Artist Statement- Draft 1
Asking
the right kind of questions generates meaningful conversation involving
opinion, experience, fact and/or logic; my art process begins with the
contemplation of ideas and subjects that exist in the world around me. Pondering
upon the questions why and how, has brought me to where I am today as an artist.
Most of the questions I develop, apply to myself (my experiences and how I
interpret the world around me); I consider my work to be mostly
autobiographical. Recently, I have been focusing on the idea of memory, and
hope to develop it further throughout the culmination of my junior and senior
year, while still relating the idea of memory to myself.
Experimenting
with process, materials and the representation of my intention allows me to
keep myself interested in my own art making, as well as engaging with other
artists. While keeping an open mind with technique and style, I hope to gain
enough knowledge to eventually invent a new method of my own, through a
compilation of what I already know, but continue to play with the idea of art
making and what it means to be an artist entirely.
My
goal as a young artist, is not only to expand my work conceptually, but also to
improve my work and process in terms of skill and efficiency by trying new
approaches to problem solving.
In
the past, I have focused bulks of my work on either family habits and
upbringing, identity, human emotion and interaction, or culture. I have gravitated
towards these topics for the reason that they directly influence me.
I
am a junior at New World School of the Arts Senior High School. I was raised in
Miami, Florida by Dominican women: my mother, grandmother and aunt. Other than
my brother, I have had no male role model in my family, which I think
subconsciously influences the way I think through and produce my work. Since my
experience seems to be different than the norm of American lifestyle, in a way,
it inquires me to fully interpret what it is that made me into who I am today,
and who I will become in the near future. Due to the fact that my work is
autobiographical, my work allows me to somewhat compare myself to others, only
with the presence of my viewer.
I
consider my audience to be anyone who can relate to my experiences directly or
indirectly. I intend for my work to have
others examine their ‘being’ in a similar way to how I have and to also have
others compare their lifestyle, upbringing and experiences to those of mine and
the people they surround themselves with; I believe that the way in which we
generate habits, ideas and opinions is essentially based on how we were
nurtured and what or who we surrounded ourselves with in our childhood and how
we interpreted them individually.
Through
the process of my work, I would like to rediscover myself and reassure myself
in my art practice.
Starting
my junior year with this sculpture project, I would like to being to understand
what materials I am most comfortable with in relativity to the concepts I would
like to further develop. I intend for this project to be experimental with a
set product in mind. Although I am going to be developing new techniques and
exploring those already put into place, I foresee an end result.
I
am going to experiment with different materials that I can mold into a sphere.
I want challenge myself in coming up with different method in creating a
spherical shape with each material. I would like to use at least 5 different
materials; these materials vary, the ones I’ve had in mind are as follows:
aluminum, styrofoam, plastic, cloth, rubber, clay, chap stick/lipstick, wood,
latex, small objects, paper, dried paint, string/yarn, hot glue, metal, puffy
paint, silicon, articles of clothing, etc.
This
project will be solely based on process and discovery. I am interested in devising
how it is that I approach materials that I have not become all that familiar
with. Once I have familiarized myself with each material, or have become
comfortable enough by making multiple spheres or sphere like shapes, I will move
onto another material. Consequently, I will then relate each of them to an
experience and memory based on color, form, process, relation or texture either
before or after creating each and then arrange them accordingly.
I
plan to arrange the spherical shapes in a manner that’ll capture the meaning. I
would like to have the significance of multiples to be showcased on a geometric
almost computer like encasement following a muted color scheme, unlike the
spheres.
The
shape I chose was a sphere, due to its primitive element, what more complex
shapes can sphere lead me to develop with each of these materials?
Artist List:
Aurora Molina, Ashley Bickerton, Tom Friedman, Joseph Beuys, Ai Wei Wei, Meleko Mokgosi, He Xiangyu, Josh Kline, Titus Kaphar, Michael Vasquez, Sarah Sze, Richard Deacon, Zhang Huan, Marcel Broodthaers, John Latham , Valerie Hegarty
Small Works:
