National Pornographic

This series of collage explores beauty in the male form. It raises questions about masculinity and challenges the double standard for nudity. These men are placed on regal and beautiful backgrounds. I chose things that were colorful and sublime. The background images are from a National Geographic edition titled “Wonders of the World.” I chose the most dramatic natural landscapes that I could find and many of the colors are so bright they appear artificial. The men are shown in nature. They are seductive but also resemble power when juxtaposed against the incredible forms of nature. These colors create a regal atmosphere that makes the beauty of the male body and the beauty of the natural world intertwined.

This piece is about many things but one of the things it addresses is censorship. It is common and relatively normal for women to be photographed nude, sometimes full frontal or even in promiscuous poses. Women are often objectified in the media and men are less so.

There are flowers covering the penises and other body parts on the porn models. The flowers are meant to interpreted as yannic symbols. I think there is something ironic about censoring male nudity with yannic symbols when addressing the double standard between female and male nudity. I wanted the collages to have shock value but still be censored to raise questions as to when to censor the human body and raise questions such as when is something beautiful and when is something objectification?

I have recently become very interested in defining masculinity and the role men can play in feminism. While this collage raises questions about censorship it is also supposed to show that some men, like women, are also objectified in the media and in things like porn. I would argue that many men being objectified in the media are gay. I truly believe that many straight men are not bothered by homosexuals, as long as they conform to “traditional” masculine ideals like being strong, dominant and competitive.

There are body image issues within the gay community because all gay men want to either be skinny as a model or buff as a bodybuilder and I personally believe that this fitness obsession could derive from a desire to be viewed as equally masculine as straight guys. It's another form or conformity. Another one of the reasons I chose gay porn stars is because they have perfect bodies that are god-like and unrealistic.

https://vimeo.com/179791907

http://www.chantarphotography.com/

Migraine

Ever since I went through puberty, I have been suffering from chronic migraines. A typical episode will cause me to experience nausea, photo/phonophobia, exhaustion, and ultimately the inability to function. I have never made art out of my own physical pain and as I was quietly praying for a migraine to disappear last week, it occurred to me that I should materialize how I am feeling. My strongest work comes from exterior influences in my daily life, and as I laid there like a vegetable, I knew it was time to convert my pain into practice.

Since I don't feel fully human during a migraine episode, I wanted to design my pain on an object like the Styrofoam head, which captured this quite well. It appears to be a human figurine, by the nature of it's shape and indentations, but as you look closer, the sickly pale material gives away it's nature as a prop. When shopping for the head, I wanted to make sure that it didn't look brand new, because it would contradict my personal experience (which is what I was attempting to emulate.) I have had this issue for a long time and I thought the only way to do myself some justice was to find an object with it's own visual history. I searched through a nearby flea market and surprisingly found many different sellers with heads of all kinds, decorated in cheap wigs and hats. However, absolutely no one was willing to sell their heads!!! They were either using them as a display or had some kind of personal attachment to them, so I had to keep on searching. Finally, as I was scouring about an old antique store in the Orange circle, I came upon a pile of old Styrofoam display heads with "Not For Sale" stickers on them. An employee at the shop decided to help me out by asking me what exactly I needed, and proceeded to call her manager to see if she could sell me one of the spare heads. I was in luck, and walked away with the head for only 6$ bucks!  This was a special part of the process for me because I found something that wasn't perfectly clean and smooth; it had a past life, a narrative, and a little dirt.

The first step I took in modifying the head was gathering materials that would stick (and hold their place) in the head, but also cause the viewer to feel some kind of discomfort. The few objects I had available to me were difficult and too heavy to attach to the head, and since I wanted to map out the pain that I usually feel during an episode, I needed a bigger quantity of items. This is why I used the screws and drill bits, because there are lots of them and they have that rigid, piercing aura. I arranged them in such a way where you can see the routes of pain that pulse and throb throughout my head. I also referred to medical images of where the migraines tend to affect the muscles, vessels, and blood flow.

I was really pleased with the overall placement of the screws, but it still felt like it was lacking in the full experience of a migraine. Since I wanted to show how the migraine was blooming inside my head, I picked up a rose stem with thorns on it and stuck it on to the top of the head. I was inspired by the idea of something that grows naturally from inside the brain, and I drew inspiration from an artist named Travis Bedel. This is some of his work which beautifully intertwines flora with the human corpse. 

