design space

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Descension- I took apart my last two pieces and used them to construct a new piece. I kept the theme of the contour shapes on white planks of plywood. Aesthetically I find these shapes interesting because they break the symmetry of the composition. The cutouts give you a different ways to look at the piece. I wanted to create a hanging form that would seem as if it were floating. I wanted to keep the design simple and geometric. The bottom of the decision acts like as a net. But the piece can be viewed from top to bottom or bottom to top- again, a reference to the cycle of life and death.

A Not So Distant Memory- I created a wooden box of memories. Each face of the cube contains a picture of me with my childhood art educators throughout the years. The strings all intersect and are interconnected with each picture creating a jumbled mess in the center that is me, my aura, my memories, my essence.

Uoroboros in the Home- I created a home structure in which I cut out organic shapes from the white painted roof. I took some rebar and shaped it into a loop (uorobors= cycle of life, death, and rebirth) and passed it through the holes in the roof into the home. This then leads your eye to the bottom of the home where there is a woven basket. The piece is about the different relationships dynamics and experiences within a family home. I’m exploring this theme because I have an interest in life cycles and experiences and how they affect our lives as well as our interactions with others.

For Sale- This is a public art piece in which i placed a For Sale sign over a banana plant stating that “everything” is for sale. I thought it would be ironic to do this because places/people don’t usually sell plants this way. Plants are sold in nurseries, bananas are sold on markets, and soil and dead leaves are either free or sold in places like Home Depot. In a way I am selling this plant as a structure at something like a garage sale rather than the organic form that it is which obviously isn’t for sale (because of its location, it being rooted, + the fact that it’s not mine to sell). I also found it comical that the guy passing by to take a picture of it was eating a banana himself.

Life Imitates Art- This is the sort of personal performance piece relating to my relationship with making art, the relationship I have with motivating myself to continue produce work, and the constant battle I have with myself of whether or not to continue pursuing a career in art. I have these thoughts due to external forces that have been pressuring me and making me think about my future. In this piece I have transformed myself into one of my paintings. I am literally imitating the paintings. I want to blend in and merge myself with the work to become one with it. At the end of the video I’m trying to remove the paint from my face similar to the way you wipe a brush when you’re done painting.

5 research images for presentation

What a Drag- Forces. The forces applied to this situation are manual dragging, pulling, and dropping. I chose industrial instruments like the rope and the tools in a somewhat industrial brick setting. Recently everyday activities and goals I had set for myself have been feeling like a literal drag with many obstacles in the way. This short piece is a visual representation of the feeling. Falling apart (bricks), falling behind, dragging and creating all of this unnecessary noise just to get on with it or to the other side (another day). And what it leaves behind? A mess.

Originate- I started off with the basic structure of a chair. My idea was to decorate and elaborate on the chair just like the chair you buy at a regular store. They're all different and each with a personality. Once I photographed the chair in its environment I wanted to show the deconstructive cycle and origins of the chair. I deconstructed the chair and ended up with the simple sticks and nails I used to put it together in the first place. The last frame in the video shows me dumping the sticks next to the roots of a tree. Here I'm showing the audience where the wood from these sticks and pieces came from. The video works playing it how it is or playing it backward the idea remains: Everything comes from somewhere or something.

In with the New, Out with the Old- I took the concept of 1000 elements and decided to use my entire collection of Kandi beads, along with cheap vibrant colored necklaces. I poured them over this metal candle holder type object. I wanted to create a stark contrast using textures and color. I juxtaposed these items on the candle holder to make a statement in questioning “what is fine art vs what is arts and crafts”. Some of these woven beaded items might be considered fine art one day in the near future. For years embroidery was considered a woman’s craft until recently where it’s finally considered fine art. The idea is that the candle holder is a metal sculpture that can probably stand as a work by itself. Many people look at beads and think craft and “kitschy”. But here I took “kitschy” and made what I feel is a fine art sculpture/ installation. 

To the Brim- The idea is to present the clothing on a pedestal. The pedestals I used were common household furniture items but to me they are personal. I kept the family theme going where the knotted clothes represent how my family and I are connected and the relationships between us. The chair where the clothes wrap around in loops and knots is a chair my grandmother has had for years and many of us have sat in since we were young. This set up is meant to be viewed from basket to coat stand to the chair. Like the stages of life. The basket with the bright playful colors= birth, and youth. The knots lead to the coat stand is the stage where you have peaked in life and finally descending into old age and death. The goal was for the piece to look like a connected triptych. I also played around with moving the three and creating new compositions. 

Family Ties- I chose to tie my family and I’s clothes around the tree and hammock during the hurricane. I wanted to test out the durability of the knots and how well the clothes would stay together on the clothing line. The clothes in this manner represent the relationship between my family and I. The hurricane winds ended up undoing two of the clothing items almost like the undoing of a relationship during tough situations in our lives. 

Soft Portrait- An assemblage of my knotted clothing that creates a visual representing my personality and my daily routine: fast, tight, colorful, loose, tense, fun, confusing, yet somehow put- together. That is who I am. 

The Dance- The cars in these images resemble a dance between two people. We attempted to create a stop- motion- like stream of images that would make it seem like the cars were performing a dance routine. We are personifying these metal pieces that are the make up a car into what humans do when they dance. The doors are our arms, the front of the cars are our faces. Near the end of the “dance”, we used the extension cord to connect the cars symbolizing how two people dancing create this sort of relationship/ connection as well.