Well folks, this is it. This is the end, the end of the semester, the end of the my sophomore year, and the end of my time in the Honors Humanities program. It's surreal to say the least. An incredible amount of blood, sweat, and tears went into this website, and it truly represents two years of hard work. Through my keystone project, I have really come to learn much more about myself as a woman, as a student, as a person, and as an artist. I know what I can and cannot accept from others and from myself. By choosing to focus on the human body in art, I feel like I have gained agency and control over my own body and being. The body is an interesting vehicle through which to track the cultural, social, and political shifts of history. As a whole, Honors Humanities acted as a unifying force in my first two years at college. Every class I learned something that applied to other classes. It helped me connect my coursework and see the "whole picture."
About a week and a half ago, I held a website launch party and art exhibition to officially present my keystone to my peers. The event was a success with about 20 visitors stopping by. I got to have one-on-one interactions with the guests, which I think is important because websites can often be impersonal. When I sat everyone down to talk indepth about the website, it was reaffirming as the words came rolling out and I was able to appreciate just how much knowledge I had really gained from my visits into the city. Pictures from the event can be found below.
As for my future, I plan to keep the site going in one form or another and continue as an art history major. Although I love contemporary art, I have not yet decided if my focus will center on contemporary or prehistoric art. Additionally, I plan to study abroad the second semester of my junior year in London to take advantage of the European art scene.
Thank you all for your continued interest and I hope I have made you proud!
On a simple white background, a young girl sits in profile, still except for her lips which mumble indistinguishable sounds. The scene is noticeably emotionless, Johannes Brahms plays overhead as the mumbles continue to escape her mouth. Her eyes are cast down yet her face is entirely neutral. Suddenly, the screen flashes bright, colorful lights and Marie's image is distorted into colors and pixels. Negative and positive spaces are reversed. Stills from the film that inspired the drawings, Au hazard, Balthazar, superimpose themselves over the drawing. Meanwhile the music of Johannes Brahms begins to crescendo. The assaulting light show challenges the optical, for a minute you are lost down Willy Wonka's endless chocolate tunnel. The combination of sound and color ultimately evoke the somber feelings in the viewer. Marie by Karen Yasinsky is an exploration of youth, lose of innocence, and the power of sound.
It didn’t surprise me to learn that Richard Cleaver made dolls as a child and hid them under his bed. The installation of his works at the BMA have deep references to both his personal life and to hiding; each sculpture contains hidden drawers, doors, and compartments. Cleaver works almost exclusively with the human figure in ceramic layered with wood, paint, and pearls, among other things. The intricate designs on the surfaces evoke images of organic structures under a microscope or overgrown temples. All are enveloped in a profound stillness and hints of religious icons from the Greeks to Hindus make p seem like a small altar, a place to focus and contemplate the imagery. The bizarre devotion to detail reminds me of James Hampton, a self-taught eccentric who created an intricate throne for the second-coming of Jesus out of everyday materials.
The winners of the Baker Artist Award are currently on display in the Contemporary Art wing of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
It's that time of the year again! The art of current students in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of Maryland is on display at the Stamp Art Gallery. Several of the artists explore aspects of the human body. Zach Jackson employs the human form to explore the strength of the human spirit. In particular, Jackson analyzes the physical and mental manifestations of stress on the body. In What?, dozens of identical latex faces open and close. Exposed mechanisms grind, allowing for the movement. The latex naturally shears and tears due to the repetition, much like our bodies deteriorate. You're in my touch bubble, another piece by Jackson, is a torso covered in black magnetic paint. The layering of the magnetic paint creates disturbing inorganic growths all over the torso. These growths are both repulsive and fascinating. The torso is invaded, conquered, and deformed, becoming a human hybrid. The stress of the technological world surrounding the body seem to prevail.
"Self-portraits are never just mirror-images. The reflected self is actively processed: clarified, enhanced, often mysteriously defamiliarized. If we use the jargon of modern cognitive science and say that the underlying self-image is "constructed," this expression can be taken quite literally where portraiture is concerned. For a physical and psychological presence is like an edifice, when artists "build up" human characters in the proportions of pose to facial expression, from the body plinth to the turn of the head, from the gesture to the frame."
"Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze/Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees" -Billy Holiday.
