Robert Hollingsworth

Last Thursday Robert Hollingsworth came to visit our class. His feedback was, in my opinion, the most positive and realistic advice I've heard from any of the visitors so far.

His talk seemed to be the most personal yet applicable discussion of working with galleries that we've heard so far. He reassured us about the galleries intentions in their relationships with the artists they represent. His talk mostly focused on his reactions and feelings towards the artists who he interacted with and then putting those situations into terms of business sensibility.

His talk seemed very realistic while remaining very positive and encouraging towards everyone.

His feedback seemed right on. Everything he mentioned was to the point and well thought out.

Interview Tad Lauritzen-Wright

1 How did he start working with David Lusk
When he moved to memphis he talked to a couple of gallery owners and sent out portfolios. David Lusk showed interest and seemed to be a good dealer.

2 What are important things to look for in an art dealer?
A good art dealer: has a reach beyond the city they are in, has a fairly small number of artists, is interested in promoting the career of artists they represent

3 Has he had any issues with changing work and galleries?
He says that it really hasnt ever had any issues with that. He said it can be stressful, but the work has always gone over well.

4 How does he feel about making political works?
He has no problem with political artwork but doesnt make much of it himself. He has done some as requested by others though.

5 How does he feel about media boundaries?
he feels that everything should be wide open with no limits on the artist's ability to create.

6 His biggest advice on finding a gallery
Find a gallery which actively promotes their artists.

gallery covar leetterrings

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Trey Abraham and I am a printmaker, painter, and mixed media artist currently living in Memphis, TN. I am sending you the enclosed statement and work because I feel my work would fit in well along with the other artists represented by your gallery.

I am currently a 2012 candidate for a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the Memphis College of Art. My work has been put in the permanent collection of the SGCI and University of Florida Libraries.

My work focuses on identity politics especially the construction of identity. I am currently exploring this topic through the use of the figure mixed with textural grid based layered abstractions. The figures are often depicted in the process of preparing to go out in public

Please let me know if you would like any additional information or would like to see my work in person. Feel free to keep my resume for future reference.

Thank you for your consideration,

Trey Abraham

MFA cova lettar

To Whom It May Concern:

I am applying to the Master of Fine Arts program in Painting at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University because I feel that my work will be forced to improve drastically due to the quality of the student work and my competitive nature.

The school’s location places it comfortably close to New York and Washington D.C. On top of that, it places me very near the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s amazing collection.  The school’s fantastic facilities also would give me a great opportunity to continue to branch out into other media.

Cover letter for JOB-ISHNESS

Dear Mr. Lusk,

My name is Trey Abraham and I am interested in submitting the following resume for the art handler/preparator position for which Dwayne Butcher encouraged me to apply.

As a graduating senior from Memphis College of Art, I have had various experiences including producing my own prints, but in hanging and matting prints for exhibitions.

As I am completing my B.F.A. this May, I am looking for a career that will keep me in a community concerned with contemporary art. I would be very excited at the prospect of being able to work with the David Lusk Gallery. I have included my resume for your consideration. Please feel free to contact me at (my phone number here) with any questions. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Trey Abraham

Don Estes Show Review

On Friday, I went to Don Estes' show at the David Lusk Gallery. I had really enjoyed his work when the class did a studio visit with him. The work at the show was, as I had expected, the rest of the series of paintings we had seen during the visit.

There were two or three larger scale works, three or four medium works and about eight smaller works. The smaller works and the larger works seemed stronger than the medium sized works. It seemed like they were done more out of a need for something medium sized than anything else. That said, they were great paintings, just not as effective as the others.

The  paintings have a great mix of texture ranging from raw unprimed canvas and washes to heavily impastoed oil paint. The paintings seemed to have more textural elements added to it.
The paintings use elements of landscape and map based imagery to create abstractions

Interview

I have been trying to interview Lester Merriweather. I feel like his Q&A in class was one of the most personal talks. I was less than sure about how I felt about him after his visit. This is exactly why I want to ask him some more things. I have gotten a hold of him and he wants to meet in person rather than correspond through electronic means. Since we haven't been able to meet yet, I haven't been able to ask him anything.

I plan on asking him about:

• How art historical trends have played into the creation of his work
• what historical context he wishes to place his work into
• what obstacles has he run into in his pursuit of a career in the art world
• his figurative work often strips the skin away from figures. Is this about identity politics?
• Does he try to make political statements in his artwork?
• How do you feel about the balance of concept and aesthetic in your art
• Who has been the biggest influence on your studio practice

bio

Trey Abraham is a BFA candidate at the Memphis College of Art in Memphis, Tn. His concentration is in printmaking. He lived in Austin, Tx for 18 years before moving to Memphis, Tn. His Printwork consists mainly of portraits of people performing daily tasks.

