“Making figure and portrait sculpture is really about chasing the shadows and profiles of the sitter. I don’t think about making a ‘successful’ piece when working – in fact I try not to think at all. Instead, focusing intensely on looking at the sitter, I let the work make itself as I try to capture what I am seeing.”
Jess completed an honours degree in art and design at Liverpool University in 1991. Since then she has continued making and learning about art. For the last ten years, her main focus – in both sculpture and painting – is a fascination with the human figure. She believes that we express our unique, personal narratives through body language and, in her figure and portrait work, Jess tries to connect the sitter with the viewer through the energy of her mark-making.
She exhibits annually with Crouch End Open Studios and was an active member of the North London Artists Network until it closed at the end of 2015. She has also exhibited in the New English Annual Open at the Mall Galleries for the last few years. She teaches regular painting and sculpture classes in North London.
As I turned… Print on canvas (close up of Beneath my Mask)
Disjointed Fore – aluminium wire mesh
Silence me – print on canvas (mannequin and masking tape)
Complete – wire and aluminium mesh
Disjointed 3 – heavyweight paper, masking tape, ink and fire!
Disjointed Too – aluminium mesh
Beneath my Mask – aluminium mesh
Artist: Amy Oliver
I have a particular interest in issues surrounding mental health, social and political conditions, and women’s rights and identity, and tend to theme my work around this subject matter. My intention is to create pieces that express vulnerability and instability but which also suggest the (often subconscious) core strength within, in an attempt to capture the fragility of self. In terms of the materials I use, I have an affinity with metals – more specifically aluminium due to its lightness, movement and energy. I enjoy responding to materials in unconventional ways and pushing their (and my) boundaries; and unearthing discarded, lost and forgotten items and using them to construct something else entirely, bringing a new dimension to their existence.
My work and style is ever evolving and I am on a constant learning curve. I didn’t start my creative journey until 2013 when I undertook a 10-week Figure & Portrait sculpture evening class at The Art Academy, London and this led me, at age 44, onto a part-time one year Certificate in Sculpture with the same school in 2014/15.
I am drawn to and inspired by the subjective work and language of artists such as Schiele, Dumas and Emin, together with a myriad of unknown/lesser known artists and have been lucky enough to connect with many via social media.
I’m Playing with Colors and Shapes in a more Geometric Fashion where Space and Color have Light to Create the Perfect Balance of Sensuous and Serene Harmony. The Yin and Yang of the Future…
3 D Sculptures-Digital Sculpture Series 2016
My original sculptures were the basis for this new 2016 series. They’ve been digitized and given a whole new look, into the future. My marble sculptures translated into 3D… Musical flow of Colors and Lines as Fluid as the originals.
Artist: Rafael Salazar
He has always been ahead of the times…
His new collection of paintings brings an incredible
display of colors, strength and imagination
characteristic of all his creations.
His abstract style shows the journey thru his roots,
art learnt from el ‘Grupo Barranquila at ‘La Cueva’,
his colors and the maturity of 50 years experience.
Nowadays, he is dedicated to painting producing a
vast array of creations where his imagination has no
boundaries.
“My art activates the imagination into infinite levels…
only the observer possesses its message.”
There is a simplistic, minimal aesthetic present in Puryear’s work that is undeniably beautiful. He uses the material organically to create semi abstract pieces that have figurative quality and yet not limited by the figure itself. The figure being manipulated and molded is Africa.
To credit these objects for their aesthetic minimal qualities means one should immediately correlate African wood working practice as intelligent design, and it is unfortunate it does not. If Puryear’s work is received as Western mastery and African woodworking is his teacher, then a deeper look into African aesthetics should be noted in Africa’s contribution to modern art. Labeling of his work as post minimalist is insufficient.
The mining of Africa’s aesthetic and ritual that began with Picasso has become a standard practice in Western academia to the point where the visual language of Africa is considered Western. It is not. This pilfering of Africa still has no recompense or tax. This tax free appropriation used over and over again to make the West relevant once more. This can be seen in cubism, surrealism, and arte povera.