The finishing touches that I added were the thoughts that (literally) crossed my mind as I experienced the migraine, and the eerie liquid that spills out from the thorn stem at the top of the head. I specifically avoided using the color red because I wanted to keep it clear that the experience is something that occurs from within. If it was red, it would read like dried blood which then completely changes the feeling and possible interpretations of the piece. 

Overall, I was really proud of how it came out, and my instinctual decisions along the way. Using this medium was definitely fun and outside of my comfort zone. I am interested in doing a project like this again sometime soon!

Alternative Methods

My project is influenced by my past works and sketches in my journals and notebooks. I have taken my journal and used collage and doodling to accentuate the pages into old and new notes and images. Collaging new sketches onto the old, torn up pages, I have attempted to use this journal as a canvas. I would like to continue this process of collecting and collaging old and new art I have accumulated through different classes and random days of deep thought.
I have also gone through cycles of reading over my journals that have been written in dark and depressing times. This has made me deeply reflective of my actions and past. I have gone through these entries from arguments with my boyfriend to notes in Modern British History. I love the aesthetic of my used journal and the repeated use of it for this project. I would like to continue to work on my journals and sketchbooks and keep adding to them as I develop my art.

Alternative Methods Drawing

There is a song named Big Yellow Taxi that was written in the 70s about a big parking lot that took up a lot of space on an island in Hawaii. Among the paradise of crystal blue water and foggy green mountains there was this huge eye sore in place of what could otherwise be another part of paradise. The lyrics, which resonated in my head throughout the project, read as follows:

Don't it always seem to go

That you don't know what you've got

Till it's gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

To hear the full song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvtJPs8IDgU

This idea of tearing down nature for the sake of building a money-grabbing building like a parking lot, a hotel, or even a mall is one that fascinates me. As a whole, we tend to value the thrill of the “great outdoors” and the idea of exploration of the unknown, but we don’t as easily realize that all that could be closer than ever.

An even greater problem with this is that we are doing so much harm to the other animals that live on this planet. When an ecosystem is altered by human activities, whether they are in the form of farming, oil extraction, or commercial development, it can no longer support the animals and plants that inhabit it. The balance of these locations is thrown off so much that they can no longer provide the nutrients and basic necessities— water, food, and shelter— and the wildlife enters in which their species is at danger of going extinct. The more we expand, the fewer places left that can provide a home for wildlife.

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation

https://sites.google.com/site/globaldeforestationissues/examples-of-animals-that-have-become-extinct-due-to-deforestation

The links above provide more insight into the problem, including lists and descriptions of the animals at risk of extinction due to deforestation. We trade in vital producers of oxygen for the comfort of having a nearby mall or another apartment complex.

       

An artist whose work I looked at closely for this project is Renee van der Stelt (http://www.reneevanderstelt.com/about.html) who works by cutting into paper and uses light and shadow to render sculptural and organic representations of maps and directionality of natural phenomena. Her website describes her work as having “drawings not only as a noun (thing) but also as a verb (action or process)”. Her drawings are produced by cutting or repeatedly puncturing the surface of the paper, which results in images and forms that are reminiscent of the mapping of topographic space. Her use of light and placement help to further the image and push it to “reveal biases and limitations of how space is often considered”. 

For my drawing, I decided to cut into paper, going through the process of removing and taking away, rather than adding, in order to represent the subtractive process of expansion. It was something different, that I had not tried before, but it felt like it was the best way to represent my idea, not just in subject matter but through process as well. The image reads from left to right, showing the decomposition of nature into a cityscape. 

I have never had what I like to call a “delicate touch,” meaning that my mark making, whether that be drawn, painted, or in this case cut onto a surface, is very natural and often times abrupt and rough. This is a style that characterizes my work and this one is not exempt. If a closer look is taken when observing the images, the rough edges and moments where the paper is hanging on for dear life are evident. However, I did not try to fight it, I did not try to perfect or go back over these moments because like nature which takes its own course, I allowed my hands to do the work as quickly as my mind was processing the ideas. I allowed for the movements to be naturally occurring and let the pieces fall where they will. Going through and having my marks be permanent and not having the option of undoing a mistake helped set a more intentional and decisive mindset. Any cut that I made for better or worse became a part of my drawing, taking away from the canvas that was the paper and existing as a negative space. 

