Monday, November 23, 2009

Crossley Review

A Review of “Open” by Aislinn Stone


On November 6th, 2009, a group show organized by Bradley Wester called “Open” opened in the Crossley Gallery. The exhibition included the seventeen fine arts juniors that make up Mr. Wester's Painting III class: Kris Brian, Justine Delman, Daniel Dias, Julienne Duverny, Jeffrey Heart, Brittney Hollinger, Georgie Landy, Paul Link, Therese Mcpherson, Max Moore, Cheryl Murphy, Alexandra Plemmons, Trisha Rampersad, Treavor Rennick, Rachel Robbins, Megan Scott and E. Danielle Slaughter. The show included sculptures, paintings and installations. There was a diverse range of art including: abstractions, self portraits, and political pieces (or so I thought, judging from a painting by Treavor Rennick).

The painting by Rennick was my favorite overall. My first impression was that the work referenced the war in Iraq, due to the desert colored sand and the images of a dead soldier, woman and ghost. When I asked the artist about the meaning behind the work, he told me it dealt with female first person shooters who were out to kill ghosts in a video game. This increased my interest in the work. The figures and the ghost were painted using a simple black outline. The shooter had fallen dead onto a wash of light orange ground meeting with a faded purple sky. The scale of the painting was appropriate, and the use of black outline and minimal use of faded color made for a very simplistic yet strong image.

Many artists have used subject matter from video games for their work. This is a way of working that is prevalent in the world today. Some of these artists include Damiano Colacito who has remade elements of the video game Halo into life size versions keeping the objects planer texture and visual appearance from in the game. Another artist Brody Condon has worked with first person shooter games documenting character suicides and in more recent work he has created projections one might assume is a scene from a video game that remake old religious paintings using elements from his own personal computer animations. Both these artists exhibit internationally and were part of a group show in Tampa, Florida titled Audience and Avatar. This new wave of video game artists is spreading worldwide. Art has gone from referencing video games to having a virtual art world within one such as in the game “Second Life”, which well known artists such as Cao Fei have chosen as their art medium. In Second Life players are encouraged to scan in art or create art works in game, and sell these to other players. There is even an art star in the game named StarAx Statovsky who has already had his work in a retrospective at the game's Aho Art Museum. Second Life even has its own art magazine called Slart that aims to bring real art world issues to the virtual world within the game.

All of these young artists mentioned above along with Treavor Rennick raise common issues that come with being part of Generations Y and Z, generations characterized by being highly connected to video games, computer games, media technologies, the World Wide Web and cell phones. Those of us born in the 80's and beyond have been nicknamed the “digital natives” by theorists and scientists. I expect we shall see an increased number of artists who use video games as a medium for their work as the playing of such games increases within the general public. The difference between the artists listed above and Rennick's work is that he doesn't use elements or story lines of video games already in existence, but refers to a video game he himself made up. Rennick also holds onto the tradition of painting in his narratives taken from his video game world.

Looking at the show as a whole I could not help but notice the color scheme throughout the gallery. Primary colors were everywhere and a good portion of the work was abstract. It was a pleasure to see a strong group of artists in a painting class in the fine arts department that is actually painting. I was impressed with the professional level of presentation that far exceeded what I have come to expect judging from past shows in the Crossley Gallery. The juniors did an excellent job in organizing the event.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

"Turn into Something" Nov 13


Featuring all new works by Ashly Lovett and Daniel Dias including small and large scale oil paintings, acrylic paintings and large scale pastels.

"We have known each other since the beginning of freshman year. For three years we have shared many ambitions and pushed one another as far as possible in our art and as people. We've both developed together by learning, sharing and talking about art. We can both agree that we owe a lot of our success as students to that relationship which has now set us both on a strong path to becoming professionals with a clearer knowledge of who we are, what we want and what we need from our work. We have almost come to the end of our journey together here at Ringling and soon we will have to embrace our futures separately. However, we are confident we will continue on to discover and share with each other as we always have.

For years we have said that by our senior year we would have this joint show to celebrate this relationship that we cherish greatly. We did not want a theme to describe our show, but rather we wanted to display a collection of works which represent our personal skills and interests as of now. I hope everyone can attend and give us their support."

-Ashly Lovett and Daniel Dias













Saturday, November 7, 2009

"Open" November 6


Open is an exhibition of works by the Fine Arts Junior Painting Class, under the instruction of visiting artist, Bradley Wester. Each artist exhibited the results of their first completely OPEN assignment. The work may or may not enlist the medium of paint. Nothing, other than the fact that each artist shares the same class and instructor, was meant to hold this work together.

Participating artists:

Justine Delman, Daniel Dias, Julienne Duverny, Brittney Hollinger, Georgie Landy, Paul Link, Therese Mcpherson, Max Moore, Cheryl Murphy, Kristopher Phillips, Alexandra Plemmons, Trisha Rampersad, Treavor Rennick Rachel Robbins, Megan Scott, Jeffery Heart, and Dannielle Slaughter












Thursday, November 5, 2009

ADVANCED DRAWING

Crossley Gallery is pleased to present “Advanced Drawing”: a collaborative exhibition featuring works from Ringling College of Art and Design’s Advanced Drawing students. This show forges 23 artist’s work coming from two separate classes with a common goal of exploring drawing as an engaging, malleable, and resourceful tool of expression.

A mattress and a bed sheet, masking tape, egg shells, sharpie markers, Jello, graphite, computer programming, glass bottles, laminate, basswood, cut paper, charcoal and magnets are the materials that the artists have employed to convey their personal approach to drawing. In Advanced Drawing the boundaries are blurred between the precious and the expendable, the overlooked and the conspicuous, the generic and the personal.

Works from:

William Robert Ball IV, Arun Balmick, Justine Delman, Julienne Duverny, Jerermy Fisher, Steven Gonzales, Sandra Kurzban, Paul Link, Therese McPherson, Alexandra Plemmons, Trisha Rampersad, Shellie Riffe, Megan Scott, Rachel Robbins, Treavor Rennick, Lauren Alley, Brittney Hollinger, Georgie Landy, Jeffrey Scudder, E. Dannielle Slaughter, Max Moore, Ginger Waugh, Kris Phillips.




























Saturday, October 24, 2009

"We've Got Game" October 23, 2009


A call was sent out to all Ringling Students to submit work about games, any kind of games - head games, video games, internet games, board games, sports games, etc. Students answered back with a variety of artwork, everything from a sports performance to traditional illustrations. The work was judged by Wendy Wischer, Ann Albritton, Tiffany Gosselin, and Heather Jackson. The result - "We've Got Game."

This show features work by artists:

Jordie Bellaire, Illustration
Tiffany Gosselin, Fine Arts
Jeremy Griffith, Game Art and Design
Kirk Hughes, Interior Design
Heather Jackson, Fine Arts
Noah Ortega, Game Art and Design
Kris Phillips, Fine Arts
Rachel Saffold, Illustration