Andy Goldsworthy Shrine

For some reason I totally forgot how obsessed I am with Andy Goldsworthy's work. I was first introduced to his artwork last year in my art intro class and I loved it from the start. Maybe it's because his artwork is so complex and peaceful but there is something about how I can imagine him meticulously creating each piece that I absolutely love. Also I think that it's cool that he only takes pictures of his work and then leaves it in nature!

He is obsessed with circular patterns with holes. But it totally works! Each piece always bring you back to the center where there are no colors and no objects. 

       

This was the very first Andy Goldsworthy picture I ever saw "Japanes Maple Leaves"

  

Then he also has these other works that I think are focused on the concept of lines. It makes me wonder how he got these things to stay like that!

       

 

  This is the second picture I saw of his and I could totally see him just shaping this around the tree with his hands even though it was super cold!

He also has balls! (haha)

   (wouldn't want to get too close to this one!) 

He  works with reeds, rocks, and leaves too!

      

EGGS!

    

Arches!

 

Here is his official website!I will definitely be creeping on him in my spare time...when I'm not writing essays. :P

Stop! It's toilet time

Like any other college student I hate writing essays. Recently though we were assigned in class  to write a short paper on appropriation and kitsch much like what we  had to blog about. Anyways, although I found some really neat stuff to blog about already, I found even more cool stuff!!!!

Toilet Art

Okay so one of the main guys that started appropriation art was this guy named Marcel and he basically took a urinal off a wall and laid it horizontally and called it art. Well I found some more cool toilet-y things that are kind of a response to it. 

This is a huge toilet waterfall!!! Isn't that crazy? They did this exhibition somewhere in China and the installed each toilet individually and then they hooked up water to it and let the magic flow-literally. 

They also did one for kitchen appliances/sinks.

And they also did one for jugs. 

I think the jug one is my favorite even though the other two are really interesting as well. Check out my link at the top of this post to go to the website with all the different pictures of the different walls. It even shows the installation progress!

Here is another type of toilet related thing I found while google-ing.

Toilet paper roll art!

Weird huh? 

This picture reminds me of the artist that uses nails and yarn to create her artwork on walls. 

I'

I don't really consider this picture art cause I'm not really sure what is going on here, but I think the concept is interesting to take toilet paper (which we probably/should use everyday) to say something about the way we live. 

This is cool

too bad I can't chop up my painting!

Decisions, Decisions.

Here is my thrift shop painting! After a couple of hours searching through a creepy flea market I finally found this painting from the 70's for only TEN bucks. It also has a pretty cool frame but you can't really see it in the picture.

I have no idea what to do with this picture. I honestly thought about just buying another one so I wouldn't have to paint on this cause I'm afraid that I'll make it look even worse. Right now all I can think about adding is this  [the sun part] or some other warm colored planet. But I find that digustingly cheesy.

First off, let me explain in pictures what this painting makes me think of.

  

My painting very strongly reminds me of East Asia and of the country Malaysia. The type of shack/house that is pictured above is called a "kampong". There are various types that people still live in today. I got to see a lot of these when I lived in Malaysia.

 The land based ones.....

 and the water ones.

I'm not sure if the artist was painting trying to represent another area besides Eastern Asia, but I thought it was weird that he painted a regular tree instead of a palm tree.

Anyways, I talked to my art teacher about stuff paint into my painting and he recommended that I brainstorm about things I am interested in or a cause that I could draw attention to. I will let keep this updated when I come up with something exciting!

U-G-L-Y

Have you ever strolled along in a flea market and saw a painting or picture that was extremely hideous that made you cringe? Well apparently, we learned that this kind of art is call Kitsch. What should and should not be accepted as art has been a hotly debated subject for millions and trillions of years and kitsch falls under one of those debatable categories. Some artists enjoy the tackiness and "out of the box" thinking while others think that artists needs to be abiding within certain principles of art.

On artist that I really liked learning about in class is named Wayne White. He takes old lanscape paintings you can find in thrift shops and incoporate text into it to send a message across. Here are some examples:







I really like the last painting alot because if you noticed in the other two paintings that the text is incorporated very well into the painting; in both other paintings there are shadows and reflections from the text painted into the painting. In the third painting "Fade Away" though, Wayne White created irony between what the text says and what the text does. The words Fade Away are not merged or "faded" into the landscape behind it-it visually pops out instead.

Another cool type of art that we talked about in class is called appropriation art. This type of art takes known/familiar objects and transforms it into art or uses found or natural objects in the same way.
One artist that I really liked was Jeff Koons!

Here are some pictures of his work. (the link takes you to the site I got the pictures from)







All those pictures are of stainless steel statues that Jeff Koons made that look like balloon animals. It would be awesome to see one of them in person!

Here is a different type of appropriation that Koons also did


I wonder how long it took him to make this puppy out of flowers....

One last picture that I really think is cool but I can't find the artist of it:



Appropriate looks really fun to make! When I was searching for things to blog about I found some other cool things. There was an artist that makes human skull sculptures out of different objects that ranged from candy sprinkles to diamonds. (Obviously, this artist did not fit the starving artist stereotype if he could afford to make a skull diamond. Just sayin)