Arte Povera
Ar·te Po·ver·a
a style and movement in art originating in Italy in the 1960s combining aspects of conceptual, minimalist, and performance art, and making use of worthless or common materials such as stones or newspapers, in the hope of subverting the commercialization of art.- 1960s: Italian, literally ‘impoverished art,’ from arte ‘art’ + povera (feminine of povero‘needy’) https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=art%20povera
Arte Povera once again acknowledges the stagnation of western academia and proposes a rail against this limit by including trash/outsider as a point of inspiration. The Zizek quote points to the inauthentic intellectual guise wrapped up in this movement. Michaelangelo Pistoletto’s Venus of rags would seem to fulfill the hope to “re-establish the aesthetics of beauty” of Zizek. Does Venus of rags accomplish this re-establishment? It does not.
Like most movements that attempt to redefine Western academia based on the established aesthetic, all that is accomplished is an affirmation of the binary. Pistolletto’s Venus accomplishes that binary where it is clear that Venus is still Venus, even if she is turned and looking at trash, and the trash is still trash. The binary is reinforced not swayed. Povera’s illustration of the binary has now become the definition of commercial or the new rubric to an acceptable commercialism.
The West’s constant search to appropriate and inject new life in the dead lineage of its academia poses a primary concern for all those wishing to gain acceptance and validation of their work from the same. Those validated by the West breathe life back into the lingering notions of aesthetics.
Black, White & Gray
This systemic issue is problematic when considering the success and politics of art makers. At times it may seem that there is no other way but to accept the terms of academia but that is simply not true. There is a way to retain ones artistic integrity and aesthetic.
Mark Bradford was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1961. He received a BFA (1995) and MFA (1997) from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Bradford transforms materials scavenged from the street into wall-size collages and installations that respond to the impromptu networks—underground economies, migrant communities, or popular appropriation of abandoned public space—that emerge within a city. Drawing from the diverse cultural and geographic makeup of his southern Californian community, Bradford’s work is as informed by his personal background as a third-generation merchant there as it is by the tradition of abstract painting developed worldwide in the twentieth century. Bradford’s videos and map-like, multilayered paper collages refer not only to the organization of streets and buildings in downtown Los Angeles, but also to images of crowds, ranging from civil rights demonstrations of the 1960s to contemporary protests concerning immigration issues. http://www.art21.org/artists/mark-bradford
Mark Bradford amongst others exist in black & white and fear the gray. Bradford exists with integrity and aesthetic. Both Bradford and Puryear have received have been featured on Art21. Bradford differs from Puryear in his clarity of and honesty of material which is then manipulated aesthetically.
Bradford uses found material from his community, not out of pity or sentiment, but an investigation of the language promoted in the community. He uses it as fuel for his artistic practice and does not shy away from its origin. Bradford’s work is also not limited by its origin, nor has it become a spectacle of Blackness. His work achieves a critique of the West without illustrating the binary and upholding its rubric.
Bradford uses found material from his community, not out of pity or sentiment, but an investigation of the language promoted in the community. He uses it as fuel for his artistic practice and does not shy away from its origin. Bradford’s work is also not limited by its origin, nor has it become a spectacle of Blackness. His work achieves a critique of the West without illustrating the binary and upholding its rubric.
Postcolonial Thoughts: Martin Puryear “Passing through the color line” continues next month with Part III.
Christopher Hutchinson is an accomplished Jamaican conceptual artist, professor and contributor to the art community as a writer, critic and founder of the nonprofit Smoke School of Art. He is a Professor of Art at Atlanta Metropolitan State College and has been featured as a lecturer including prestigious engagements at University of Alabama and the Auburn Avenue Research Library. For two decades, Chris has been a practicing artist. His works have been exhibited in internationally recognized institutions including City College New York (CUNY) and featured at the world’s leading international galleries such as Art Basel Miami. He has always had an innate passion for creating spaces where Africans and people of African descent contribute to an inclusive contemporary dialogue—ever evolving, not reflexive but pioneering. This requires challenging the rubric of the canon of art history, a systemic space of exclusion for the Other: women and non-Whites, and where necessary he rewrites it. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from Savannah College of Art & Design, Atlanta and his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama.