Experimenting with Alternative Methods

As an artist I mostly specialize in painting and more sculptural works, so drawing is not my strongest discipline. I haven't experimented much with drawing, I mostly try to draw realistic portraits or realistic anatomical body parts.

When I discovered that this project was about alternative drawing methods I thought this was the perfect opportunity to experiment outside of my comfort zone. Usually I am the type of artist that has to plan out everything before I can even begin. Especially when it comes to concepts and formal elements, because that is where I always put my focus. But for this project I really wanted to experience how to create art in the moment and just have fun! I wanted this piece to be solely based on materials and process.

For this piece I was inspired by beehives and the repetitive pattern that they make. I think there is so much beauty within a beehive. It has the perfect blend of geometric shapes with an organic feel to it. I also love the concept of controlled chaos, and I think beehives demonstrate that in such a unique way with its perfect shapes and the chaotic busy work to create such a complex structure. So I wanted my piece to hold that same express that same feel to it.

I wanted to work in wood because I have never made a piece with wood before and I think it gives my piece an interesting feel to it. Especially because the wood I picked out still has the tree bark left on the sides. It makes my piece feel very organic and relates it back to nature. I started off by drilling different sized holes the the wood in a controlled chaotic pattern. I wanted some to be drilled all the way through the wood and some to just be indents so that the holes had more dimensionality. I also wanted to experiment with candle wax and have it drip out of the holes. This way my piece also integrated the sense of smell into it, but I mostly wanted to use the wax because I thought it related back to bee wax. Unfortunately since this is all experimental, it did not turn out the way I had intended. But since this project was all about the process I just went with it and kept playing with the melting of the wax. I also wove yarn into the some of the holes to create a more geometric plane but also because some man made beehives are weaved together so I thought it nicely related back to my inspiration.

An artist I was inspired by was Judi Harvest, she creates these gorgeous beehive sculptures. I will add images of her sculptures down below. I think her use of a light source in the center of her beehive was a brilliant choice because it accentuates the pattern and allows you to see all the delicate details in her work. I wanted my piece to be a lot more abstract than hers but it was her pieces that made me see the beauty in beehives in the first place and I think that's very powerful.

Judi Harvest's website: http://judiharvest.com/biography
Different alternative methods to art: http://www.studentartguide.com/articles/inventive-mixed-media-techniques
Cool Article I found: https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/artist-fixes-damaged-objects-by-placing-them-in-beehives

(Judi Harvest's pieces)

Alternative Methods - Collage Art

I am constantly looking to push the boundaries of my art and of my viewers as well. I wanted to talk about something meaningful to me, but in my own style. I felt that collage allowed me to transform existing material with it's own context into something new; re-contextualization.

Collage is also considered a non-traditional art form. Although it is clearly art, it is often overlooked as a craft. This potentially negative stigma gives an artist more potential to create unique, original art that moves the viewer. Let's be honest, how much more original can you be with a simple graphite portrait drawing? It's been done by every art student and artist around the world, you're not going to reinvent the wheel drawing portraits in graphite. Collage however has much more potential in my mind.

One of my biggest inspirations in collage, and specifically using pornographic/nude images, is Suzanne Wright. Last year I took drawing and planning with Suzanne and her work in "Cock, Paper, Scissors" is what really inspired me. Before talking to Suzanne I never considered working in collage as a formal art form, and I also never considered using pornographic images as art. However, I have been challenging what art can be in my mind. Where can art come from and how can it be used to transport our message to the viewers.

I have a small collection of coffee table books (fashion, interior design, landscape, etc.) in my house and I've always been interested in the bougie, formal, uptight and proper manner in which these books are compiled. I wanted to juxtapose this with something extremely in your face and anti-conservative. Which is (not so ironically) how I treat the world and our political climate. I spend a lot of my time breaking norms, pushing gender limits, and challenging societal norms, so my first reaction to these conservative, formal books was to juxtapose them with gay pornographic images.

The idea of seeing these pages in an upper income, conservative home made me chuckle and brought a sense of humor to my recent artwork.

http://one.usc.edu/cock-paper-scissors/

https://www.saatchiart.com/art-collection/Collage-New-Media-Photography/Paper-Goods-Contemporary-Collage/153961/58740/view