Contemp(t)lating

The totality of the work in my thesis underscores the processes of my studies as an art student pursuing my undergraduate degree in Painting with a minor in art history. This thesis chronicles two years of my work consisting of portraiture, landscapes, figure drawings, collage, and poetry. I combine collage, oil paint, and other mixed media in an attempt to create a story about my upbringing, current environment, or politics. The inspiration to create works of art is both material-driven, process-driven and conceptual. My interest is to create tension in my works and the ways in which tension, both physically and conceptually, relates to the viewer by incorporating masterful techniques with contemporary concepts. In my landscapes I am interested in the illusion of surrealism and something that is beyond our reality that gives a liberation of the mind, lending to an artistic freedom. Similarly, in experimental works titled ‘A New Frontier’, I incorporate situationist ideals of détournement and the dérive, freeing the artist of limitations culturally and physically. In my poetry, I use language as a medium to create ekphrastic and provisional poetry relating to artworks. In my drawings I incorporate subtractive methods to create works of art built upon old techniques to create something new.