The Museum of Modern Art presents a major exhibition of the sculpture of the acclaimed American artist Martin Puryear (b. 1941). The retrospective will feature approximately forty-five sculptures, following the development of Puryear’s artistic career over the last thirty years, from his first solo museum show in 1977 to the present day. Puryear began his career in the 1970s alongside other members of the Post-Minimalist generation. Working primarily in wood, he has maintained an unwavering commitment to manual skill and traditional building methods. His sculptures are rich with psychological and intellectual references, examining issues of identity, culture, and history. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication illustrating all works in the exhibition, with additional reference illustrations of the artist’s works and other comparative material.http://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/28?locale=en
Western Bloodline
Without question Martin Puryear has secured his space in Western art as a master sculptor. He has been regarded by many as being among elite sculptors of any nationality. He has successfully transcended “race” and his work is received as purely art. Not art with an asterisk. Puryear achieved this without the implementation of overt ethnicity, sympathy and propaganda.
Puryear has lead by example the proof of how to be successful as an African American artist within the Western art rubric. Puryear is fully accepted into the Western art vernacular as if there was and is no difference between Africa and the West at all. He is neatly included in the “Post-Minimalist generation”. This is the smoothest transition into the Western academia by an African American artist to date. This rarity of smooth transition deserves an inquiry.
Martin Puryear. Bower. 1980. Sitka spruce and pine, 64″ x 7′ 10 3/4″ x 26 5/8″ (162.6 x 240.7 x 67.6 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.Chttp://www.moma.org/d/assets/W1siZiIsIjIwMTUvMTAvMTQvMm80ZjF2dHg0b18xMzU2MS5qcGciXSxbInAiLCJjb252ZXJ0IiwiLXJlc2l6ZSAyMDAweDIwMDBcdTAwM0UiXV0/13561.jpg?sha=aa0796293d9d8397
Passing as an Artist
Passing: African Americans and other minorities were historically discriminated against in the U.S., so the fair-skinned offspring of whites and people of color often pretended to be white to take advantage of the opportunities that would’ve otherwise been denied to them. This practice is known as passing or passing for white. It often required individuals to leave their hometowns and family members behind to ensure that they’d never come across anyone who knew their true racial origins.http://racerelations.about.com/od/understandingrac1/g/Definition-Of-Passing.htm
Many young minority artists wish for the anonymity of Whiteness when it comes to their work. These artists crave a world where the artwork comes first before skin tone. Many of these artists will inevitably hatch a plan to make a beautiful exhibition and hire a White person to pretend to be them during the exhibition to attempt to get an honest response to the artwork, not skin tone then response and then eventually assumptions.
Many of these artists that begin down this path end up with work that no longer reflects them. They end up ghosts that produce pretty objects, objects that are manufactured by IKEA. Only focused on commercial success. Wanting to “pass” is a dangerous proposition that could consume your entire artistic practice.
Puryear’s work begins at an authentic African place and has succeeded in “passing”-Why and how? YALE’s Master of Fine Art department along with an impeccable mastery of craftsmanship go a long way in that smooth transition into the Western credence. Puryear’s new canon’s first stipulation is to educate yourself. You must know where your work fits in the analogs of history. The second order is to make the work impeccable. These mandates immediately remove your artwork from the category of folk, primitive, street, naïve and outsider art-outside of Western academia.
Contemporary artist Martin Puryear carefully considered the site requirements before designing and fabricating That Profile , the large-scale sculpture commissioned for and installated on the Getty Center’s Tram Arrival Plaza. In this video, Puryear’s comments about the design process accompany footage of the sculpture being made, transported, and installed.
Mr. Puryear’s experience with wood, his signature material, has a long history. His father was an amateur carpenter, and he made guitars while in college. As a member of the Peace Corps, he learned “old world joinery” from local woodworkers in Sierra Leone. While attending the Swedish Royal Academy, Mr. Puryear spent three weeks in the studio of furniture maker James Krenovhttps://mnaves.wordpress.com/tag/contemporary-sculpture/
Stipulation number three, avoid directly addressing Africa, race, ritual, and identity. To do so would pull the work back into the realm of folk. This avoidance is crucial to the commercial longevity of an artist that has “passed”. The need to distance oneself from Africa preserves the Western rubric. This reasoning leads to this acceptance of Puryear’s work as Minimalism and Formalism first primarily. These mandates allow his clearly African practice to be in a visual limbo.
