Blog #9: Lectures from the Art History Symposium

2015 Festival of the Arts: 11^th Annual Art History Symposium

California State University, Sacramento: Mariposa 1000
 Saturday, April 11, 1-5:30 p.m.

            Bridget Gilman, one of the speakers at the Art History Symposium, focused on the contemporary issue of urban transformation and aesthetic experimentation responses to Gentrification in San Francisco. Among her influences were Mike Mandel, Larry Sultan and Janet Delaney who were photographers who photographed in San Francisco. Gilman explained how Delaney mimicked Ansel Adams strategy of taking photos from an elevated view point such as from the top of a car. Mandel and Sultan took photos billboards in order to challenge commerciality but instead had the opposite effect. For example when the two collaborated in creating Sunkist oranges billboards, the Sunkist Company actually liked the photographers’ billboards and wanted to buy them. The artists’ rebelled by responding with a billboard with oranges on fire. When I asked Gilman what she found interesting about Gentrification she responded by saying “It’s relevant in today’s society. It costs as much to live in San Francisco then to live in Manhattan”.

         Another speaker who spoke at the Art History Symposium was Matthew Weseley. His focus was on the work of African American Artist Robert Colescott. Weseley explained that Colescott dealt with racism and segregation in Oakland and that in different times of Colescott’s life he was labeled with different racial descriptions such as Mulatto and even White. Colescott did not identify with black stereotypes and was afraid of them because he did not want to be associated with them. In search of his identity he confronted black stereotypes in his paintings. One example of such work is a painting titled The Green Glove Rapist which is an acrylic on canvas painted in 1971. This piece was created in reaction to a case where a rapist was believed to have been black but in reality was not, in reality the rapist was a Jewish man. Colescott painted the scene not how it happened but what people thought had happened. He painted based on pre-conceived notions reflecting the meaning of dark skin and how society interprets it.
          I found the last speaker’s content to be the most interesting. Nicolas G. Rosenthal focused on the growth of vibrant Native American Indian Art in Northern California in the 20^th century. What I found to be so fascination was Rosenthal’s exploration of Contemporary Native American Art. I have commonly seen and admired the Artwork of traditional Native Americans’ but have never seen Contemporary Native American Art. Rosenthal explained that the explosion of Native American Artists’ making and selling work is a way to argue for the validation of Native American culture. It is a rebellious response against the push for assimilation. It also shows change over time to Native American culture. An example of this is a by Artist Jean Lamar created in 1985 titled Vuarneted Indian Cowboy which shows a Native American woman in Contemporary society wearing sunglasses, a cowboy hat and Western style clothing. In the Native American woman’s sunglasses is the reflection of an eagle and jets.

Speaker Bridget Gilman discussing Gentrification

 

Mike Mandel & Larry Sultan's collaborative Burning Oranges Billboard

 

Robert Colescott's The Green Glove Rapist

 

Nicolas G. Rosenthal's introduction

 



Jean Lamar's Vuarneted Indian Cowboy

Me at the Art History Symposium 





 



Blog #8: Exhibition at the B. Sakata Garo Gallery by Jack Ogden

The entrance to the B. Sakato Garo Gallery


B. Sakata Garo Gallery: New Works Exhibition by Jack Ogden

923 20^th Street, Sacramento, CA. 95811
March 3^rd—April 3^rd –2015

            The discipline that the exhibition represents is sculpture in the form of assemblage from found, gathered and bought materials. The theme of Jack Ogden’s exhibition was mixed media abstract human figures and abstract alter like pieces. The majority of the work contains both wood and metal. Some of the sculptures even appeared to be painted. Although Ogden’s abstract alter like pieces are very unique, I found the abstract human figures to be the most interesting because each one seem to have its own personality. Visually they come to life and greet the viewer. Personally my favorite was a figurative piece with feminine qualities titled Joan. Another piece I really admired and enjoyed was a figurative sculpture titled Fernand (Brother Can You Spare a Dime?). The sculptures were of various sizes some were life sized, while others were smaller and displayed on peda-stools. Among both the sculptures and abstract alter like pieces I noticed that Ogden is very selective with the colors he incorporates into each piece. The colors Ogden used in this exhibition were mainly red, brown, yellow and blue.

Also the way the exhibition was set up was very visually attractive, there was plenty of space between each sculpture which allowed the audience to walk around the sculptures and see them from all angles. The Sakata Garo Gallery was the perfect location for this exhibition because it allowed the light to come in through the window and shine onto the sculptures. The red brick walls inside the Gallery really brought out the warm tones of the wood used in each piece.

One Ogden's abstract like alter pieces titled Tete a Tete

Another figurative piece titled Phillip

 

Me standing next to my favorite figurative piece titled Joan

Fernand (Brother Can You Spare a Dime?)







