Wonder Women :: Art & Technology

I was very interested in the mixed media piece Doll (1970's-early 1980s) by Sandra Menefee. The piece was a collage of sorts. It seems as though Menefee used old reading lessons (which addressed issues of domesticity) as a canvas. On this she painted patterns to a very traditional childs (or perhaps a dolls) dresses. The various layers of paint made it harder to see the reading lessons below giving the piece a ghostly appearance. The juxtaposition of a traditional medium, painting, with collage creates an irony that lead me to read the piece as a critique of traditional gender roles and the channels through which they are enforced.
This in mind I found it very interesting the the piece neighboring Doll was Isabel Bishop's Two Girls Talking (1935). This piece is a grey wash on wove paper of two young girls talking. It is a sketch that uses minimal details to very effectively portray a scene. This piece is very traditional in all elements of the work. It uses a traditional drawing medium on a very traditional surface to portray a very traditional scene.
I feel that it is important to look at the time in which these pieces where created to further understand their relationships. Bishops pieces was created in 1935 a time where women artists a time when women artists were slowly gaining some recognition. In contrast Mennefee's piece was in the late 70's and 80's a time when feminist art was on the scene and (some) women artists were using their art to make bold statements!
I felt that the placement of these two pieces provided an interesting dialogue concerning the history of women artists.

Posted by Benjamin Faga at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The first piece that really drew in my attention was also my favorite piece in the exhibit; "Backyard: Evening, 2005" by Michael Kareken. The medium was charcoal on paper, and I just loved how it looked like a blurred, black and white photo at a glance. The contrast in light and dark really brought out the energy in the light on the house, and this piece of art just seemed to have something that draws you in magnetically.

The second piece I really liked was "Witch Tree Torso 23" by Hazel Belvo. The medium was graphite, tobacco juice and vermillion on paper. The first phrase that popped into my head looking at this was "concentrated evil". I was amazed at how the harsh, dark lines could symbolize so much evil and dark energy. I liked how the little bits of red (I'm assuming the tobacco juice) and yellow splashes but some depth into an otherwise black and white drawing. This is another piece that just sticks out for being so different and bold, and that's something I really like to see in gallery work.

Posted by fjest003 at 05:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The first piece of art that attracted my attention was the Unititled piece by George Morrison. What initially attracted me to this piece was the fact that it was so different from all of the other pieces in the museum. From a distance, it looked like a bunch of scribbles all over a large sheet of paper, but as I moved closer I became more intrigued by the detail that went into creating this drawing. While the lines look like they were randomly drawn from far away, this could not have been the case. Close up, I saw that all of the lines were precisely drawn. The entire piece exemplified the oxymoron: "Organized chaos." It's incredible.

The second piece of art that I was attracted to was the Promenade du Boeuf Gras. In this drawing was a mob of people all waiting in the streets of the city. I was attracted to this piece for a reason similar to what I stated above. From far away, the people in the drawing all look very similar to each other. It is only when you move closer to the drawing that you see all of the incredible detail in this drawing. I loved the wide variety of characters. There was a wizard, a maid with a baby, a jester, and a soldier, to name a few. This was the first time I've seen such a wide variety of characters all mobbed together in one small drawing.

Posted by matth120 at 03:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The first pieces that struck me as absolutely brilliant were the 4 drawings in the Hollis Sigler series. They were right when we walked in and done with really bright, eye-grabbing colors, somewhat reminiscent of the eighties. (Perhaps they were done then, I didn't catch a date) Anyways, they all have chairs as the subjects, and the chairs take on the emotions of the piece. All of the emotions are somewhat self-loathing, such as "They were right, they were perfect" with one sad-looking chair gazing up at two other chairs on their self-righteous pedestal. I just thought it was unique that the artist chose chairs to represent someone feeling this way. A chair bears a great load, is often underappreciated, and wholly incapable of expressing oneself, and the sentiments expressed in these four pieces identify entirely with these characteristics.

The second piece I really liked seems to be a favorite in the class: Sandra Menefee Taylor's "Doll". I immediately thought of Ibsen's A Doll's House because of the four dresses along the bottom that were painted over with lines that looked like a house. The enlarged "see spot run" text on the larger dress made me think of how elementary education is (at least mine was) very focused on creating the ideal life, cut out of a magazine. For instance, there was a recent debate about whether Sesame Street re-runs from the seventies/eighties should be rated PG because in some of the skits, the puppets were wrestling. It is, of course, ridiculous to assume that children are not capable of seeing things like wrestling, but the goals behind ideas like this seem to be aimed at creating doll-like perfection in adolescents, but that simply isn't realistic, nor is it desirable.

Posted by Kari Volkmann at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The first piece that caught my eye was Fortis by Diane Williams. It's a charcoal line drawing of a man, and I love the gestural quality of the lines--very free and fast, as though the artist just sat down for five minutes to sketch and that's how it came out. I also like the way the arms and hands are drawn in a few different positions, as if the artist changed her mind about where they should be placed but didn't bother erasing her original lines. The free flow of the lines and the multiple pairs of hands creates a lot of movement in the piece. The expression of the man's face also struck me; it seemed to convey an intense emotion but I wasn't exactly sure what that emotion was--maybe desperation; there was something almost inhuman about his face. Tension between the facial expression of the man and his posture, and the title of the piece which means "strength" makes the work thought provoking as well as visually appealing.