Carrie Mae Weems

Carrie Mae Weems' speech Thursday night was very entertaining and a little odd in comparison to the usual sort of lecture we find from an artist. Weem's work showed a wide span of ideas and political interests which mainly seemed connected through the bodily means by which she approached the pieces.

Her pieces have both a designed produced feel to them while very strongly conveying personal messages to the viewer (often affecting the viewer's awareness of their own viewership). Her pieces often use text in a way that projects ideas on to the viewer as opposed to the more commonly expected relationship in which the viewer projects their personal associations onto the art object.

Her pacing was very interesting. She seemed to have a somewhat slow and deliberate way of talking things about work which was still filled with energy. It gave the lecture an interestingly casual feel. It seemed as if she were talking more to a room full of peers than lecturing to students. It was a very nice change up. She also avoided over-explanation of her ideas in a way that seemed more trusting of the audience's understanding than oversimplification.

I was a little dissappointed that the lecture's Q&A section was so short. I feel it would have been interesting to hear her talk about her work a little more

good cova letta

Dear Mr. Smith:

I am responding to your advertisement in The City Tribune (dated 1/20/00), regarding the Pharmaceutical Representative position.  Please find enclosed my resume showing my education, experience, and background.

I have over 7 years experience in the sales and marketing field, and 3 years experience as an LPN staff nurse.

Throughout my sales and marketing career I won top sales awards, and trained other sales representative’s specific sales techniques to increase their sales. I enjoy working with the public, as well, demonstrating products, and educating others in their uses. I believe I would excel in pharmaceutical sales because I truly find sales a challenging and rewarding career; as well, my nursing background offers an advantage in better understanding the products I would sell.

May I arrange an interview to further discuss my qualifications? I am available for an interview at a mutually convenient time.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Bad cover letter

The purpose of this letter is to express my interest in the job opening you advertised. I have lots of experience as an ad account managar and i think I would be good for the job.
Ads that I have designed have been in many different newspapers and i have gotten a lot of awards for mywork.
Enclosed you will find my resume. Please get back to me about the job.




Im pretty sure its obvious why this sucks.

Lester Merriweather Lecture Notes

Lester Merriweather's lecture last Thursday definitely set itself appart from the previous lectures in class. Where other lecturers had usually prepared a presentation, Lester decided to go for a more conversational route. This in itself is not at all a bad idea. However, the informational part of the lecture seemed a bit lacking.

Upon entering he immediately sat down, physically placing himself on our level. The talk he gave however seemed to contradict that. It came off a bit "look at how awesome I am". That said, Lester is quite obviously seeing success in his career as an artist. He has a fairly solid formula for success. It is also one that honestly left a bad taste in my mouth. His main advice seemed to really just be about how everyone is a potential resource to be used. Although he encouraged politeness and a helpfulness towards others, it seemed only with the intention that it would be somehow paid back later.

Maybe however, the short time that we had to talk with him has given me a false impression of his intentions.

Tracy Lauritzen-Wright

Last week Tracy Lauritzen-Wright came to visit and talk with the class. She works for the National Civil Rights Museum. She spoke to us about the progression from the point where she left school up until her current life. Interestingly, although she explained the process as at times being purely based in luck, she explained pretty thoroughly the things that she did to help improve her luck. It seemed in this case more like the message was to try and prepare as much as you can. After a certain point, it sort of always comes down to luck. Persistence really seems to be the key.

            She also talked of art related jobs for a little bit. She recommended that we consider these sorts of jobs too. She highly recommended interning at a museum, which sounds pretty interesting to me. I definitely think that I will try to pursue some art or music related job when I get out of school which will help pay for my art/music habit.

cover letter

I am continuing a series of documentarian portraits that allow the viewer in on private and largely unseen moments in the life of the subject. I have been exploring these portraits through printmaking and collage. Each portrait is depicted in the process of preparing to go out in public, usually in front of a mirror. These moments of preparation are moments in which the individual fabricates part of their public identity. The audience experiences a voyeuristic moment in viewing a private moment of the formation of the subject’s public identity. The viewer however will inevitably consider their personal routines in comparison to these portraits. With the facilities I would have access to at Bemis, the series would have time and space to develop through mixed media processes. I plan on moving the work towards an installation project.

Wayne Edge and Anne Siems at David Lusk Gallery

Wayne Edge and Anne Siems are currently exhibiting work at the David Lusk Gallery. Each artist has about half of the space with Wayne Edge in the front part of the gallery, and Anne Siems located in the back half of the gallery. There is a very strong division between the two halves as Anne Siems’ work consists of paintings where Wayne Edge’s work consists of more sculptural forms

            Anne Siems’ paintings depicted somewhat creepy somewhat kitschy figures with doll-like faces, placed in front of very classical landscapes. Many of the paintings included ornate patterning either on the figure or surrounding the figure. The juxtapositions were interesting, but aesthetically, the paintings didn’t do too much for me.

            Wayne Edge’s work involved sculptural forms reminiscent of constructivism with a stone age twist. The forms had a strong emphasis on tension and motion. They juxtaposed geometric, obviously man made (or altered) materials with organic forms such as rocks and twigs.  Many of the more linear elements had sharpened rocks or broken glass affixed to the ends making them resemble spears and arrows. The same sorts of fastening methods were used at the intersections of linear elements causing the whole piece to fight back and forth between man and nature.

websites n stuff

things im cool with
http://www.thebirchfoundation.com/
http://www.gavinworth.com/painting.html
http://www.trulyamelia.com/
http://debbie-smyth.com/jubilee-bridge/
http://www.stephangeyer.com/


things im not cool with
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woodcum/
http://mistermourao.com/
http://www.syntxrrr.com/rrrdr.html
http://finchfight.tumblr.com/
http://www.galeriemariskahammoudi.com/lee.html

Don Estes

Last Thursday we went to Don Estes’ studio to talk to him about his art and how he makes money at it. I found the visit somewhat frustrating in that there was again the sort of “it just happened”/ “right place at the right time” answer as far as monetary success through his art. He didn’t really give us much new information about the gallery process and had very little experience with residencies.

I found his work very interesting and the ways in which he talked about it even more interesting. I felt it was very smart of him to talk of his abstractions in the context of landscape-based work. His paintings were very interesting and showed a progression of ideas. I was impressed with the ways he talked about starting projects and working through ideas.

His studio space seemed very nice. I was pretty damned envious. Unfortunately, the whole story of his career seemed very tailored (not unreasonably) to him. It just didn’t seem very applicable to my life as an artist.

Hamlett Dobbins

Last Thursday, Hamlett Dobbins came and gave a lecture with a short Q&A during class. During his lecture he taked a lot about the backstory of his involvement in the Memphis gallery scene. He talked about how the shows were organized. He also talked about the differences in the ways shows were organized for his different gallery spaces. He talked a little about the marketability of different shows and how that affects the choice of gallery space. I was particularly interested in his talk about the varying levels of restriction on different sorts of shows. Hamlett focused particularly on the aspects of his more approachable gallery space.

            Hamlett also spent some time talking about his involvement in artist in residence programs.  He recommended this highly and im pretty interested in looking more into artist residencies. He also talked about grants for a short while. He again recommended writing for grants. I wish he had gone more in depth into the process of applying for grants and residencies.

Calls for entry

exhibition. Two-dimensional work should be framed and protected by clear acrylic glazing. 2 entries/$25; Additional entries $5 ea; Limit 5. Deadline: November 1, 2011. Download prospectus (PDF format), or send a SASE to: Northwest Art Center, 500 University Ave W, Minot ND 58707. Questions? Contact Avis Veikley at avis.veikley@minotstateu.edu or call 701 858-3264.

INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR ENTRIES

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Deadline: September 30, 2011 Posted: 5/25/11

 Title: 2012 NICHE Awards competition Sponsor: NICHE magazine Venue: Pennsylvania Convention Center Awards: Spread in NICHE magazine, trophy and press as well as an opportunity to display their work in a special exhibit at the February 2012 Buyers Market of American Craft (BMAC) Eligibility: Students: Must be enrolled or just graduating from an undergraduate, graduate, or certificate arts program. Professionals: Must produce their own work in a North American studio and actively be selling their work through galleries and craft retailers. Both student and professional enterers must reside and produce their work in the U.S. or Canada. Fees: $40 for professionals, $18 for students E-mail: Erin Hartz Website: http://www.NICHEAwards.com Prospectus: http://www.nicheawards.com/apply-now/

NATIONAL CALL FOR ENTRIES

Redding, California

Deadline: October 29, 2011 Posted: 8/27/11

 Exhibit Dates: January 24 - February 25, 2012 Title: 28th Annual National Juried Show Sponsor: North Valley Art League Venue: Carter House Gallery Awards: $1000 Best of Show, (5) $100 awards of Excellence, (5) $50 Awards of Merit Juror: Mark E. Mehaffey Eligibility: Open to all artists 18 years and older, residing in the United States. Open theme, with a size limitation of 40 x 40 inches, including frame. All two-dimensional works in the following media will be considered: Paintings in oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastel and gouache; Drawings in pencil, pastel, pen & ink; Printmaking & Mixed Media. Fees: $10 per entry for NVAL Members and $15 per entry for Non-Members Send SASE to: North Valley Art League, 48 Quartz Hill Road, Redding, CA 96003 E-mail: Kathleen Evans or Barbara Walter Phone: (916) 812-7595 Website: http://www.nval.org

INK AND CLAY 38

Exhibition Dates: Thursday, March 15

through April 27, 2012

see pdf

Art at Wharepuke –Biennial International Print Show
Deadlines
Initial entry is to be made by CD or email
By Nov 1st 2011 send:

1. Up to 3 images on CD or by email – label images with Name and Title
2. Entry fee – non refundable
3. CV
4. Application form

Mca printblog

500 Paper Objects
Lark Crafts
Asheville, NC
Publishing Opportunity

sept 26 

Improved Photos

Greely Myatt class interview response

The interview with Greely Myatt at the David Lusk Gallery was interesting, and informative, although at times his answers were not particularly helpful. Hearing him talk about his work was, to me, the most valuable part of the interview. Learning about the working habits and methods of a professional helps to give some basis for comparison.

