New framed art!

                                                  Restraint 22"x30"
To me, this piece is about holding it together. Like a towel being wrung out, but trying not to spill any water. Like holding your breath when you hug someone.

REVIEW: AUDREY KAWASAKI

I give her somewhere between 3 and 4 Stars- Very niiice(in my best borat voice)

This piece (image from audrey-kawasaki.com) "My dishonest heart" was featured in Audrey Kawasaki's  latest show(which opened last night). I knew of her because my painting teacher in college, Chris Wright (also had her as a student), recommended that I look at her work. Last night I finally got to see the work in person, and it was a really fabulous show.

To me, this show was fabulous because it was art that looks good(less common than you would think), and it's being done by a young talented lady with an stylized figurative approach.

I relate to her work very much, even though I think we're kind of doing the same thing in opposite ways. Her work is so very pretty that to me it's almost just an example of how pretty a person can make a piece of wood. I love to be aesthetically pleased, so I like her work. They are delicate paintings of girls that look like sleepy, rosy-nosed kittens with dew on their cheeks. She throws in the occasional organ(see above) or skeletal reference, but it's all done in such a clean precise pretty way that it doesn't phase anyone. I think that's cool.

My main issue with Kawasaki's work is that it is so easy to read that I find myself moving on fairly quickly. The work is so clean that I feel like once I've admired it for a few minutes, I start looking for the next piece. The drawings themselves are very straightforward, but she paints them in a very mysterious, luminous style, and I think that is what makes them so desirable.

Yum. Good job.

Fillet

Fillet: in progress

This is the beginning of my latest creepy pregnancy painting. My ex boyfriend's sister just gave birth (or at least had a baby removed) just the other day, and it just really makes me think about how crazy pregnancy is and how weird and meaty our bodies are. It makes me think about little babies growing in between strips of fillet mignon. Raw moving muscle meat. People get to hang out on the inside of other people for a while, and then when they're ripe they get taken out, and the whole thing is amazing and gross and beautiful. It seems very sloppy and real, and I think stuff like that is great. It pulls us into a place that's different than the day to day job society shopping thing(which I also think is fun).

Womb

This is another piece in this realm that I think is about done. It was inspired by my frustrations with birth control. Both idealogically and practically. I don't like that my body has it's own agenda that I'm not involved in, and I don't like that in order to not be a baby-machine, I need to be on medication and change my hormones. I'm also frustrated at how full of rage this hormone-fiddling makes me. Blinding, vein-popping, blood-curdling rage. Sometimes I feel like reaching into my stomach, ripping out all my organs, and eating them. That's the feeling.

line equality

The more I let myself draw the way I like to draw, the more I learn about myself from my drawings. I am pretty fundamentally against erasing, and have only really given into it when I felt embarrassed by something that's really terribly drawn. I love going over every accidental line and every mistake and every wrong path until they're all of equal importance. It seems like the more I make everything uniform, the more interesting things jump out at me. I love going over every line of a drawing without thinking about the actual thing I'm drawing. Then sometimes I go over things until there're dead, but I'm always working on knowing when to stop and what to leave. 

I've been doing a lot of work in my room for the last week or so. My job has been keeping me busy and overwhelmed, but I love it so I can't complain too much. It's interesting to be working in the privacy of my own room again for a bit. I've missed it a little to be honest.

Happy Halloween!

Corporeality opening Oct. 17th

Corporeality

October 17-November 15, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, Oct 17th 7-9 PM
Bushwick Crawl: Saturday, Oct 24th, 6-10PM

Lumenhouse exhibition space is pleased to present Corporeality. Co-curated by Aurora Robson and Mariko Tanaka, this exhibition features works by four emerging figurative artists: Katharyn LaRanger, Jon Nissenbaum, Emily Orling, and Stephen Workman.

The work in Corporeality examines states of the physical self through transfiguration and metamorphosis of the corporeal body. Katharyn LaRanger’s works on paper veil a seething emotional intensity in her intricate compositions of women's bodies. Jon Nissenbaum’s oil painting, Shreveport Woman, renders a real life news story of police brutality into a haunting modern day portrait. Emily Orling’s darkly evocative work explores the synergy of Siamese twins. Stephen Workman portraits of entwined bodies explore the physical elements of the human form.


For more information visit: lumenhouse.com or call 718-942-5395, or contact: Aurora Robson T: 718.942.5395 E: info@lumenhouse.com.

DIRECTIONS

There are driving directions on their website, but if you'd taking the subway, it looks like you have to tke the j to flushing. Exit near intersection of Broadway and Flushing Ave. Start out going east on Flushing Ave. then turn right onto Beaver Street.

Princesses

My princess series springs from the idea of the perfect woman, and the way women are portrayed as role models in today's society. The princess is beautiful and quiet and submissive. She takes what punishment she is given because she knows she deserves it. She is waiting for her prince to find her. She can't walk, she can't speak, and people look up to her because they feel bad for her, and they admire her self-restraint. She is always sorry, and she is always beautiful.

The idea that women should be clean and small and mutable really speaks to me of the power they must have. Women are fleshy, walking, talking, human-making machines, and all things fertile are also dirty, bloody, and open. There is no privacy in womanhood, and that idea is not always an easy thing to deal with.