2011 Student Portfolio Exhibition

 

Title

Transfigure

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Creation Date

Spring 5-11-2011

Medium

acrylic paintings (visual works)

Disciplines

Art and Design | Art Practice | Painting

Description

Artist's Statement

Transfigure is the conversion of abstract expressionist gestures and reflections of personal negative emotions into something different, or transfigured. Initially, I painted ten canvases in a sustained 24-hour session. From these works I continued to work and rework configurations of the ten panels toward the single composition/installation in this exhibition, at the same time registering a series of transformations and conscious decisions reflective of my attempts to reconcile and resolve various tensions that arose as I worked. It wasn’t until I kept going back to my paintings did I understand why it was so hard for me to pick up the brush; going back to these paintings was to confront these feelings once again. These feelings I was confronting consisted of loss, confusion, anguish, and contemplating the reason for death.

The formal visual vocabulary of my work changed the longer I worked; texture, scale, and brush strokes became the foundation for understanding how each painting related to the others. Working with texture seemed to afford me an opportunity to engage my body, increasing the intimacy and visceral intention of the work. It was, in fact, my reactions to texture that stimulated my color choices for each panel. The scale and mounting of the entire installation is meant to overwhelm and challenge all sense of control. To feel out of control at this scale is, I believe, to recognize that it is delusional to think we have ever had it.

By painting some panels a single color foregrounds the textural elements, covering the prior painterly chaos beneath. There is nothing to hide in front or behind, a raw representation of beginning anew. Transfigure is a representation of how I express myself when words fail.

Comments

This work appeared in concentrated chaos, the 2011 Thesis/Portfolio Exhibition at Linfield College. Photograph courtesy of Kaycee Hallstrom.

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Keywords

Painting

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