Lee's Artlog

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2007- From the same composition that brought me Brown Daiseys, Flowers From the Colossus was an excercise in Photoshop filters for me during my first semester at Art Center in Digital Design.  The original photo was quite bright, but I thought that it needed a darker tone. How often has a flower been portrayed as something ominous or blackened? -Rarely if that.  A story is explored by an artist behind everything, so from the trampled remains of that which was, emerges a flower of dark life in a weakened state of eerie beauty. 

I think of concepts of good and evil, and how.. brown or gray they really have become.  With the way individuals justify their beliefs and ideals, I think the problem is too many decisions are made to define what is and what is not too late to fix the problems.  If individuals are taught that hate is a way of life, then why would they accept no less from us? – We alone by our lack thereof, are different and therefore, despised and perceieved as weak. It is the environment and methodology of teaching that creates evil.  I doubt seriously that the Crusaders woke up and said, “Wow, I just slaughtered 10 women and children. I am evil.” No. It was probably: ”I just purified 10 souls.  I am closer to Heaven.”  The belief is hidden between the justification of the words. Remember: The best lies are hidden between two truths and the world is wagged by the dog. 

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2008- Term 2 provided less time for me to really do exploratory work, however on this particular day in Drawing Concepts I bit down on a central theme and followed it vigorously through the end of class. We were allowed to choose a word or letter and then use charcoal in a fascinating method of crushing it onto the canvas to provide a more varied aesthetic.  I found it to be somewhat refreshing from the mundane training that I had been involved in over the last 10 weeks of the semester, and the break provided me with the oppritunity to be less subtle about messages that I communicate.  I noticed that when I am more focused on style than technique, I allow my guard to drop and smack the canvas with my own personal, political and socialogical contexts. -Thus it appears that I am attempting to allow technique to define style.

The central figure is crushed by the weight of his own self disdain, overwhelmed by questions and doubt. Lost in all the coal and dirt, the questions are drowned out by his pain and loathing, turning him only into a creature-ous shell of what he could be, rising and moving on above the knowledge of such and going towards more limitless horizons. 

The Regret of Knowing Why was concieved from the letterform of ‘Y’. To me it is one of the most powerful letters of communication and I siezed upon the chance to explain in such simple but neutrally forced contexts the idea of how I feel.  Sometimes I don’t think there needs to be an answer to every question that we have. Imagine if you could know the date of your own death or know the answers to those questions that bothered you most, only to find out you were completely wrong the whole time.  It’s best in many cases that we leave those things alone and leave white lies be. 

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2008- A far cry from the original still life I did for my Composition and Painting class, Worschester & Co. took about 8 hours to complete one sunny weekend. On the original, I tried too hard, got an odd perspective, and did not balance my colors in any manner.  I scrapped the original piece and started over after my instructor told me to redo it. As with most of the work for this class, I always end up doing about twice as much as anybody else. Not that I am complaining, because I have grown fond of painting and also it gives me much practice.

I have begun to develop a very dirty style to my work. I do it because I am very interested in the texture and low lighting elements that are in color.  -It may also be a result of the brush. I tend to allow my brushes to become weathered because I don’t always take proper care of them and abuse them regularly to get the results I desire. In a sense I try to emulate the work of Van Gogh by letting the colors fall where they may through the natural process that is taking place. For Worschester & Co. I could only use a limited color palette of cadmium yellow medium, aquamarine blue, burnt umber and white.  I broke the rules and mixed the yellow and blue to attain the greenish hue for the lime. I tried to also be more vigilant about cleaning my brush. The piece itself came out a bit opaque, but the rendering is there, and the cloth looks good.