This visual limbo presents itself as the “universal” or “global” aesthetic where any quasi-indigenous people could possibly make it. In this global/universal dialogue the work can and could be applied and credited to many different art movements, all of which use Africa as a springboard to become Avant guard or relevant again while Africa remains primitive. It is easy to see how could be linked to post-minimalism.
Often associated with both Minimalism and Formalist sculpture, Puryear rejects that his work is ever non-referential or objective. The pure and direct imagistic forms born from his use of traditional craft are allusive and poetic, as well as deeply personal. Visually, they encounter the history of objects and the history of their making, suggesting public and private narratives including those of the artist, race, ritual, and identity.http://www.ebay.com/itm/Martin-Puryear-Catalog-from-show-Art-Institute-of-Chicago-Neal-Benezra-/252222144694
This inquiry leads us to this topic. If Puryear is only using Africa as a point of appropriation and inspiration, then how is he any different than Picasso? And if he is acting like Picasso, operating from a colonial view of Africa then he should also be held accountable for that as he continues subjugation of Africa to exalt the West. Herein lays a major problem with attending any institution. If during the process of receiving your desired degree one actually reinforces the Western canon.
Some may say Puryear is not actually avoiding anything; rather he is very subtly and subversively handling such divisive topics as race, identity, and ritual. Those who entertain this thought should be reminded of Puryear’s other stipulation…every opportunity one has to speak about his/her work, make as many references to iconic Western art history. He is not subtle about the West.
Christopher Hutchinson is an accomplished Jamaican conceptual artist, professor and contributor to the art community as a writer, critic and founder of the nonprofit Smoke School of Art. He is a Professor of Art at Atlanta Metropolitan State College and has been featured as a lecturer including prestigious engagements at University of Alabama and the Auburn Avenue Research Library. For two decades, Chris has been a practicing artist. His works have been exhibited in internationally recognized institutions including City College New York (CUNY) and featured at the world’s leading international galleries such as Art Basel Miami. He has always had an innate passion for creating spaces where Africans and people of African descent contribute to an inclusive contemporary dialogue—ever evolving, not reflexive but pioneering. This requires challenging the rubric of the canon of art history, a systemic space of exclusion for the Other: women and non-Whites, and where necessary he rewrites it. He received his Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting from Savannah College of Art & Design, Atlanta and his Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama.
I was born in Argentina and from my childhood I had a love for art and its creation. My relationship with art began in school and continued in a private studio where I worked with different materials and media like ink, paint, drawing, and modeling with clay. At thirteen or fourteen years old clay became my choice and it still is. I am a self-taught artist. I don’t have a background in art studies. Since 2005 I have lived in Montréal, Canada. I’ve presented my work in several group shows. In 2012 I had my first solo exhibition and another in 2014.
My inspiration is everywhere. Sometimes it comes from myself–from my own experiences or general ideas I pick up. I take these ideas, model them in my mind, and sculpt them with clay. I work directly from mind to clay, making no draft in paper or digital mode. The body is the source to express my ideas.
My interest lies in paint itself. Paint as medium is as tangible and formable as clay and can be manipulated and approached as sculptural material. My paintings are collaged from dried layers of acrylic or household paint by manipulation–by scraping, folding, cutting and building up the surface. Of personal fascination for me beside its surface is paint’s physical quality and its formability. Dried paint is highly flexible and formable and can be used multiple ways. Some of my paintings are built up by collaborating collage techniques and traditional knitting. Paint can also be manipulated in different drying stages. For example, a layer of acrylic paint left for drying overnight gives it a quality which allows it to be drawn into. Because I approach paint as sculptural material I choose to hang paintings further from the wall to give them object like, sculptural format. They often take on three-dimensional forms with varying textures and colours. Colour of paintings are usually taken from original photos from ‘Soviet Woman’, but it is not as intense. For me paint is not embellishment on canvas, but rather a physical material in its own right.
I was born in former Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, what was a part of Soviet Union. The era has always fascinated me with its paradoxes and peculiarities. Imagery of my paintings is taken from Soviet Estonia’s magazine ‘Soviet Woman’. According to communist ideology of work and importance of working, in this magazine women are represented as hard working comrades of Soviet society. ‘Soviet Woman’ created and propagated femininity according to communist ideology. Judith Butler has said: ‘Masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed’.
