Figurative Sculptures

In Progress

Final

Figurative Sculptures: air dry clay, acrylic paint, wood

Sculpture 1 "Blossom": 4.5" x 4" x 4.25"

Sculpture 2 "Worry": 4.25" x 2.75" x 2.5"

Sculpture 1 Side View

Sculpture 1 Back View

Sculpture 1 Front View

Sculpture 2 Side View

Sculpture 2 Back View

Sculpture 2 Front View

Sculpture 2 Arial View

Artist Statement: For my sculptures, I wanted to represent Social Anxiety and how it impacts a person. The first sculpture shows a person blooming and having room to grow on the larger base. The petals are yellow because this person is happy and growing and allowing themselves to be seen by others. The second sculpture shows a person who is held back by their social anxiety and doesn't have room to grow because they're scared. The yellow in the middle of sculpture two is the potential that the person has, but it's hidden away where people can't see it unless they get close to the person. Most of the time people with social anxiety are really fun people (sculpture one) but their anxiety and hesitation to branch out keeps them subdued and stops them from interacting with people (sculpture two). Both sculptures can be seen as the same person, but sculpture one shows what life would be like without social anxiety and sculpture two shows what it's like to live with social anxiety.

Gregor's Room 

In Progress

Final

View 1

View 2

View 3

Detail 1

Largest Piece: Couch, copy paper and ink, 4.5" x 3" x 3"

Detail 2

Artist Statement: For this project, I wanted to make Gregor's room seem sad lonely. I used black for the bed to show the displeasure that Gregor felt with his life, and I made it small to show how uncomfortable it must have been living in a home where all the responsibility to support the family fell on his shoulders. The couch is blue because that's where Gregor hid after turning into a bug, and the blue shows the sadness and shame Gregor felt, which is why he hid in the first place. Gregor had used a white sheet in the story to cover himself while under the couch to help hide himself from his family better, but he seemed to feel safest under the sheet. I dyed the sheet yellow to represent the little bit of comfort and security it brought to Gregor while he was hiding under it. I depicted Gregor as a brown mush of paper to show how distressing turning into a bug was for him. He woke up and had no idea what happened or why, and his family was scared of him. They ever took the time to try and help him, they just immediately deemed him a monster and wanted nothing to do with him. Lastly, I created the picture of the lady that Gregor had hanging in his room. I decided to make this specific piece because in the end, this image is what caused Gregor's death. The only reason he was exposed and seen by his mother was because he was trying to save it when his sister and mother were trying to clean out his room. Had he not tried to protect the photo, I think he would have been able to stay hidden away for a while longer and his family might have adjusted to him being a bug or found a solution for him to go somewhere safe. 

This story overall was a very sad one to me. Gregor was never truly appreciated by his family in my opinion, and then when he needed them most they failed him. In the end they didn't even take care of his body when he died, they let someone else handle it and that makes the whole thing even sadder. Gregor provided for his parents and sister, but they got rid of him without hesitation once he could no longer be of use to them. 

 Masking Tape Shoes

In Progress

Final

View 1

View 2

View 3

Detail 1

Detail 2

100 Objects

Installation #1

Installation #2

Installation #3

 Dinner and a Movie 

"Choices"

Movie Inspiration: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Artist Statement: At its core, Narnia is about the battle between good and evil. In my piece, I mirrored a clock layout and put one object on one side and mirrored it with its opposite on the other side. Ice mirrors chicken noodle soup, burnt toast mirrors golden, buttery toast, and sour gummy worms mirror Hershey kisses. The evil side is represented by the ice, burnt toast, and sour gummy worms because they are all a harsher version of the good side, which is the soup, golden toast, and Hershey kisses. In the middle I placed a knife to represent the violence that can come with such a fight which is mirrored with the stuffing I used for the background to represent the innocence that is put at risk when evil tries to take over. All of these things can coexist together, but if one side were to take over and be the only options given then some people would be happy and others not, just like when good wins out over evil or vice versa.

"Press"
4in x 12in, acrylic on canvas

"[About touch receptors] the brain reads the firings and stop firings like Morse code and registers smooth, raspy, cold." (A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, pg. 80)

Artist Statement: When the reading mentioned our brain recognizing textures, I thought about how our brains can also associate words with their physical form without needing a visual. I painted the words "rough" and "smooth" in morse code, and while someone might not know what the code says, they would be able to distinguish the two by touching the canvas and feeling the code for themselves. The code spelling out "rough" was painted on thick and globby while the word "smooth" was painted thinly and flat against the canvas. Just because we can't see something doesn't mean we can't describe it through our other senses, in this case that sense being touch. 

"Migraine"
6in x 6in, acrylic on canvas

"English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache...let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry." (A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, pg. 104)

Artist Statement: I've had chronic migraines ever since I was little. I've never been able to get people to understand what it's like, and it's more than my head just hurting. When I have a migraine, I can barely function and it's awful when I have to be up and moving around. I tried to convey the feelings from a migraine in the paintings, but it still doesn't feel like enough. The crazy, scribbled lines are supposed to represent the fuzziness and "tv static" that takes over in my head when a migraine comes. The wavy lines are for the nausea, and those canvases are turned diagonally to make you as dizzy and uncomfortable as possible while looking at it. The strong black and white contrast represents my head (black) and the symptoms (white) and their sharp, intense effects they have on me. The strokes go from bold and solid to thin and broken up to show the ebb and flow that comes with the pain.

 Ai Weiwei

"Don't be quiet." Political/Social Activism and Community 

https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s6/ai-weiwei-in-change-segment/

Sunflower Seeds
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ai-sunflower-seeds-t13408

    Form: the seeds are displayed in a way that gives the installation height, width, and depth, rather than being flat.

    Texture: (originally) the work was installed so that the audience could walk across the seeds, which would result in a texture change from the smoothness of the whole seeds to the sharpness of the crushed seeds. 

Colored Vases
https://publicdelivery.org/ai-weiwei-coloured-vases/

    Color: the colored industrial paint stands out against the dark, chalky appearance of the ancient vases. 

    Balance: the varying sizes of the vases gives the work an asymmetrical balance that allows the eye to move smoothly through the vases.