Chrissy

Stories

This section of Art:21 focuses on Stories told by the artist's work. The artists on this part were Kara Walker, Kiki Smith, Do-Ho Suh, and Trenton Doyle Hancock. They all have different styles of work, illustration, sculpture, painting, but all use very abstract forms of art. They relate to the main idea with using life experiences to make their art.

Kara Walker loves the melodramatic, and making things seem like they're apart of History. So she draws on black paper with chalk, then cuts out her images - which are usually old fashioned views of black people from the south, but all with a twist of dark humor. From my point of view it seemed as if she wanted people to see how wrong the old perceptions of black were. I loved the way they seemed realistic but still had a bit of illustration to them. It was interesting to see them on the wall.

Kiki Smith uses sculptures to tell her stories, which she prefers people to have their own opinion about. She uses life experiences to make her art. In the video clips she made a maniquin that she molded from her own body, and creatures to interact with her.

Do-Ho Suh art was the most interactive with it's viewers. He had an entire room filled with dog tags from war. That was an idea he got from his time in the war, which is something he had in common with Kiki Smith - using life experiences. He also worked with fabric, to make a replica of his old home.

Trenton Doyle Hancock mainly works on drawings, installations, and paintings. His story was to tell about the mythical creatures the Mounds. He uses historical abstractions and comic book narratives.

I think the one artist that interested me the most was Kara Walker. I really loved the images she portrayed. A lot of them were dark, but they seemed partly friendly too. She used images that were from the south and a bit racist, but she changed them to tell a new story. It's like she was trying to change History, to make us think about how things could have been.

Picture-Word:
I chose the picture with Legos and the word Cement. I chose it because I thought it could be interpreted in a few ways. The most obvious thing that comes to mind is "cement blocks", but it could also make you question the meaning of cement. The Legos are easily disassembled and the word cement means something concrete; not made to be taken down. So it's a little contrasting too.

Picture-Picture:
I chose the picture with the rows of candy and the girl with half her face showing. Individually the images are interesting, but together they make a message - at least I think it does. I was trying to get "Strangers with candy" across. The candy's pretty self explainatory, I was hoping people would understand the stranger side. I tried finding a picture that left a little mystery and I think the image with her showing only half her face worked.

Word-Word:
My words were Courtsey Walk. I think it gives a funny image in a persons head, with the picture of someone trying to courtsey while they walk. But it also is a way of being proper so it's kind of like showing respect as you walk - just in an odd way. I made the words the same font because I didn't want them to be contrasting eachother, I wanted the words to look like they belonged together.

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IMAGE WORD last edited on 17 September 2008 at 8:19 pm by 148.61.82.74