            It seemed that many of his answers to questions about exhibiting work professionally were either non applicable to us, or very situational. That said, it is not something to which there necessarily is a specific formula. The only real advice about gallery shows that I found applicable was his suggestion to gravitate towards gallerists who are not also artists.

            His closing advice to the group was probably the most effective, surprising, and interesting thing he said to us. His advice that an artist should always listen but not necessarily believe what they are told in critique was a very freeing suggestion. His comments about intentionality were also quite helpful.

Final Draft Artist Statement

I am currently working on a series of portraits that allow the viewer in on private and largely unseen moments in the life of the subject. The subject of each portrait is depicted in the process of preparing to go out in public, usually in front of a mirror. These moments of preparation are moments in which the individual fabricates part of their public identity. By making choices to wear certain clothes or about grooming habits, the subject is either consciously or unconsciously attempting to control the ways in which people perceive their identity.

The viewer will be allowed to step into the shoes of each of the subjects as they stand in front of the image looking at what should be their own reflection. Instead of seeing themselves, they are placed in front of a private moment of another person. The viewer is allowed a certain degree of voyeurism in viewing the formation of the subject’s public identity. The viewer however will inevitably consider their personal routines in comparison to these portraits. The viewer is in many ways an equal part of the portrait because they are in turn looking into a mirror just as the subject is.

statement of intent

My current work focuses on identity and its formation. I have been working on a series of portraits that exposes private moments of the personal creation of the persona. Each subject is seen in some part of his or her grooming routine. This may involve choices in clothing, doing make up, combing hair, shaving, etc. These choices, conscious or not, shape others’ perceptions of the subject. Subjects are portrayed performing an act taken directly from their actual actions. The images often take place with the subject looking into a mirror. As each viewer approaches the piece, they meet the gaze of the subject, effectively becoming the reflection of the subject. In this way they are forced to compare and analyze their personal habits.

I would like to install these works in the Rust Hall Gallery space. This space is ideal for the works in that there is enough wall space that the pieces can be separated spatially from each other and from the initial glance of the viewer. This allows the viewer to approach each piece as described above. Beyond that, this space is ideal in that it is a key space in a college of art, a place where identity seems to be a consistent and important aspect of students’ everyday lives.

Statement

I am currently working on a series of portraits which was started last year. The intent of these portraits is to allow the viewer in on private and largely unseen moments in the life of the subject. The subject of each portrait will be depicted in the process of preparing to go out in public, usually in front of a mirror. These moments of preparation are moments in which the individual fabricates part of their public identity. By making choices to wear certain clothes or about grooming habits, the subject is either consciously or unconsciously attempting to control the ways in which people perceive their identity.

The viewer will be allowed to step into the shoes of each of the subjects as they stand in front of the image looking at what should be their own reflection. Instead of seeing themselves, they are placed in front of a private moment of another person. This is to allow the viewer deeper into the subject than is often seen by others. The viewer is allowed a certain degree of voyeurism in viewing a private moment of the formation of the subject’s public identity. The viewer however will inevitably consider their personal routines in comparison to these portraits. This makes the viewer effectively an equal part of the portrait because they are in turn looking into a mirror.

Gallery Review: Greely Myatt at David Lusk Gallery

Greely Myatt’s show “Just Sayin’” at David Lusk Gallery was an interesting combination of sculptural forms and prints. Using imagery such as speech bubbles and panel frames derived from comic books, Greely Myatt creates sculptural forms that act as their own sort of comic. Some act in direct relation to the idea of the two-dimensional page while other pieces break the third wall and create new forms from the combination of speech bubbles.

            His prints combine multiple print processes. Both intaglio and relief are found in elements of both of his prints. The processes, although having different visual effects on the way the print appears, are both utilized for the same compositional effect. This breaking-down of the separate media within a print is very fascinating.

            Myatt’s more dimensional sculptures were very intriguing in the ways that they interacted with the gallery space. The giant sculpture made of broomsticks and gardening supplies imposes on the space of the viewers and places other people in the gallery inside of speech bubbles as you walk around it. The Book sculpture was interesting in that its placement was near one of  the resting points in the flow of the gallery space. This way, when looking at the piece, you were also looking through it to people who lined up with the speech bubbles as they mingled.

