Sheridan O’Neal submits Roman Ondak #5

Sheridan O’Neal submits Roman Ondak

Ondak’s performance pieces and installation often rely on the involvement of the audience in order to create the work. His most notable work is “Measuring the Universe”.  It is an installation with a performative aspect in which the audience is given black markers and then their measurements are recorded in a white room on the walls of the gallery. It visually records all the people who participate in the installation and visit the gallery. I think this is a great installation because it is something so simple that can have so many different meanings. This work of art is very unifying of the public because of personalizing each height line with name, age and date.

Sheridan O’Neal submits Adam Gruba #4

Sheridan O’Neal submits Adam Gruba

Gruba uses his performances to explore ideas of philosophy and how those interact visually with the environment. He uses philosophy that is constantly being created to create rules of representation of the image and the understanding of the audience. His works intellectual dimension is the most important part of any piece of his art. He constantly questions reality and creation in his art. While his art is based on complex ideas and philosophy, is art doesn’t always communicate effectively all the thought that he intends for them to have. I think there is too much left to the audience to interpret when his ideas and actions are so specifically motivated. I think his most successful piece is “Levitation” in which the artist is suspended on a pole and searches to find a mental and physical point of levitation which explores truth and illusion. 

Sheridan O’Neal submits Wafaa Bilal #3

Sheridan O’Neal submits Wafaa Bilal

Bilal is mainly inspired by his political agenda and experience as an Iraqi refugee in America. Most of his work is either sculptural or performance art. He goes to the extremes through his art. For one of his performances, he surgically mounted a camera to the back of his head in order to comment on surveillance. He has also tattooed 5,000 red ink dots to represent American casualties in the Iraq war and then he tattooed 100,000 dots that can only be seen under ultraviolet light representing the forgotten Iraqi victims. I think that each of his pieces are so well thought out that they can connect with people on a personal level as well as political. I think that his performance art is more powerful than his sculptural pieces because of the use of his body and that he has become the art. 

Sheridan O'Neal submits Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison #2

Sheridan O’Neal submits Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison #2

I’m reviewing the talk and exhibit of the PareHarrison’s work at Trinity University. I think there images are outstanding and inspirational. They use paper negatives to assemble a lot of the images. The resulting pieces play off imagination and reality as well as how mankind interacts with the world. They have the potential to be interpreted in many ways because of how the images work. I am more interested in their work “Architect’s Brother” than any of their other works because of the ingenuity and different perspective that I have not seen in many other artists’ works. Also this series is very poetic and allows the viewer to be apart of their space and subtleties. 

Autumn Dean/ Maurizo Anzeri

Maurizo Anzeri is an Italian artist that lives and works in London.  He received his BA and MFA at The Slade School of Art.  He is currently showing his work in London even though he shows internationally often.

His most recent body of work is as he likes to call it “photo-sculpture”.  He prefers to describe his portraits this way.  The reason he puts his work in this category is because of how he manipulates the photograph.  His work is very unique he often works with other artists to get exactly the look he wants.  At first his pieces were vintage photographs that had been found by him at flea markets and other places.  He then embroiders on top of the photo to give it a three-dimentional element to it.  He looks at a photograph and is more interested in it being a material or object than a process.  Capturing a moment on paper is magic and by embroidering on top of it he is trapping that moment even more on to the paper.  While embroidering he trys never to cover the face completely and will always leave at least one eye open.  This thread is to show the mask that is inside of you that seems to grow out. 

Anzeri finished a new body of work that is called Dazed and Confused.  He worked with a photographer and a stylist to get the exact portrait that he could work on.  I think this artist is so interesting and shows something new with an old technique.  

Autumn Dean/ Hong Sungchul

Hong Sungchul is a photographer as well as a sculptor.   He earned his BFA and MFA in South Korea.  After that he got a second MFA at the California Institute of Arts in 2001.   He has shown his work around the world and is known for his string photographs.

In Sungchul’s work he turns his photographs into sculptures.  He takes hundreds of elastic strings and prints his image on them.  This creates a haunting image that almost makes you feel like you are hallucinating when you look at them.  This symphony of strings makes you want to reach out a touch this image.  He wants viewers to not rely so much on their visual senses.  The Korean artist when talking about why he works with string says “Representation of what ties humans together from the earliest stage of life—the umbilical cord.”  This is to show the bond between humans.  He like to show this because of how the family culture in South Korea works.  He also feels there are to many boundaries with gallerys and museums and how you are not allowed to experience pieces but in the way they allow you to.

