reconnecting . . .

 

Title

Kenopsia

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Creation Date

2020

Medium

acrylic paintings (visual works)

Disciplines

Art and Design | Art Practice | Painting

Description

Kenopsia, acrylic on glass, measures 6 by 8 inches.

Artist's Statement
I’m Krysten Baryo, and I am a junior here at Linfield College, I am pursuing my undergraduate degree in Studio Art and Philosophy with a minor in Visual Studies. I enjoy making art in various mixed mediums as it relates to current events and personal happenings. I hope to be able to inspire questions and conversation with my art pieces, in a way that there may not be a correct answer but certainly different ones for different onlookers.

Before coming to Linfield, I studied art at Portland Community College where I explored the 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional worlds of art. This is where I realized that creating art and putting it out into the world is something that I should be doing as much as possible, and for as long as possible. I like to keep the mediums I work with varied, as it allows for new and extended possibilities in what can be created. This year, I have primarily worked with concepts relating to creating from destruction, and fixing projects from broken concepts in order to make something entirely new, leading to my ultimate statement for this spring show. The Art of Self-Repair

This semester I have been greatly inspired by the idea and process surrounding the Japanese technique kintsukuroi. Kintsukuroi is a process used often to repair broken pottery using a lacquer made of gold or another precious metal, effectively making the piece more beautiful after the repair than it was before having been broken.

The idea of an object being beautiful even after breaking is one I wanted to highlight in my recent works. Metaphorically I believe this is a beautiful concept, especially in a time when so many humans feel broken or undervalued, and in the kintsukuroi process instead of hiding the fractures they are actually highlighted. It was this thought process that inspired me to do this work consisting of a mix of mediums including a take on traditional kintsukuroi, and other pieces inspired by the process.

Leading up to the final project within this statement, I realized that the metaphor began to matter much more than the medium in my current art endeavors. I decided to teach myself how to do small scale tattooing, and used gold ink to fill in the self-harm scars on my own body. This, along with the other pieces in this portfolio, I did as a testament to self-repair, and the idea that being broken does not equate to a reason to be tossed out or given up on. This is an art piece that I will carry with me everywhere, giving others the opportunity to ask “why” something so simple and not easily understood would be tattooed on my skin. Because of this, I will be able to share my efforts in encouraging self-repair through conversation and example for years to come.

For the rest of this semester I focused on making art that has been inspired by the current events regarding the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This, in part is because it is so prevalent and unplanned that it felt like something that art must be made about, and also because in the art of self-healing it is important to address yourself in the contexts that you’re in. In this way, I’ve hoped to create a timeline of how the latter half of this semester has felt as a student continuing to study online during a time in which so many things are out of control.

Comments

This work appeared in reconnecting . . ., the 2020 Thesis and Portfolio Exhibition at Linfield College. Image courtesy of Krysten Baryo.

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