 

 

Blog #7: Paintings by Tim Collom

Tim Collom Gallery: Paintings by Tim Collom

915 20^th Street, Sacramento, CA. 95811

11am—6pm, March 14^th—June 7^th—2015

            The discipline that the exhibition represents is oil painting on canvas with the exception of one Giclee. The theme of the exhibited works is landscape. The landscapes are abstract with the exception of two realistic looking landscapes of beaches and water. The other landscapes, which are abstract in style are of mountains and skier’s and of a colorful hillside with fields and trees, there is also a very colorful painting of boats in the water. The colors that Tim Collom uses are very bright and saturated which creates a psychedelic like landscape. He doesn’t use very much blending in his abstract landscapes, instead he layers his colors over each other in patches. Collom’s paintings have a great sense of spacial depth, he uses atmospheric perspective to create the illusion of a landscape that expands into the far off distance. He also uses lines to create a sort of grid with each landscape separating the near from the far. Among Collom’s paintings my personal favorite was titled California it is a landscape which in the foreground has a ski slope full of tiny little skier’s surrounded by large pine trees and mountains. In the mid-ground is farmland which is represented as a colorful patchy grid of land spotted with tiny plants representing agricultural crops growing in the fertile land. In the far off distance of the background is a large body of water and just beyond the water is the city of San Francisco which is represented by a cluster of tiny buildings and the Golden Gate Bridge that stretches from the buildings, across the water.

 

Me standing next to my favorite painting in the exhibition, an oil on canvas titled California

An oil on canvas titled Foothill Farms

An oil on canvas titled Chambers Landing

An oil on canvas titled At the End of the Day

An oil on canvas titled Monochrome Hills

A limited edition Giclee titled 4 Boats

 

 

Blog #6: Lecture: New Media Artist Jill Fantauzza

Jill Fantauzza blog deleted and e-mailed to Professor.

Blog #5: Lecture: New Media Art by Sean Clute

The flyer for the lecture, a sneak peak at Sean Clute's work

Sean Clute and I

Weaving Media: Interdisciplinary Experiments in New Media Art by Sean Clute

Sacramento State University, 6000 J St. Sacramento, CA. 95819

KDM 145, Wed March 11, 20015, 3pm-4pm

            The first potential new candidate for full-time hire at Sacramento State University had flown in all the way from Vermont, Sean Clute’s discipline is New Media. I was eager to attend this lecture since it would be my very first artist lecture experience. Clute experiments with New Media and Performance Art. He also works with video and sound. The subject of his work includes the human body and movement. One of Clute’s work’s called Mythos is an animation of ancient Greek Mythology characters the Olympic runners from an ancient Greek vase. Out of all of Clute’s work this one was my favorite. Here Clute uses the Olympic runners in a modern way by creating New Media design using drawings and video to make animation. He also uses Greek music in the background. He said he started with a concept, researched, took images, and put them into a system and used software to organize the information. From there he developed tools and a system and then “played with it”. Specifically Clute took images of the Olympic runners and put them in illustrator and converted the pixels into vectors which are scalable and easy to manipulate. He then uses puppet pins to turn the Olympic runners into movable puppets. He then uses a software and uses a “digital language”. Clute also showed various other works of his including a piece called Double Vision in which he incorporated sound, video, dancers and music. Another of his works he discussed was called Evolutionary Patterns and the Lonely Owl which was a hands on interactive installation which involved video games, dancers, digital imagery, lights, music and sound. This piece was a lot like the Exploratorium in San Francisco.

 

 

 Double Vision

 

Evolutionary Patterns and the Lonely Owl

 

 

Blog # 4: Mustafa Shaheen's "Friends & Sometimes Friends"

Portrait painted by Artist Mustafa Shaheen titled Chris P.

Shaheen's  simple yet elegant display of the title of his exhibition.

Friends & Sometimes Friends: Paintings by Mustafa Shaheen
R.W. Witt Gallery, Kadema Hall, Sacramento State University, 6000 J St., Sacramento, CA. 95819, February 23-27, 2015, Mon-Fri., 12pm-4:30pm

            Mustafa Shaheen is a Sr. student here at Sac State and is getting ready to graduate soon. He is a Studio Art major and his medium of choice is oil paint on canvas. His subject matter of choice is human portraiture, but not just anyone, more importantly his friends. When looking at Mustafa’s work, one gets a glimpse into both the artist’s life and his friends’ lives. Each portrait is lively and expressive of the individual and seems to capture a snap shot of a moment in each individual’s life. My favorite among Mustafa’s portraits displayed in this exhibit is titled Faith S. It is a portrait of a young woman eating a granola bar. At first glance one might feel like this is just a snap shot of an everyday moment and to some extent it is simply that. However, what drew my interest was the intense expression on the woman’s face created by the deep blue shadows on her forehead. When I looked at it I saw a moment of sadness, poverty and hunger on the woman’s face, as if the granola bar was all that she could afford to eat for lunch. In each of the portraits the subject seems to be engaged in some activity such as in the portrait titled Omar. of a man shaving his face. Mustafa takes these everyday moments and makes them interesting by his use of engaging expression in the individuals face and captures each moment in time. What is so unique and intriguing about Mustafa’s portraits is the way that he uses color. He uses highly saturated colors on his friends’ faces, but by layering one color over another the saturated colors don’t dominate the figures faces, instead they enhance shadow and light in a very dramatic way. Although his backgrounds are just one solid color they somehow seem to create a sense of space.