Professional Practices Assignment 2:Reactions to the class presentations

The class presentations on our work all seemed to go fairly smoothly. The issues I found with the presentations seemed to all be very basic ones.  Many of the presenters needed to speak louder and with a bit more confidence. Many of the presenters had images that did not portray their work in the best possible way (ie: poor lighting, poor focus, need for cropping). Some of the presentations contained slides that seemed awkwardly cluttered with images.

            That said no individual presentation stuck out as anything less than good. All of the presentations had a decent flow of ideas culminating in the current work. Some organized their work by media while others seem to have organized their work more chronologically. Both methods seemed to be effective. Any major jumps in the work were smoothed out well by the accompanying information by the presenters.

            Some people opted to include images of the artists who influenced them. I thought this was a very good idea. At times however the execution and placement of those images was confusing or less constructive to their point.  Rather than talking about all of one’s influences at once, a presenter might do better to bring them up throughout the presentation as their influences apply to the work being shown.

Artist statements to which i react

Amy Casey http://www.amycaseypainting.com/

After any pendulum swing of chaos grinds to a slow halt, there will come a time when you will have to decide if you are going to wallow in the rubble or take what remains and create a new empire.

Building upon recent work, I have been in search of a solid ground. A bit less kinetic

than past work, I have been trying to take what was left of the world in my paintings and create a stability of sorts, thinking about community ties and the security (or illusion of security) needed to nurture growth.  Cities are fascinating creatures that I am just beginning to scratch the surface of. The work and organization that goes into a city’s creation and evolution, the constant shifting and adaptions and the sometimes hidden history of these changes, and a city’s dependence on civilian cooperation are things I like to think about. Reflecting this interest, burgeoning cities have begun to fill in the voids in my paintings. As in life, with a sort of trial and error, some efforts work better in making the whole precarious heap hum. I am consistently fascinated by the resilience of life and our ability to keep going in the face of sometimes horrendous or ridiculous circumstances. My paintings celebrate this fascination and my love of the urban landscape.

Keith W. C. Lemley http://www.keithlemley.com

My work is about seeing the unseen – the invisible presence which exists in our minds and surrounds all objects, experiences, and memories.  Having spent my childhood on a small ancestral farm in rural Appalachia, I developed a keen interest in being part of and observing natural systems, time and the process of life and death, and an aesthetic sensibility synthesizing the organic and the machine.

 

I focus on the quiescent potential of materials and environments to be more and different than how they are currently perceived and understood; fulfilling an innate desire to explore, discover, share, and think.  Drawing attention to physiological systems of vision, thought, and memory, I am interested in making conspicuous our abbreviated and abstracted understanding of reality, time, and identity.  Initially arousing involuntary attention through democratic formal means, the content of my work then enters the cognitive as one actively relates this experience with those already held in the mind as memory. At this juncture of feeling and thought meaning is produced. By delaying this process through reorganizing the fabric of the everyday into the unusual, a heightened sense of the present is felt. Ultimately, one walks away more self aware and delighted in everyday visual ephemera and the experience of being a living breathing being.

Katie Lewis http://katiehollandlewis.com/

My current work traces experiences of the body through methodical systems of documentation, investigating chaos, control, accumulation and deterioration. The artificially rigid organization of my materials alludes to control-- of the individual body as an institutional domain, and of irrational experience as a manageable, concrete set of events. My choice to use the body as a starting point aims to give visual form to physical sensations that are invisible to the eye and medical imaging, and only exist in the subjecetive realm. I collect data through daily documentation processes, and then generate numerous systems to allow the information to exist in a material form. I abstract and quantify the data in order to give authority and agency to subjective experiences.

The work alludes to the body in certain pieces, through the text or a particular material, but the reference remains abstracted. By abstracting and codifying the work, I want to evoke a sense of the passing of time, accumulation of information, presence and absence, chaos and order, control and loss of control and the possibility of the system collapsing upon itself or reaching a breaking point. Once I devise a system for a particular piece, I follow it all the way through the work allowing the visual results to exist outside of subjective expressive decisions. By strictly following and never veering from a given system, the work is tightly controlled and asserts itself as accurate and authoritative (however false and unscientific), questioning the gap between a subjective experience and medicine's conventions for understanding the body. The work is often organized into grid-like charts and diagrams mimicking science and medicine's representations of the body as a specimen, visualy displayed for the purpose of gaining knowledge. In this way I create distance from the information and objectify the experience, giving a false sense that the body is accessible and easily understood.

Jennifer Collier http://jennifercollier.co.uk/

My practice focuses on creating work from paper; by bonding, waxing, trapping and stitching I produce unusual paper ‘fabrics’, which are used to explore the ‘remaking’ of household objects.

The papers are treated as if cloth, with the main technique employed being stitch; a contemporary twist on traditional textiles.

The papers themselves serve as both the inspiration and the media for my work, with the narrative of the books and papers suggesting the forms.

I tend to find items then investigate a way in which they can be reused and transformed; giving new life to things that would otherwise go unloved or be thrown away.

Chun Kwang Young        http://www.chunkwangyoung.com

My twenties were all about America. The thin young man from a distant country suddenly found himself a ‘social, ideological’ alien in this new world. The American dream promised success and wealth, but the reality was that some innocent youth in every other house were dying on the battlefield. This was a country where democracy had bloomed from, but the young ones seemed to be doomed to an unfair death. Some were dragged into a meaningless war ending their lives in a far away jungle, while others absorbed themselves in antiwar campaigns and marihuana, crossing the boundaries of freedom and dangerous self-indulgence.

On the other hand, it was obvious that human life was becoming richer in a material way. I remember that the early seventies were full of rosy views predicting that human will conquer all diseases and create a new settlement in another planet within the solar system in the new millennium. It was almost as if we could rebuild the Garden of Eden with our own hands. Nevertheless, it somehow seemed that the society itself or even mankind itself was becoming more and more incomplete. The streets were filled with automobiles and the enormously large supermarkets were stacked with new goods and groceries everyday, but man himself was somehow driven into a corner. The society ceaselessly encouraged us to consume, and we were always exhausted spending a tremendous amount of energy. Moreover, the resulting increase of social entropy was all coming back to us, no matter how hard we tried to avoid it. Addicts and homeless people were lying around in broad daylight and invisible class distinctions existed; the human being was devastated and human relationship depended on the financial status and social position of individuals. In all this, my humanistic views and ideas based on Asian traditional values was no more than a useless outcry of a young alien who couldn’t adapt himself to the capitalism, materialism, scientism of the new world that called itself America. In a world that was led by materialism and scientism, I could witness how the human being, who created all this in the first place, was now neglected and estranged. There was of course resistance against these changes. The media were all talking about the conflicts constantly happening between the rich and poor, black and white, democrats and communists, victims and suspects, clearly suggesting that the world we lived in was becoming more and more chaotic.

The artist is a witness to his times, and the canary in the coal mine(3). After the Second World War, Abstract Expressionism was blooming in America. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence, putting New York City at the center of the art world. Of course it soon was followed by Pop Art, Fluxus, Conceptual Art and Minimalism, but I was instantly attracted to Abstract Expressionism which seemed to be the best way to freely express my surprise and sadness of witnessing the huge gap between idea and reality. The juxtaposition of conflicting colors that were tabooed in traditional paintings were encouraged, the brushstrokes themselves proudly emerged on the surface, creating a tension between abstract forms, colors and the canvas. The high tensions were bursting out all over the canvas, leaving diverse color lumps and wild brushstrokes like the tail of a comet. Until then, I was used to traditional art classes that forced one to have one’s artistic imagination censored by one’s teacher, but I soon accepted the freedom of Abstract Expressionism. I wanted to express the conflicts and struggles that were constantly happening between people, or between the past, present and future, though delicately hidden behind a dangerous harmony. Abstract expressionism was the answer to my problem. However, when I started making artworks based on abstract expressionism, I could hear the voice inside my head saying: “This is not wholly yours. Are you not doing it just because others are doing it?” My peer artists and young gallerists often praised my work but the voice inside my head became gradually louder and it was hard to ignore it.

Abstract Expressionism was best to express the chaos and struggles of the world I lived in, but my ‘artistic fastidiousness’ undermined my devotion to this art form. Soon, I began to feel a sense of shame that I might remain a second-rate artist, as far as my artistic philosophy and method were borrowed ones. The image of cursed artists who endlessly painted second-rate imitations in a gloomy studio started to haunt me and I felt devastated. Why can’t I just compromise with reality? How can I find the best way to express my art? How can I, as a Korean artist, create my own original style? Even after I returned to Korea, I didn’t stop asking these questions to myself. I carried on with my artistic practice but as long as I couldn’t find the answers to my problems, the atelier was not a happy place for me.

On a late spring day in 1995, the room was filled with warm sunlight coming through the window. Having been sick with a nasty cold for a few days, I sat in the living room and stared at the water glass and a package of pills that my dear wife had brought for me. I grabbed the felt the pills through the thin paper package. Suddenly, an old memory struck my mind.

When I was young, I was a sickly child, and my mother used to take me to the Chinese medicine doctor in the neighborhood. I never liked the place because of the strong odor of infusion, and the threatening sight of the acupuncture needles. While the doctor felt my pulse, my mother held my hand, and I fixed my eyes upon the ceiling, hearing the doctor muttering something to himself. I remember that numerous packages of mulberry paper were hanging from the ceiling, each holding a name card of the medicine wrapped inside. The image of my old memories of the drugstore lasted in my head for a while. I always had a desire to communicate my art through a Korean sentiment, and the image of the medicine packages hanging from the ceiling became a new theme in my art since that memorable afternoon.

Every piece of information is the end product of a struggle for hegemony, as well as an accumulation of human experience. One hypothesis ceaselessly conflicts with another, and finally becomes a new knowledge. While these kinds of processes are sometimes made in a peaceful way through debates and publications, they sometimes happen in the shape of physical conflicts like wars led by the governing class. Chingiz Khan’s Mongolia provides an example of this, and the Crusader’s war brought great changes to the ideas and lifestyles of the neighboring countries. Even now, in Africa, the only method to distinguish one tribe from another is whether they dress alike or speak the same language. In the beginning of the world, when God tried to break up the people who were building the tower of Babel, he just made their language different from each other. According to the bible, the people who used to share the same information and language started to fight with each other as soon as the different language system disturbed communication. The paper bags of Chinese medicine become information the moment the doctor writes their name on it. Each medicine has a different use; a healing medicine to one patient can be a deadly poison to another. The package I fumbled with   on that afternoon is a type of information, a product of human knowledge and experience. The refined tablets of medicine are accumulations of numerous experiments with virus and bacteria, and thanks to the fact that this information was available to me, I could shake off my cold in a few days, while my unfortunate ancestors had to depend on their lucks for their lives. My recent works that started from the images of the Chinese medicine packages were the essential expression and private documentation of my desire to regard the triangle cells as the minimal unit of information. Each triangle package covered with Korean and Chinese characters was based on various old documents of different times and ideas. The pieces of old documents that were the only means of transferring information at those times were reborn in my hands as the minimal units containing different information. A page from the Analects of Confucius attains a new meaning through the artist – who is the god of the small universe which is art -, and this new meaning sometimes confronts the original idea of the book itself. In other words, the classics of eastern philosophy are randomly reconstructed by the artist, creating numerous new meanings on the boundaries. Sometimes the accidental combination of words consists of old geographical names or ancient people’s names but sometimes they assume a totally new meaning that is opposed to the original idea of the book. When you look at the rings of a tree stump, you can see the traces of the tree’s struggles against harsh weather conditions. The tree itself is a constituent of the wood, but it ceaselessly has to compete against other trees for more sunlight and water supply and has to fight against the whims of nature. The tree rings show whether there had been a severe winter, or dangerous wood fire. People make assumptions of a person’s social position based on his first impression or behavior. Just like that, all members of the nature system have their own inherent appearance, and we try to decipher the information of time and history that is implied inside them with the help of our senses. Each of us human beings starts from the basic unit of information: the egg and the sperm. Our appearance and nature becomes different through numerous cell divisions, but even these various factors depend on the first information that we had as an egg cell, or sperm cell. We know that this information is a product of a long held struggle by our ancestors against nature, times, society and environment.

To me, the triangle pieces wrapped in mulberry paper are the basic units of information, the basic cells of life that only exists in art, as well as independently expressive social events or historical facts. By attaching these pieces one by one to a two dimensional surface, I wanted to express how the basic units of information can create harmony and conflict with each other. This became an important milestone in my long artistic journey that desired to express the troubles of the modern man who is driven to a devastated life by materialism, endless competition, conflicts and destruction. After almost twenty years, I was now able to communicate with my own gesture and words.

A wound is a trace of the battle between the invading bacteria and the defensive white blood corpuscle of our body. Simple wounds leave small scars (the empirical documents of the disease), but severe diseases like measles which calls for a harsh struggle of our body leave large scars that sometimes last for a lifetime all over our body. Individuals have trivial arguments, sometimes accompanied by physical violence. Between nations, when the nonviolent form of ‘diplomacy’ becomes useless, it is physical wars that follow. As previously stated, I tried to transform my canvas and the mulberry paper pieces into a window that reflects the history of human life. The scars of our bodies, conflicts between society members, wars between nations, man’s exploitation of nature and nature’s suffering from it - all units and the natural, social groups they constitute are dynamically conflicting with each other, and I wanted to chronically document ‘the force and direction of their energy.’ Just as two nations in war transform the border line every moment leaving scars on their neighboring countries, or just as billions of years ago the continents collided with each other creating deep oceans and high mountains, in my small universe, the small units of mulberry papers create projections and holes all over the surface. If the collision between particles in my previous example of Confucian Analects represented the collision between different thoughts and ideas of individuals and societies, that is, a difference of opinion within our system, the mass collision on the canvas symbolizes a stronger clash of events, which leaves permanent changes and deep scars.

The round and oval shaped black hemispheres and whirlwind-like images are the product of an artistic desire to create strong tension and dramatic movement over the canvas, as well as a metaphor with various meanings. The confidential documents of the governments still show black lines in certain parts even after their period of confidentiality has expired. These black lines serve not only as a permanent cutoff of sensitive information, but also as a metaphorical sign that forms a borderline between those who are available to the information and those who are not, creating a visual tension on whole the document.      

