I realized I never posted the sculpture

Here is the sculpture that resulted from the encaustic that was shaved off of MDF and shown in my last post forever ago. I call it the "Macaronic Solipsist"

macaronic - composed of different languages
solipsist - one who believes that only the self can be proved to exist

Sculptural Paintings

So it's been a while since I posted on here, and I realize that. Partially it's because I kept forgetting, but it's also because I was really quite lost for a while. I had felt like I lost sight of what I was attempting to communicate, and thus, didn't know where to go next. I contemplated my conversation with Jennie and did a lot of journaling in my sketch books...

After a couple of horribly simple paintings, some of which were just attempts at using the heat gun as my brush (with the encaustic) in order to keep myself working, I finally felt like I got onto something. As y'all know, my first piece in which I manually shaved the encaustic off of the MDF was somewhat of a failure because of the color choice and text mainly. (The one which incorporates an image from my childhood) The text in it was not working at all, so I took it off/re-worked the piece. I am more happy with it now than before, but I still am unsure what to project onto it for the melting process, if anything. However, I became very excited about using the peeled/shaved encaustic off of the MDF (I'm in love with the degree to which it is translucent), and have been working on what I'm calling a sculptural painting. The following are images of the re-worked childhood-image-piece, and the pre-stages of the new one:


the re-worked piece:

Aerial view (I like that it looks as though another image has already fully melted in the bottom left hand corner of this image):

This is the new piece before I took it off of the MDF:

Here's all of the above encaustic taken off of the MDF - it is an extremely delicate and time-consuming process. Sometimes I had found myself inadvertently holding my breath when I was doing it because I was afraid of ripping it by accident haha! (this is it before I started cutting it apart and sculpting with it):

It still upholds the idea of a palimpsest, but because I'm sculpting with it the history of information ends up being obscured and abstracted that much more.

5 finished and 1 in progress

Here are the images that I said I'd post, Jennie, since you weren't able to critique them with me last week. I meant to post them a few days ago, sorry!

The five small ones feel complete to me right now, but the large piece is still very much in progress... the final image below is how I showed it on last Saturday.

thinking about language in Lawrence Weiner's terms

The Press Release below comes from this website:
http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2009/03/lawrence-weiner-at-micheline-szwajcer/ 

"Press Release:

Throughout his practice Lawrence Weiner has pursued inquiries into languages and a radical redefinition of the artist-viewer relationship. Translating his investigations into linguistic structures and visual systems across varied formats and manifestations, he has produced books, films, videos, performances and audio works. The belief at the core of Lawrence Weiner’s work is that art is a material reality between human beings and objects and between sets of objects in relation to human beings. Weiner considers language to be a sculptural material and believes that a construction can function as adequately as a fabricated object. His statement of intent published in 1969 states:

THE ARTIST MAY CONSTRUCT THE WORK
THE WORK MAY BE FABRICATED
THE WORK NEED NOT BE BUILT
EACH BEING EQUAL AND CONSISTENT WITH THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST
THE DECISION AS TO CONDITION RESTS WITH THE RECEIVER UPON THE OCCASION OF RECEIVERSHIP

As a proposition of statement, each work need not to be confined to an existence in one realised form, place or time but might be constructed in different contexts."

...............

I've been somewhat familiar with Weiner's work for quite a few years now, but I never sat down and really considered anything that was written about it. I had always taken the work in, processed it for myself, and that was that. Well, after Jenny told me to look at Kay Rosen, I revisited Lawrence Weiner, and I've been thinking about his work a lot - as well as what was written about him in the press release above. 

I have been mulling over this idea of language as a sculptural material, in tandem with the thought that art exists as the material reality between humans and objects, and the relationship among several thereof. I agree that the in-between is key, because without the human being, the object would simply exist but never be experienced and communicated about. 

Thinking about those two ideas in tandem made me even more excited about concretely realizing the installation idea that came up during my critique: to make "bricks" with my encaustic works that ultimately are piled and composed together to form letters of words. When I picture this idea in my head, it's a huge installation that feels very sculptural in the way that they occupy space, but at the same time, I picture them juuuust large enough that people can walk among the letters almost as though the letters are anthropomorphic.

I need more "bricks" cut down to 6"x12" ! :)

new obsession!

I came across this exhibition, and I'm really excited about Glenn Ligon's work... The title of this show says enough as to why I'm currently obsessed.
yay! :)

Glenn Ligon's most comprehensive exhibition thus far.

It's going to Fort Worth next, and I'm hoping I'll be able to catch it when I visit my sister!!

5 pieces mid-evolution

So these are the 5 pieces that have been evolving over the past few weeks. I'm experimenting with various methods of encaustic application and incorporating text. My next step for some of them is to do image transfers of printed text - I just can't decide on a font. Sorry, but all of these images are a bit too blue, especially on the right hand side of the pieces - the light in my studio was not ideal when I took these photos. So just imagine them less blue haha:

With the text in this one, I tried carving into the encaustic medium and then filling the carved areas with black encaustic. I really like this aesthetic and will continue layering more and more text (thinking of the idea of a palimpsest). 

I'm experimenting with using my heat gun to melt a block of wax and let it drip down onto the mdf board. Then I use the heat gun as a paintbrush-replacement - I use it to manipulate the wax when it's melted. I will most likely start to put image transfers as the next layer.

Image transfers and shapes.... it needs more text... I'm playing around with the ideas of access (or lack thereof) and privacy -- two things which I think have quite a bit to do with language in the public sphere. 

This one and the one below are the two that I had posted before when they were less evolved. I like the idea of using paper/parchment with a combination of written and typed text. They still have a long way to go. 

so inspired...

by this guy:
Mark Bradford

We all know this by now, but I wanted to share his website because it's so amazing and I visit it so often. He seamlessly applies his aesthetics to his socio-political explorations. love  love love.