Artist Statement
I remember the exact moment I decided I wanted to do art for the rest of my life. It was in third grade and I had to draw a buffalo for a project for a history lesson. I loved drawing that buffalo and everyone in class told me how good they thought it was. Now here I am in college majoring in art.
My painting aesthetic theory is formalism. It is about shape, color, and line and not so much about representation or expression. I am a non-intentionalist artist. My artwork can be enjoyed by anyone with out the need of any kind of explanation or reason. It is art, for the sake of being art. In a painting I will use as many bright colors as possible. Color is a big element of my painting and mixing colors and creating new one is something I really enjoy.
One of my favorite pieces I have done is the drawing of my side profile done out of Rubik’s cubes. The assignment was to use any object and/or objects to create a profile of our face. I decided to use a Rubik’s cube as my shape. I thought it would make for a really cool looking art piece and I could use the sharp angles of the cube to show the different parts of my face like my jaw line and cheek bone. Deciding where to put each Rubik’s cube and at what angle, took a lot of time and careful planning. I chose to make my hair out of spheres because it is the opposite of the cube form and the colors I used for them were the colors I used as highlights on the Rubik’s cubes. I really enjoyed working on this piece and I think it is one of my best art works I have in my portfolio. It reminds me that not only do I have a passion for art but a talent for it as well.
For the first few art classes I took the teachers all preferred realism as the style to do our art projects in and even though realism was not my strong suit when it came to art I wanted to please my teachers so I tried my best to keep my work in that style. After a couple years in college I decided that I didn’t care anymore what others wanted to see when they looked at my art and I started to do things in my own personal style. Unfortunately my teachers did not respond well to the work I did but I kept doing it and I knew that eventually someone would appreciate it. The first assignment I had in my intermediate painting class was to paint a still life. It was my first time using oil paint and the first time I worked on a canvas that large. The still life was mostly purple and yellows and had common objects in it, a pitcher, a table, foam noodle, pieces of fabric, wooden blocks and some other identifiable objects. I started to paint each object exactly as I saw it but I wasn’t enjoying myself and I didn’t like how it was looking so I decided to just start mixing colors and painting my own interpretation of the still life. I simplified the shapes and added every color I could create. I named the painting Purple and Yellow Still Life. When it was the day of the critique and we put up all of our work side by side mine stood out from everyone else’s. I loved the end result and my teacher didn’t mind that I took my own approach to the work and actually really liked it. It was the first time that I felt like my work deserved to be up on the wall next to everyone else’s.
I was a drawing and painting major for my first four years in college and then I decided to change it to art education. Teaching is such an awarding career, and getting to teach what I love is even better.
I remember the exact moment I decided I wanted to do art for the rest of my life. It was in third grade and I had to draw a buffalo for a project for a history lesson. I loved drawing that buffalo and everyone in class told me how good they thought it was. Now here I am in college majoring in art.
My painting aesthetic theory is formalism. It is about shape, color, and line and not so much about representation or expression. I am a non-intentionalist artist. My artwork can be enjoyed by anyone with out the need of any kind of explanation or reason. It is art, for the sake of being art. In a painting I will use as many bright colors as possible. Color is a big element of my painting and mixing colors and creating new one is something I really enjoy.
One of my favorite pieces I have done is the drawing of my side profile done out of Rubik’s cubes. The assignment was to use any object and/or objects to create a profile of our face. I decided to use a Rubik’s cube as my shape. I thought it would make for a really cool looking art piece and I could use the sharp angles of the cube to show the different parts of my face like my jaw line and cheek bone. Deciding where to put each Rubik’s cube and at what angle, took a lot of time and careful planning. I chose to make my hair out of spheres because it is the opposite of the cube form and the colors I used for them were the colors I used as highlights on the Rubik’s cubes. I really enjoyed working on this piece and I think it is one of my best art works I have in my portfolio. It reminds me that not only do I have a passion for art but a talent for it as well.
For the first few art classes I took the teachers all preferred realism as the style to do our art projects in and even though realism was not my strong suit when it came to art I wanted to please my teachers so I tried my best to keep my work in that style. After a couple years in college I decided that I didn’t care anymore what others wanted to see when they looked at my art and I started to do things in my own personal style. Unfortunately my teachers did not respond well to the work I did but I kept doing it and I knew that eventually someone would appreciate it. The first assignment I had in my intermediate painting class was to paint a still life. It was my first time using oil paint and the first time I worked on a canvas that large. The still life was mostly purple and yellows and had common objects in it, a pitcher, a table, foam noodle, pieces of fabric, wooden blocks and some other identifiable objects. I started to paint each object exactly as I saw it but I wasn’t enjoying myself and I didn’t like how it was looking so I decided to just start mixing colors and painting my own interpretation of the still life. I simplified the shapes and added every color I could create. I named the painting Purple and Yellow Still Life. When it was the day of the critique and we put up all of our work side by side mine stood out from everyone else’s. I loved the end result and my teacher didn’t mind that I took my own approach to the work and actually really liked it. It was the first time that I felt like my work deserved to be up on the wall next to everyone else’s.
I was a drawing and painting major for my first four years in college and then I decided to change it to art education. Teaching is such an awarding career, and getting to teach what I love is even better.