The second piece that drew me was Doll by Sandra Menefee Taylor. I was initially attracted by the white paint splatter covering the dress, which is the main element of the piece. Then I noticed the text that comprises the "fabric" of the dress, and which uses children's book-like language that has a slightly menacing overtone to it. At the bottom of the piece is a series of abstract sketches of houses containing what look like human figures, and with the title these reminded me of doll houses. I was interested in the concept of the piece more than anything, and I took it as a sort of commentary on confinement and particularly the social confinement of women--women being confined to dresses, confined to houses (the domestic sphere), confined to a certain set of expectations of what they should be and what they should do that is set forth in childhood (perhaps through playing with dolls).

Posted by lips0037 at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was drawn to "The Sacrifice of Isaac" by an unknown artist done in the seventeenth century. I'm currently reading through one of those "Read the Bible in a year" bibles, and had just recently read this story. I was moved by this drawing because it was not polished and refined; the lack of defined lines allowed the viewer to see Abraham's inner struggle: I have to do what God says, but I don't want to...God gave me this son in my old age, but now He wants me to kill him? I also thought that the fact that the brown ink was very light and not always distinguishable against the cream colored page further showcased Abraham's confusion; the lack of other colors allowed the piece to be centered entirely on the situation rather than elaborate color choices or patterns. (The viewer can't get caught up in the color of Abraham's clothing rather than his situation.)

Secondly, I was taken in by Glen Allison Ranney's "Raspberry Farm". I'm a sucker for anything black and white (though usually photography), and this--like the above--was not overly refined and polished. The picture had a serene atmosphere, which is surprising considering the stark contrast of black on white. I did find myself longing for some color, though: my family lives on a dairy farm with a big garden and a huge raspberry...well, field basically (it keeps branching out of its own accord and may one day indeed swallow the rest of the garden). The deep color of raspberries and the green of the leaves is stunning and would be the best way visually in my mind to capture something titled "Raspberry Farm," but Ranney apparently had a different interpretation. Either way, it still evokes a stillness that comes at the close of the day when things begin to calm (and the sun casts large amounts of shadow, like in the drawing) whether your raspberry "farm" is black and white or in full color. I love the serenity of country life and felt that this drawing captured it without words and transported me a hundred miles away while standing in the middle of a large city.

Posted by hurl0063 at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Piece #1
One piece that caught my attention immediately was Douglas Argue's untitled piece from 1993. I was initially drawn to it because the human figure appeared to be stuffing his/her face with something that appeared from a distance to be spaghetti. This made me laugh, and I went in for a closer look. I realized as I neared the drawing that it was not at all spaghetti that was in the figure's mouth, but the head of a small, orange, four legged hoofed animal with the rest of the body sticking out....

this startled me...

..then some other odd things began to pop out. For example, the figure seemed vaguely like a toddler based on the proportion of the head to the body. The figure was naked, and the color of the skin varied in 5 or 6 tones throughout the body as if it were many races, or even no specific race at all. The eyes of the character were intently focused on the body of the stuffed animal sticking out from his/her mouth. The most confusing element of the picture was perhaps the stick that the child held out in its right hand. Attached to the stick was a string tied to a donut shaped object. Another "toy" perhaps, albeit not a very amusing one.

What message does Argue's painting hold? Not a clue. But if the figure was indeed a child with very lame toys, I can't help but feel concern for why any parent would allow their toddler to stand with the head of a stuffed animal in his or her mouth. Perhaps thats what idle children do...

Piece #2

I really liked Sandra Menefee Taylor's mixed media piece called "Doll" from the late 1970's/early 1980's. The central figure of the picture is a hazily outlined dress, a very classic doll's dress with a short skirt and puffed cap sleeves. The dress had a very aged look with tabs atop the shoulders to suggest a paper doll dress. There was also odd white treatment applied to the collar of the dress that seemed like melted lace. A closer look at the content of the dress revealed faded sentences and pictures that one might find in a 1950's grammar book for children with phrases about Dick, Jane and the dog, Spot. Phrases like, "Jane wants a house. Find a house for Jane." seemed to subtly reinforce traditional gender roles and identities one might associate with the 1950's and earlier. Along the bottom of the piece were four small graphite sketches that appeared to be different stages of metamorphosis from the doll dress to a simple outline of a house. It seemed to imply an inextricable link between girls and the private space of the home. I think the artist was commenting on how out of date this message is by giving the whole piece an aged appearance akin to decades old newspaper.

Posted by remu0019 at 02:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The pastel on paper drawing by Viola Frey portrayed a woman and a man sitting on the floor of their home. I felt that it was full of emotion because there was a wide variety of color scattered in fragments throughout the piece and I felt that multiple moods were being expressed at the same time – anger, frustration and sadness. It felt very intimate, as if I were invading on a private domestic quarrel which the man and woman were so caught up in they didn’t even care to notice people were watching. Similarly in the picture, there were spectators in the window and door that didn’t seem to be expecting to walk in on them. I also felt like there was a power struggle between the man and woman and it seemed like both of them wanted to just curl up and revert back to being children and not have to deal with the issues in their adult lives.

In the Nancy Randall drawing titled “The Crossing,” I felt very calm and peaceful from looking at it. Across the top were a series of pictures that seemed to be telling an ancient story about the Vikings. The bottom ¾ was somewhat of a collage of canoes, insects, birds and flowers that made it feel like the scene was being preserved in time because of the overlapping figures and the way some images were fading out or were very distant. It was a graphite and pastel drawing on Japanese handmade paper so it felt like it had a very warm and comfortable feeling to it. The mediums used gave it a delicate quality and presented it in a kind of soft yellow light that reminded me of being in the middle of an empty field immersed in sunlight.

Posted by beckx214 at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)