was also able to talk to you about his work and make you understand his processes and applications. Being a admirer of minimal and abstract art left me in a shallow space since most of my peers do not care for or practice this way of art. I admire that he is always willing to talk to you about art and it's relevance to the world now and where he thinks it is going. 

Peter Funch Babel Tales (post 10 chels)

Studying the streets of large cities, Peter Funch photographs thousands of moments in time. He takes these moments and studies and manipulates the photograph as a scene that never would have existed. He's interested in the lack of human relations caused by electronics, busy schedules, and carelessness. His images are fictional based documentations of moments and places. 







Babel Tales Peter Funch

With my work i create ghosts images overlaid onto strong background, but I might be interested in creating scenes like Funch in the future to recreate memories and moments that have passed or never existed.

Chelsea

Jen Davis searches for her own identity by becoming vulnerable to the camera for 10 years (post 9 chels)

In Jen Davis' nude/nearly nude self-portrait series, she explores her own identity and searches to discover herself. In her portraits she pulls at her body, she's depicted with multiple men, and she shares her emotional episodes. She expresses in an interview with Oprah,  "The problem was that I was making myself vulnerable only for the camera. What I really wanted was to be vulnerable for another person." 

Her vulnerablity is something hard to capture on film because naturally we pose and compose ourselves when in front of the lens. Her ten year self portrait project reveals some of the most interment and marginal moments in her life and fantasies. Even though this project initially was meant to record her weight loss after lapband surgery, it explores the emotional roller coaster of her life within 10 years.

 Oprah Article

Self-Portraits Gallery

Chelsea

James Turrell

James Turrell is an American artist who is concerned with light and space.  By carefully selecting his locations for his works he creates a space that is one of a kind and draws the viewer into it’s realm like a moth to a flame. By escaping the confines of a canvas he creates a larger conversation about what art can be and do for the audience. James Turrell is also a landscape artist that transform a natural environment into something other that what it once was. I like the idea of changing your or any environment to something that you want it to be. I was fortunate enough to experience one of his space and projection works in Houston and this has impacted me greatly. In the near future I hope to apply this mediums into my own works and create a unique space for people to enjoy.

Matthew Brandt physically applies nature to his landscape photography (post 8 Chelsea)

Matthew Brandt has many series and exhibitions, but the photography series I was most intrigued by was the lakes and reservoirs series. Matthew Brandt takes lanscape photos of lakes and reservoirs and soaks the c-prints in lake water. The distortion is interesting and the idea behind him using the water from these places is intriguing.

Lakes & Reservoirs Gallery

He even goes on and produces his series Waterbodies as salt prints (such as we viewed in our houston trip) with actual sea water from the waterscapes he shoots with.

Waterbodies

I like the idea of processing images and producing images with meaning and intension. I think that's why I'm interested in impressions of combing layers or images together to create images and recreate memories.

chelsea

Jean Micheal Basquiat

Jean Micheal Basquiat was a neo expressionist that blew up on the art scene is SoHo during the 80’s and took the art world by storm. His use of text and the elimination of text was a fresh way to interpret words and phrases used. By crossing out words on his canvases, the viewer is more intrigued to read what was written and brought more significance to them as well. His sketchy loose application of paint combined with complicated color palettes was before his time and was not fully appreciated until his untimely death at the young age of 28. He was haunted by demons and traumatic experiences from his childhood that he would paint on canvases that made the viewer feel like they were witnessing the events themselves. I admire this artist for the fact that not many artist of African American descent have been elevated to the realm of "High" art, so for me being a young artist with similar aspirations and background gives me the motivation to pursuer my own goals. 

Tony Oursler

Tony is a new media artist that combines sculpture, projection, and dialogue to create eerie one of a king pieces of art. This work brings the viewer into a new world and then spits them back out to figure out what exactly just occurred. The process starts with construction of an object that will hold the projection in place. Next he hires or acquires actors to wear makeup and verbalize the script he puts together for the character. The most impressive aspect of these pieces to me is the fact that they can be appreciated or hated by almost any viewer. This generation is consumed by media of all types so seeing these projections will at first seem familiar but after closer inspection you will see that he is doing something all of it's own. I am experimenting with projection art in my own journey of art discovery and have found his work to be of great resource and comfort.