My art began as a desire to make things interactive, and unbreakable. That’s why I use cold assembly, which means I don’t weld or solder anything. If it comes apart, you can just tighten a few screws, and all is good. My pieces started out a lot bigger, and heavier. I used a lot of larger cast iron bits. Mostly for outdoor sculpture. I’ve made sundials, fire pits, and bird baths. Before my mom’s dad passed away, I used a lot of wire to accomplish my goals. After he passed, I raided his barn, and found a plethora of small metal bits of all kinds, and hardware galore. I’m so glad he was a hoarder. That’s when the real obsession began. I couldn’t have enough junk. Ask my wife. I started taking apart typewriters after buying about ten sewing machines. The sewing machines were good, but the typewriters are where it’s at. My favorite is the IBM selectric II. It has over 2800 parts, and takes me about four hours to totally disassemble. After which I just sit in front of a pile of parts, and start putting things together. Sometimes I have an idea of what I want to make. Then other times ideas are spawned from one piece in particular. There are very few parts that have a twin, which makes symmetry very difficult. So I usually take apart two machines at the same time so I have matching parts. I very rarely modify the parts. They are made from hardened steel, which makes them very hard to drill. So I typically use the holes that were manufactured in them. I go through a lot of trial and error. Sometimes I end up totally taking a piece apart, and starting over.
I don’t know what I’m going to do when I can no longer find typewriters. Hopefully I’ll have a big enough inventory to keep me working, or I can find something else to take apart. For now I can usually find one or two in a day of thrift shopping or hitting garage sales.
I have aspirations of motorizing my sculpture, and building on a much larger scale. I love what I do, and I think about new ideas constantly. I have just recently moved to the Charlotte, NC area and have met some great people. The art community is great around here. I’m looking forward to spreading my work around.
“From Home” 32″ x 32″ x 5″ Welded steel, enamel paint, patina
“Comp 3 & 4” 32″ x 32″ x 2″ Welded Steel, enamel paint, patina
“Organic Produce” 18″ x 24″ Pencil drawing and Georgia clay
“Cast Under” 60″ x 38″ x 12″ Welded Steel, enamel paint, patina
“John Woolman’s Gift” Mixed media installation
“No Puede Hacer Anoche” Performance art piece
“Architectural and Environmental Symposium” Public Art Commission monumental scale Commercial Bronze
“Sigoa!” at 2009 annual international performance art series at Vertigo.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Aspects of art I create is a genuine reflection of my interest in conceptual and/or formal notions in art making. By using conceptual matter and formal matter as a vehicle, my body of work attempts to balance contrasting elements be it through materials, design and/or subject matter.
BIO
Jason Sweet is a sculptor, painter, drawer, performance and installation artist. He has exhibited his work internationally and has been awarded a number of public art commissions. Sweet is Assistant Professor of Art and serves as Department Chair of Fine Arts at Atlanta Metropolitan State College. He received his Master of Fine Art Degree in Sculpture from the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign where he studied under renowned glass artist William Carlson and artist/critic Buzz Spector. For his Bachelor of Arts he attended the University of Northern Iowa studying under the direction of sculptor Tom Stancliffe. In 2001 he moved to Atlanta of which he currently resides.
I was born in Argentina and my first contact with art was at school when I was six years old. At nine I began to work at an art studio with various media: paint, ink, charcoal, clay, etc. I developed a surreal style from the beginning. At thirteen or fourteen years old I worked almost exclusively with clay and I continue to do so. My artwork centers around the body and its parts. In several of my sculptures, the hands are the main subject. I can’t give a reason for this. People always ask me why and I never have a response. Some ideas for my work are born from my own life experience or feeling. Others are simple ideas.
For the past seven years, I have lived in Montreal, Canada, developing my artistic career. I did my first solo exhibition two years ago and two others with my studio colleagues. I am self-taught. I don’t have a background in art studies.
You can view more of Matías’s work at Devianart as well as his “Esculturas” and “Under the Skin” albums on Google+. Contact him at matias.sierra@gmail.com.
CT explores the creative potential of borders, boundaries, difference, and limitation. It's a playground for multiple genres and diverse points of view. And like any good playground, it provides space for more than one person to have a good time. So I have friends here as well, contributing quirky, serious, playful, innovative, eclectic, and imaginative work.
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Melissa
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Artist: Jess Miller
Creative Thresholds 