Bound at her ankles, a black female nude hangs from the ceiling of the Baltimore Museum of Art. She takes a pose so commonly referenced in art history, one hand covers her breast and the other covers her genitals. Once an artistic troupe, Saar complicates the use of the female nude by exploiting the viewer's expectations. Too long have artist's relied on the white, invitational, and unproblematic female nude. Furthermore, Saar reclaims the female black body by utilizing it as a medium to convey the history of race relations in the United States.
With an art historical background and the influence of her mother Bettye Saar, a fellow pioneering black female artist, Alison Saar is acutely aware of the body's connection to historical and contemporary social issues. Where many artist's before Saar, and even after, have refrained from the black nude, Saar has fully recognized its potential in Strange Fruit. The title references a Billy Holiday song which describes the lynched bodies of African Americans found so commonly amongst the trees in the South. But instead of displaying the black body as purely victimized, Saar juxtaposes the violent scenario with secure sexuality. The classical pose is interrupted by the weathered and worn surface of the figure's full curves. Instead of smooth, white marble, Saar uses the everyday materials of tin and wood to convey the integrity of the figure. Black nudity was historically viewed as exotic, but Strange Fruit is much more complex. She is neither inviting nor self-conscious. She is solid yet desirable. Saar creates a tension between the form's strong feminine beauty and the historical fear of the "other." Ultimately, Strange Fruit puts strain on old stereotypes until they collapse under the tension.
Clockwise From Right: Grace Hartigan, Ingres' Bath, 1993. Oil on canvas. Alison Saar, Strange Fruit, 1995. Rusted tin roofing, wood, dirt, found objects, and rope. George Segal, Girl on a Chair, 1970. Herculeanite plaster, wood, polyurethane paint. Sarah Morris, NJJRMN, 1998. Acrylic on canvas.
Mel Kadel Right: Spacing Awake, Left: Back to Brick Pen, ink, and coffee on paper.
Mel Kadel's drawings invoke a sense of nostalgia with her whimsical and youthful imagery. Her simple, colorful figures inhabit empty environments and conquer fantastical obstacles. The simple, coffee-stained environments allow Kadel's charismatic little figures to be the focal point. Expertly drawn in pen and ink, each figure is a lesson in expressive line, yet they retain their graphic quality. The viewer can sense the struggle and tension of the little beings against the forces around them. There is a sensitivity to her art found in the combination of her muted colors, small scale figures, and unadorned environments.
When I first saw Mel Kadel's work, I was connected to my inner child. Her work looks like illustrations from a sophisticated children's book. You can almost see the caption or storyline under each drawing. In fact, her artwork called to mind one of my favorite books as a child that I had since forgotten, Strega Nona by Tonie dePaolo (below).
Renaldo Kuhler, Majorettes in a parade during Imperial times, c. 1950. Colored pencils
"I am Rocaterrania." -Renaldo Kuhler
I don't know about you, but when I was growing up I had imaginary friends. In fact, I had imaginary friends to an uncomfortably old age, probably until I was 13 years old. I was an awkward kid that had a hard time making real friends; I had plenty of acquaintances at school, but no one to bring home and play with. My brother was away at college and my sisters were my mortal enemies. I felt safest holed up in my room playing kitchen with my imaginary friends, or outside going on grand adventures in my driveway and lawn. Often times, the fantasy world in my head was much more appealing than real life.
For Renaldo Kuhler, his imaginary world began at age 17. His father moved the family from the suburbs of New York to the valleys of Colorado, and it was then that he began to create Rocaterrania. And it all began with his imaginary friends, Augustin Valtovin and Hallock Jenkins. Now 50 years later, Rocaterrania, Kuhler, and his artwork are finally made public.
Rocaterrania is a country that resides just North of New York on the border between Canada and the United States. The city is populated with figures wearing military garb and bowler hats, speaking Rocaterranski, and practicing their religion, Ohallaism. There's everything you would expect to find--an opera house, a planetarium, a sewage plant. Kuhler has developed each part and the stories of each site and individual link together just as they would in real life.
Kuhler's artwork itself is heavily influenced by his experience as a scientific illustrator, many of his works have striking detail. He combines this detail with cartoon-like sensibilities. As is custom to be on display at the American Visionary Art Museum, Kuhler has had no formal art training. He often used whatever materials were readily available, creating pieces in pen and ink, colored pencils, and paint. Much of his imagery seems to be taken from the 19th century, as well as Eastern Europe and Edwardian England. Despite these antiquated references, Rocaterrania remains very vibrant. Kuhler's father, Otto, designed modern, streamlined Art Deco trains for most of his life. But where Otto strove to streamline, Renaldo strove to make technology comprehensible by integrating the technology into the design.