The black spheres and whirlwind-like images in my work are the outlet of my conscience regarding the numerous pieces of information that are censored, fabricated, and cut off. They mean the destruction of historical facts and damage of the truth by dynasties and governments all over the world, including the Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti who burned books on the Chinese classics and buried Confucian scholars alive. The blackened pieces that have no words derived from old books no longer retain their original value of communication and are unable to compete with the other neighboring pieces. As the black strip of oil coming from a stranded oil tanker instantly reminds us of dead fish and dead sea, the pieces that are blackened by the artist represents ‘death’ and ‘nonexistence’, and is a final requiem for the numerous names of existences that are no longer alive on this earth. In my recent works, I also introduced red and blue in addition to black, but the basic philosophical approach is not much different.         

The small, minimalistic pieces of mulberry paper are finally reborn through the act of sticking them together on the canvas – creating collision between information as well as deciding the moment of ‘vanishment’ and ‘death’. The black spheres and the colorful pieces move in groups all over the surface, making scars, creating movements and depicting confrontations and conflicts. This irregularity and instability, as well as the overall sense of movement of the canvas is a methodological approach of conveying my artistic imaginations that I wanted to express since I was young, and also my own serious way of reconciling with Abstract Expressionism in which I once was so deeply absorbed.

Professional Practices Assignment 1

What type of work do you make?

I make all sorts of work in a wide variety of medias. That said, I work most often in Printmaking and Painting. In print I use Serigraphy, Aquatint and Silk Aquatint often. I paint with both acrylic and oils.

My work mostly deals with my interest in identity, how it is formed, the choices of the individual that lead to this formation, and the intentionality of its formation.


What words best describe this work? (10 or more descriptive terms)

Portraiture, realistic, large, humorous, voyeuristic, personal, documentarian, approachable, expository, comforting


What skills do you have to earn money besides selling your work (computer skills, photography, mechanic, singer, chef etc?)

I have made money as a teacher, puppeteer, juggler, magician, musician, entertainer, shoe shine man, and manager.  I am good at working with children and children with special needs.


Where have you shown your work publicly?

I have shown my work in small house shows around midtown


Where would you like to show your work? (locally, nationally and internationally?)

I don’t really have any specifics in mind, but I would love to have my work shown in as many places to as broad an audience as possible.

If you were going to group your professional friends/contacts into distinct networks, what would those be?

Art Contacts, Performing contacts, Music contacts


What kinds of art or communities of practitioners do you track? (e.g. experimental architecture, noise music, fashion designers, figure painters, video art...etc.)

Printmakers, Artists working with the human figure, Artists working to create reality and/or distort reality, Punk, Folk music/roots based modern music.

How do you track them (blogs, lists, magazines, books, websites) – List:

Mainly through blogs and websites but also through books, magazines, house shows, word of mouth, critical articles, radio and podcasts.


Do you feel that you are now (or want to be in the future) a part of any “scenes” or communities? List:

I am currently involved in the Memphis Folk and Punk scenes as well as the house show scene. I would love to be more involved in the Memphis art scene and subsequently other cities.


What opportunities (schools, grants, exhibitions, competitions) have you applied to in the past? List:

I have submitted one of my Artist Books to the ArtBound competition put on by University of Florida Libraries. I have participated in exchange portfolios through the Southern Graphics Conference.


.......RELATED ARTISTS – artists on a local, national and international level…........

Who are several related artists that you admire?
Zoe Saldana, Caleb Larson, Mauricio Cattelan, Tom Huck, Mel Kadel, and Swoon

How did you find out about them?
Word of mouth, Museum exhibitions, Classes, and Magazines

Where do they show their work and what level are they at in their career?

They all have work shown on an international level, but in different ways from gallery shows to street art.

Who funds their work? They fund their own work through the sale of their art


What makes them successful?
Their work obviously, but also their self sufficience.

What do they do to earn money outside of their artwork?
Some of them teach on top of doing their work.

Who is the public for their artwork (Who sees it, enjoys it, collects it, talks about it?)– List:

For Swoon, the public is probably the most broad as a street artist however, her woodblock wheatpastes have gained her a large print following. For Mel Kadel, I think most of her fans are illustrators who have found her work online. Tom Huck is very big in the print community and fans of woodcut are likely to enjoy his work. Larson, Saldana and Cattelan are probably more for the art educated. Their work uses a significant amount of inside reference to the art world and art history.

What professional associations do they have? Are they affiliated with institutions? List:

Swoon and Tom Huck are both well connected to print communities and arts communities around the world. Cattelan is associated with a number of big name artists like Damien Hirst. Saldana is associated with a number of educational programs as well as a dedicated art community.


Have you tried to contact them and how would you do it?

Ive talked to Swoon. I saw her at a conference and talked to her. I haven’t attempted to contact any of the others. It hadn’t crossed my mind honestly.