Studio Journal #1: The Beginning of Another Mysterious Journey

Last Friday was the first small group critique. At first I thought it would be a long, four and half hours, boring, and quiet critique. But it turned out to be very useful and fun, especially learning more about fellow classmates' artworks and their ideas. When it was my turn to talk about my artwork, I showed the class the latest work that I had worked on towards the end of the spring semester in my painting III-b class. Because I was unsure about the direction I wanted to focus my painting on, I had decided to start from the basics, stripping my canvases from color and using limited amount of paint. Through these limitations, along with just using the black color I made from mixing blue and brown as well as the use of mineral spirits to thin out my paint to limit the paint quantity, I found that I began to paint in a way similar to watercolor as well as drawing. I first laid down the dark color to stain the canvas and then use the mineral spirits to begin moving the paint around, darkening certain places, as well as dabbing at the paint with a cloth to produce lighter areas. I found this process to be analogous to the rubber eraser taking charcoal or graphite from the paper to produce the sense of light.

"Bottle". Spring 2011. Christine Huang.

Furthermore, just how in drawing one would use a lot of charcoal or graphite for the dark shaded areas to give a more drastic contrast of light and dark, I added in a thicker application of paint to the darkest areas. Although much detail and meticulous handiwork was needed in each one, which took quite some time to finish one small painting, I found the experience and process, being able to push paint around to create light and shadows, to be calm, peaceful, relaxing, and fun.

"Window." Spring 2011. Christine Huang.

I feel that this technique also allows me to interact physically with my artwork. Other than applying paint with my paintbrushes, I also use my cloth and fingers to push around/take away the paint. One of the issues I wanted to have working in my artworks is interaction; during the critique we talked a little bit about the ways the audience could interact with the artworks. An example I showed in class were my interactive design books:

"Book on the 'Three Short Essays on Technology' by Virginia Hefferman". Spring 2010. Christine Huang. Pictures taken by Stephen Bondio.

"Radiation". Spring 2011. Christine Huang. Pictures taken by Stephen Bondio.

I always found pop-up books fascinating because rather than just reading the

story, the reader got to visualize the scenery better as well as interact with the scenery and perhaps characters and other things of the story as well. For the "Radiation" book, my design II-b class and I had to pick an event and create a book. I decided to pick the Japanese radiation event because it was current (and still is) at the time and provided me with abundant amount of information. I began to focus my book towards a journal-like feel. I believed that when a crisis occurs, it is hard to stay calm, especially with the media spitting out news here and there like wildfire.

In addition, some news may be misleading or false, which would scare readers, those especially in the crisis, even further. So I began to work my book into a two-idea format; the first, with the journal, including articles posted during the first few days of the radiation leakage. The second format is with the tiny booklets, posters, pictures, newspaper articles, and small postcards that all contain information and research on what is radiation. I wanted to portray the idea that while the media may be throwing out what could sound like so many scary news, one needs to know the knowledge and function of the object being mediated in order to make calm decisions and sort out false information. In my book, I include a radiation definition at the bottom of each page to help further the learning of radiation.

I know that for my thesis, I would like to incorporate interaction in some way for both my painting and design projects. As of now, my ideas for both painting and design are separate, as in, I have not yet figured out if I wanted to combine both mediums to make one project for thesis or not. An idea that came from class, mentioned by Tom, was the projection of a fake wall, installed into the gallery. From what I heard, I got that it would be an interesting idea if people were able to go up to the wall and pull out things (perhaps artworks or books) from this wall. I think it's a radical move, especially away from the tradition of hanging paintings on the wall; instead of being flat against the wall, an interactive painting, perhaps, would be vertical in the wall. More thinking is definitely needed to develop this creative idea; for example, the process that people would be touching the artwork and whether or not that is the intention of interaction~to let the artworks get messed up. Perhaps the way for interaction can be restricted to the visual senses only. Just how in Tim's artwork, one needed to go up close to see all the various sizes of blotches creating a whole imagery when seen from further away, or Ryan's outdoor paintings with multiple brushstrokes, quantity and application of paint, which two paintings were painted on thick cardboard that stuck way out from the wall. Going back to the idea of stripping my colors and starting from the basics, I began to paint self-portraits because I wanted something tangible that I could paint and see from. In other words, I stayed away from abstraction, surrealism, etc. What's more convenient than self portraits when one has a mirror?

"Self-Portraits". Spring 2011. Christine Huang.

Although they do not look the same, they are part of my process in finding what I want to paint and further understanding what I enjoy about this thin-application-of-paint technique.

Over the summer, I thought of what I wanted to paint and came up with trying to portray this idea that although I'm not an adult, I still think like a child most of the time. However, Gerry pointed out that it isn't so much of a child in an adult body, but more of being scared of transitions, which I think is a powerful word ~ "transition." My classmates talked about the window painting and how that may signify the fear of transitions, the fear of going out of the comfort zone and into the world of the unknown.

Over the weekend, I went to NYC to visit the galleries in Chelsea. I mainly tried to visit painting shows to see the various applications of paint that other artists use in their paintings. (I will post pictures in my next post ~ it's always very inconvenient posting pictures on blogger...) Anyway, one of the galleries I visited was the Lohin Geduld Gallery, where it is presenting works by Anne Neely. Neely uses an overwhelming thick application of paint along with extreme gloss added to make the paintings look smooth and wet. I find that the application of thick paint is very satisfying and would like to incorporate it along with the application of thin paint in a painting together. Another set of artworks that intrigued me are those of Vincent Desiderio, whose works are currently being shown at the Marlborough Gallery. Painted on gigantic canvases, the dramatic and overwhelming depictions of people seem realistic with smooth-like features of the body and setting. There are some paintings, such as the "Laughing Women" that have a more distinctive depiction of brushstrokes, which livens up the painting.

Since Saturday, I've worked on two paintings, based off of pictures I took while I was in NYC. I found that during the process, when I didn't have cloth, but used paper instead to pull away the paint, the paper was an interesting "tool" to create texture and patterns on the canvas. Despite the small canvas size, I find that it is good practice and idea flowing processing to paint more on the smaller canvases. I plan to paint on bigger canvases to see what feelings viewers get as opposed to the intimate and calm the smaller canvases produce.

"The Window Ledge". September 2011. Christine Huang.

"The Door". September 2011. Christine Huang.