 

Portrait of a man shaving his face titled Omar F.

A stunning portrait of a woman putting on her earrings titled Gabby G.

Me standing next to my favorite portrait in the exhibit titled Faith S.




 

Blog #3: Taresa Stanley-New Paintings

 

 

 

 

The Mid Day Garden No. 3
acrylic on wood panel 2014

Burano No. 2
acrylic on wood panel 2014

Burano No. 3
acrylic on wood panel 2014

Burano No. 6
acrylic on wood panel 2014

The Mid Day Garden No. 2
acrylic on wood panel 2014

The Mid Day Garden No. 1
acrylic on wood panel 2014



Me enjoying Taresa Stanley's Paintings

Pandora's Garden, 2014
acrylic on wood panel
Top Row: numbers 1-6
Bottom Row: numbers 7-12


 

New Paintings: Paintings by Taresa Stanley

University Library Gallery California State University, 6000 J Street, Sacramento CA 95819
Stremmel Gallery Presents
Annex Gallery February 5-March 22, 2015
Gallery Hours: 10:45AM-5:00PM

 

            The discipline that the exhibition represents is painting. The medium used, which is acrylic paint on wooden panel, is the same for all of Taresa Stanley’s paintings. The theme of her work is organic in form. In each piece there is an abstract like mushroom form with spots on it. Each mushroom like form in each painting, however, is a different color and size. Also the angle of perspective in each piece is different. For example some show the mushroom form as if the viewer were underneath it while others show is as if the viewer were standing over it and looking down. The imagery presented in her work is definitely abstract in form and the background somewhat resembles a sort of abstract like landscape in which the mushroom forms inhabit. The colors that she used are mostly muted and earthy aside from the bright red and orange mushroom forms that repeat in each painting. She used a variety of warm brown values along with yellow ochre and a splash of blue. Her composition in each piece is busy with a lot going on in the background. Her work I very interesting and it causes the viewer to really stop and look in order to try to figure out what the content of each painting seems to be. Personally I enjoyed viewing her work in the exhibition, however, I would not buy her work because it is not really my style and it sort of has a childlike element to it. For example the spotted mushroom forms really reminded me of the video game mushroom from Mario and Luigi.

Blog #2: (N)eon The New Eon: Paintings by Delgreta Brown

BA NETER
Acrylic on Canvas

She Emerges
Acrylic on Canvas

The Lotus
Acrylic on Masonite

Me standing in the corner of the exhibition enjoying Delgreta Brown's Beautiful Paintings. =)
 

 Venus Returns
Acrylic on Canvas

Cosmic Hips
Acrylic on Canvas

 (N)EON The New Eon: Delgreta Brown

University Union, 2^nd floor, Sacramento State University, 6000 J Street, Sacramento, CA 95819
Jan 26—Feb 19, 2015
Gallery Hours:
Mon: 10:30am-3:30pm
Tues: 10:30am-3:30pm
Wed: 10:30am-3:30pm and 5:00pm-8:00pm
Thurs: 10:30am-3:30pm and 5:00pm-8:00pm
Fri: 10:30am-3:30pm

          The discipline that the exhibition represents is painting. Delgreta Brown is an African American woman Contemporary artist, she uses acrylic paint on canvas and also on Masonite. The theme that is represented in the exhibited works is African American culture and its roots to Africa and Egypt. The imagery presented in this artist’s exhibition is figurative. The theme is both visual and conceptual in that she uses beautiful bright colors to catch the viewer’s attention and to get them to take a closer look. Once you are captured by her use of color you began to examine her work more closely and begin to consider the content. The content is conceptual in that if focuses on African American culture in the present sense but that it also links the history of African American culture to its history and roots of origin. It also focuses on both the individuality of African American women and African American men as well as their relationships with one another. Delgreta Brown’s work is both beautiful and captivating. Upon seeing it I spend a lot of time examining both the aesthetics of her paintings as well as the content and the messages that are implied. I think that her work is very successful because it forces the viewer to really stop, look and think. What I learned from this exhibit is that an artist’s work can be both visual and conceptual. In the past I have usually seen work that is either visual or conceptual but not both.

Blog #1: My Goals and What I Hope To Learn

Hello my name is Angela Brandow and I am a Studio Art major at Sac State University. I am a transfer student from Cosumnes River College and I have an associates degree in Studio Art. I enjoy both drawing and painting and my long term goal is to one day teach art. Ideally I would like to teach art at the college level but I have also considered teaching high school art. I would like to teach both drawing and painting because I enjoy art, learning and working with people. My short term goal however is to learn as much as I can about art. I want to learn everything about it including its history. I want to learn about Contemporary art because I don't know much about it. I know more about classical art. Some my favorite artist are Georgia O'Keeffe and Vincent Van Gogh. This blog is for Contemporary Art 112, Professor Elaine O'Brien, Spring 2015 at Sacramento State University. #Art History