I connect with this artist in many ways.  Taking an image and making it into a sculpture always makes me feel more connected with the piece.  I like to see the artist hand in their work.  I also feel that his connection to strings is a good way to communicate the bond between people.  I believe we will see even more great things from this artist.

Sheridan O'Neal submits Terence Koh #1

Sheridan O'Neal submits Terence Koh

Koh works mainly as a sculptor commenting on a variety of contemporary issues such as gender, sexuality, subcultures, and physical limitations. He takes common objects and transforms them into grand installations with use on unusual materials. His work questions the nature of the object and allows the viewer to interpret the work on many different levels. For example, his series "These Decades that We Never Sleep, Black Drums" uses found objects and creates these large black installations that comment on gothic subculture, sexual fetish, and more. He created these objects with plaster, cloth, metal, wax, vegetable matter, insect parts, cum, and blood. I think these pieces are very interesting and force the viewer to interact with the issues at hand by creating these large installations. They create beauty out of these objects that appear disgusting and decayed. He also makes performance art. His first solo show "nothingtoodoo" consisted of him crawling on his knees around a pile of solar salt all day everyday for a month. The entire installation and his clothing is white. A lot of people have speculated that he is doing it as a comment on peace. The salt being able to inflict and heal wounds. I think this is most successful piece as an artist. The aesthetics combined with the many interpretations that the viewer can perceive form the performance create an amazing work of art.

KHANA 02 REVIEWS THE WADE BROTHERS

The Wade Brothers are David Lindsey Wade and Lyndon Wade and they are recognized as "one of the top lifestyle, fashion, and advertising photographers in the world." When first visiting their website, the thing I noticed first was how clean and easy to navigate through their website. I was able to look through several of their works from commissioned pieces for businesses and for pieces of art with ease. As I continued my way to their photography portfolios, the overview of their works, I noticed two very interesting portraits. Both of popular actors in our society today-Michael Cera and Jonah Hill. Immediately I was attracted to the off set of the color palette in regards to what is considered "normal". At first I was taken to Andy Warhol and his "Marilyn Monroe" (1967) with the skin tone being colors other than the usual varied flesh tones. For example, in the portrait with Michael Cera, his skin is a mint color and the background is salmon pink. His pose is interesting as well with what seems to resemble a pose from traditional paintings, looking up towards the heavens. In the other portrait, Jonah Hill is centered and cropped in a more traditional photograph portrait being cropped at the shoulders. Jonah's skin tone in this photograph is a light purple against a yellow background with hints of a cyan highlight tone in his hair, lips, and sweater. At first these portraits were a bit odd but at the same time they are very captivating. It is an interesting take and approach to photography. It raised some questions as to how their process is-did they do some of this in camera by changing the custom white balance or was everything done in post? Either way, I found these pieces to be very intriguing. Overall, all their work is excellent and the Portfolio > Reportage section is amazing! The use of lighting and different overall tones help move the pieces beyond an "ordinary photograph."

http://www.thewadebrothers.com/photography

KHANA 01 REVIEWS PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

"Philip-Lorca diCorcia is known for creating images that are poised between documentary and theatrically staged photography (David Zwirner "Philip-Lorca DiCorcia b.1951: Biography". DavidZwirner.com. Copyright2014 David Zwirner, New York/London. 3 February 2014)."
This can be seen true in his "Heads" portion of his art portfolio found on The Collective Shift's webstite thecollectiveshift.com. When one comes to view the first piece of this collection, the overall composition of the piece is evenly balanced and weighted throughout the piece. It consists of four models spread out among the piece with the focus being on the girl in the center. She is the only one that is fully lit and does not have her face obstructed by the foreground or the borders and her facial expressions seem much more natural. Aside from the center model being in a more natural pose, the ones in the background are obstructed by either being cropped by the foreground or the border, but the male model on the right when viewing is overcome with a shadow on half of his face. The theatrical lighting can be noticed somewhat in this photograph but it is not until the second and third that the lighting becomes much more intense and that of a "stage" or "theatre." The pieces following are composed with the weight of the photograph being much more centered and a stronger light on the subject. While doing so, the background is still darkened and made to appear shallow and vast at the same time. At first glance it seemed as if it were never ending, as if the subject is standing on an enormous stage and they are the only concentration or point of interest. When glanced at a second time, I noticed a sense of shallowness in the background. Does the background need to be visible or discernible for the subject to be understood. Is that enough? I would say so with the exception of the last photograph in the "Heads". In that photograph I feel it leaves me wondering, not fully content with the content of the image.

http://www.thecollectiveshift.com/show/portfolio/diCorcia