The History of Her Life Written Across Her Face, 1991. Lithograph
Her Story, an exhibit of the artist Margo Humphrey, opens Thursday, February 4 at the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland. As the exhibition name denotes, Her Story is a highly personal collection of Margo Humphrey’s prints and lithographs. As a whole, Humphrey’s work is vibrant and communicates a youthful, yet wise spirit. Color is essential to the collection, helping to create an energy that is both childlike and mature at the same time. Her color may be loud, but her subject matter is often intimate and telling, addressing a lifetime of emotions and experiences. Humphrey works in a style she calls “sophisticated naïve.” She never seems to take herself too seriously, adding graphic patterns and bold colors to the most somber of subject matter for a hint of joviality. All these factors combined, guests will find Her Story immediately engaging, easily relating to the issues Humphrey presents in such an earnest and approachable way.
Her featured work, The History of Her Life Written Across Her Face, truly encapsulates the spirit of her collection. A self-portrait, The History of Her Life Written Across Her Face chronicles the artist’s life; her story literally spills across her face in a mixture of visuals and text. There is a deep resonance of emotions in the visage and a deeper level of meaning in the story. Many of the symbols Humphrey employs become part of a cannon of her own personal pictorial language. Beginning her art career in the 1970s, Humphrey found herself influenced by the emerging feminist movement. In The History of Her Life Written Across Her Face, it is clear that "the personal is political," for all though her self-portrait is highly personal, it i universal for many women.
Her Story is a highly recommended experience, as much can be learned from Margo Humphrey’s life and her subsequent art. The opening will also feature a brief interview of the artist, an exciting chance to hear her speak for herself and her art.
"When I really know certain things are working for me, they make me laugh."
Elizabeth Murray is well known for her paintings, if we can call them that, of vibrant colors and abstracted forms. Her "paintings" are closer to a hybrid of painting, sculpture, and collage. Separate sculpted panels are painted and arranged and rearranged to form a whole. Murray's process is highly intuitive, as she paints in a stream of constant action. Every decision she makes is up for revision, her creative process is trial and error. This process lends playfulness and spontaneity to her paintings, yet it also allows her to thoroughly consider each detail. The lucid colors and graphic shapes are inspired by toys and cartoons. Energy vibrates from each color, crashing quietly against one another. By constructing each work out of individual pieces, Murray recalls the the common jigsaw puzzle. But it would undermine her genius to stop there, for although her paintings are fragmented and her process virtually unstable, as a whole her pieces are unified and coherent. This is in part due to the grand scale of the final product. In The Sun and the Moon, a fleshy pink figure arises, squiggling from the array of abstracted shapes.
Elizabeth Murray painted the The Sun and the Moon while recuperating from brain surgery, as her original diagnosis of lung cancer spread through out her body. Murray would pass on just two years after the completion of this painting.
Alberto Giacometti, Monumental Head, 1960. Bronze.
Jackie Milad has an affinity for facial expressions and an astounding aptitude to capture the subtle intricacies with minimal but expressive lines. For Inside Mouth, Milad asked volunteers to don a bald cap and respond to various commands through facial expressions. For example, she might ask the volunteer to express sadness, to smell a sweaty sock, or to rub a latex balloon. Each request, whether me or tactile, resulted in unique reactions and unique facial expressions. The The androgynous format firmly places the emphasis on expression alone. Now, she invites visitors to the gallery to recreate some of those very same expressions. Three bald caps hang with mirrors on the back wall for visitors to get into character. Inside Mouth is an evolving and interactive process, a process that imbues her drawings with meaning.
The meticulous grid of faces represents a taxonomy of expressions, an anthropological study of sorts. The simple small scale drawings are wonderfully lyrical and capture a fleeting moment full of emotion or humor. Her control of line is masterful and irreverent. Each face tells another unique story. I scoured the pieces and found my favorite which is pictured above. I giggled.
Jackie Milad received her MFA at Towson University and currently resides in Baltimore, MD.
Each entry explores the represented body in the contemporary art of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Additionally, the website provides invaluable resources for those looking to explore the scene themselves!
RSS Feed