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Paint/Agora Gallery/11/28/09

I walked around Chelsea for a bit until I stumbled upon Ruth Gilmore Lang's series entitled, "Paint." I am not sure if it was the vibrant colors that first drew me to her work or her use of composition over all, but I found it hard not to want to write about her works.I found it hard not to want to write about her works. Being that I had never heard of this artist, I was excited to look up more about her, her past work, and what she is trying to accomplish as an artist. From first glance, it appeared as though she enjoys a certain organic and natural quality in these paintings. They spoke to me as being very free and also, very fun. I had come across her artist statement from another series of work she presented in a gallery in Michigan and as I read over it, I immediately saw the connection between the artist as a person and professional and her work. I was also extremely interested in what she had to say because I enjoy her involvement with nature, the human soul, and overall depth of involvement in her pieces. “Art is the language of the human spirit, the rhythm, beat, and song of the self. Sometimes difficult to decipher but, with surrender, one may travel into the heart of the painting.” She goes on to later also state, “Why else are we here, but to experience and to express the movements of passion and the fire in our spirits." She has made a clear connection through her artist statement and her paintings through her use of color, composition, and tone of her work. The vibrant and playful colors, shapes, and use of line create this world of excitement within the limits of the canvas itself. The sometimes-bold use of line creates more organic shapes that help to further push the idea of the naturalistic quality the artist embraces throughout her pieces. As Langs states in her artist statement, “with surrender, one may travel into the heart of the painting,” I feel as though looking at her paintings, one can easily get a sense of this. It feels as though she is easily lost in the process of making these paintings, like she has completely surrendered herself to the actual idea and action of creating these paintings. The paintings carry a very free flowing vibe, which as an artist, I find to be very attractive in not only my work, but when looking at other artists creations. With painting, it is an ever-changing process, layering, changing, experimenting, and with the idea Langs is working with, she is able to do so with this medium. The actual medium itself is, in my opinion, very whole and organic. Paint can be transformed into whatever the artist to desires, and in Langs case, the paint takes on a life and rhythm of itself, that reflects her taste and style, but is left open for the audience to dive in and take what they may.One of the clearest reads throughout Langs paintings, especially seen in “Release,” is the emotional quality behind the painting. For starters, as a whole, I feel as though she completely submerses herself in her work, and it is evident in the colors and pulse her paintings create. Along with these two elements, the line work, brush strokes, and overall tone clearly expect a vibrancy and passion from not only the artist herself, but from her audience. The painting itself speaks on its own about the emotional quality in terms of passion for life, passion for art, passion to create, without the need to read into this specific painting or any other her other works for that matter. Langs work simply requires of the viewer to be open. To be open to the pure emotion that these works speak in. The artists sense of how to convey her sense of passion and pure enjoyment in the process of creating art and also life through these paintings is something that is admirable.One of the reasons I was so captivated by these paintings by Langs began with the interest in her use of color and texture, the pulse and vitality it created, but it ended with the impulse that occurred within me, as an artist to go and produce something, anything that I could yield myself to.

Print Series

Words:

Stressed

Windy

Jen

Camera

Forest

1960s

Lotus

At first, I did struggle with a concept or unifying idea with these seven words. I began almost pasting ideas together through photoshop, not sure I was headed in the right direction. With a bit of frustration, I started to shoot some of the images I knew I wanted to have for this print series. Being that one of my words was camera, i decided to use my own photography and camera to fulfill this portion of the text. I have a high interest in photography and enjoy it very much. A lot of my work has a high contrast and play on light, so I knew I wanted my series to definitely reflect this portion of my art. I tried to use as much of my photography as possible, only incorporating an image of a forest and text that was not mine.

The first image I developed was one that incorporated Jen, forest, stressed, windy, lotus, 1960s and camera. I shot my friend Jen and layered these images, to represent the idea of stress. The saturated colors throughout the images and print itself reminded me of photography from the 1960s. The background is an image of a forest that i also layered to reflect the images of my friend. I placed text throughout the trees that come from a band called Lotus, but i also wanted to use the song to represent the windy category.

The second image I created deal with Jen, stressed, lotus, camera, windy, and 1960s. Again, I used images i shot of my friend Jen and layered them to represent a stressful environment. The colors throughout her image also reflected that of the 1960s photography in my eyes. The lotus text was again carried throughout this image and I drew a lotus flower in the upper corner of this image, carrying out the text idea and the over lotus category. I had originally placed a tattoo image of a lotus on Jens arm, but it did not work amongst the other image and the style and idea I was trying to convey.

The last image was one I struggled with a bit. I did not want to use another layering image of jen, but i did not however want to stray too far from the other two images i created. I took a portion of the camera image i had shot and used the lens to carry out the camera category. i took the forest image and again, two photos i had taken of Jen and that i used in the two other pieces, and warped them to look like a reflection of the lens. i layered and used minimal color in the photos, like i had been doing to get that 1960s camera feel. The text by lotus was once again carried out to reflect the lotus and windy category, but this time the text was a bit awkward to fit into the image. i am not extremely please with this last image as i am the two others, but i do feel as though it does work as a whole series.

Recipe Booklet Concept

For this project, i wanted to play around with the idea of growing a money tree. Like many other people in our society, I am always tight on money and I wanted this booklet to have an almost serious, informative appearance, but a very humorous and light concept. The idea of being able to "plant" a money tree and harvest its growings is something that is very funny to me, and also something i would LOVE to have. Money is such a source of stress and chaos for myself, and i am sure many others, that I have always been quite bad and frustrated with the idea of money and possession. So for this project i wanted to have fun with the idea and play on these "money" issues and desires everyone has been dealing with lately.

My name is katie mccue, i am a fine arts major in my 5th year of TCNJ. i have always been interested and enjoyed creating and was never sure where i would want to end up in the world, but i knew it would revolve around art. at this point, i would love to finally graduate, travel and create, and eventually go back to school to continue working with photography and end up doing art therapy. What influences my art is a mixture of emotions, daily life, and light, especially in photography.

categories

place : forest

enviornmental condition : windy

people : jen

mood/feelings/emotions : stressed

objects : camera

flora/fauna : lotus

period of time : 1960s

july 09'

Nyc 09'