Senior BFA Portfolio
Artist's Statement:
What is the purpose of art? Is it a symbol of wealth? Social status? Education? I'd like to propose that the purpose of art is the same as the purpose of any virtue, the same purpose of life as a whole, to make things better. Assigning value beyond that often detracts from this central cause. Art made for the sake of money or to show off can easily lack the genuine quality of art made for the sake of making the world better. Capitalistic ulterior motives rear their ugly head far too often in the fine art sphere, in my work, it is something I try to avoid. With my work, I engage in the relationship between art and the everyday, art that isn't restricted to an upper-class audience or placed behind a glass barrier. I make art that the viewer can not only interact with but live with.
My art is represented by a ceramic duck on your grandma’s shelf or a quaint painting on a wall or a rug on the floor, something that doesn't take the presence of the room but rather complements it. My art is the type of thing that when you move into a new place it doesn't quite feel like home until it's added. My art is humorous, it sparks joy, it is cathartic, it is relatable and comfortable and funny.
I aim to have a sustainable practice, I try not to make things that I cannot see life for beyond the assignment or the gallery. Lately, this has been leading me to be too confined in digital art because it doesn’t take up physical space and it uses very few physical resources. With my previous semester’s installation, I used my new post-quarantine workspace to push beyond the digital space that I had isolated myself in for the past two years and create a comforting living space and I intend to continue with this theme this semester.
My final installation is a living room scene that is tailored to my definition of comfort. Last semester I had a partial scene with a ready-made chair, blanket, and lamp with a handmade pillow, two paintings, a long storage unit, and a rug. This semester I completed the tableaux by replacing the old rug with two new ones that aesthetically complement the paintings better with their sun and moon celestial motifs. Between the paintings, I added a mirror and together these wall hangings are framed by a handmade garland of 500 origami paper stars.
Far too often people don’t engage with art because they lack the education or the funds to access museums and galleries, art is often seen as a luxury made by and for people who have enough money to have the time to engage with it. Art made for the lower class, the mass-produced, the tacky, the kitsch is looked down on by fine arts, it’s not ‘real’ art, ‘real’ art is supposed to mean something, it's supposed to make the viewer think, it's supposed to speak to its audience. How is it supposed to speak to its audience if massive swaths of the population can't even afford to listen? Fine art has its place in the world but that place is not above or below any other kind of art or craft.
Beyond economic standing my art is made to be accessible to people with disabilities, it is tactile as well as visual. Every piece of art I make is a livable object, it is not meant to be preciously placed behind glass and never touched or used, it's made to be broken and mended, dirtied and cleaned, it is made to be lived with. Art is inherent to the human experience, people create and admire beauty, like birds who paint their nests with blueberries, we are meant to create and live with art. My art carries on this tradition of beautifying your living space.
What is the purpose of art? Is it a symbol of wealth? Social status? Education? I'd like to propose that the purpose of art is the same as the purpose of any virtue, the same purpose of life as a whole, to make things better. Assigning value beyond that often detracts from this central cause. Art made for the sake of money or to show off can easily lack the genuine quality of art made for the sake of making the world better. Capitalistic ulterior motives rear their ugly head far too often in the fine art sphere, in my work, it is something I try to avoid. With my work, I engage in the relationship between art and the everyday, art that isn't restricted to an upper-class audience or placed behind a glass barrier. I make art that the viewer can not only interact with but live with.
My art is represented by a ceramic duck on your grandma’s shelf or a quaint painting on a wall or a rug on the floor, something that doesn't take the presence of the room but rather complements it. My art is the type of thing that when you move into a new place it doesn't quite feel like home until it's added. My art is humorous, it sparks joy, it is cathartic, it is relatable and comfortable and funny.
I aim to have a sustainable practice, I try not to make things that I cannot see life for beyond the assignment or the gallery. Lately, this has been leading me to be too confined in digital art because it doesn’t take up physical space and it uses very few physical resources. With my previous semester’s installation, I used my new post-quarantine workspace to push beyond the digital space that I had isolated myself in for the past two years and create a comforting living space and I intend to continue with this theme this semester.
My final installation is a living room scene that is tailored to my definition of comfort. Last semester I had a partial scene with a ready-made chair, blanket, and lamp with a handmade pillow, two paintings, a long storage unit, and a rug. This semester I completed the tableaux by replacing the old rug with two new ones that aesthetically complement the paintings better with their sun and moon celestial motifs. Between the paintings, I added a mirror and together these wall hangings are framed by a handmade garland of 500 origami paper stars.
Far too often people don’t engage with art because they lack the education or the funds to access museums and galleries, art is often seen as a luxury made by and for people who have enough money to have the time to engage with it. Art made for the lower class, the mass-produced, the tacky, the kitsch is looked down on by fine arts, it’s not ‘real’ art, ‘real’ art is supposed to mean something, it's supposed to make the viewer think, it's supposed to speak to its audience. How is it supposed to speak to its audience if massive swaths of the population can't even afford to listen? Fine art has its place in the world but that place is not above or below any other kind of art or craft.
Beyond economic standing my art is made to be accessible to people with disabilities, it is tactile as well as visual. Every piece of art I make is a livable object, it is not meant to be preciously placed behind glass and never touched or used, it's made to be broken and mended, dirtied and cleaned, it is made to be lived with. Art is inherent to the human experience, people create and admire beauty, like birds who paint their nests with blueberries, we are meant to create and live with art. My art carries on this tradition of beautifying your living space.