Where Light Hits
These observational line drawings concentrate on the progression of sunlight in the early morning, documenting how and where harsh sunlight hits New York City structures and the accompanying shadows that it creates. The reading "Walking in the City" inspired me to view the city from an acute observational perspective, except by staying stagnant while watching different aspects of the city change. My decision to focus on changing light stems from my passion for photography and subsequent interest in the effect of light, which can best be derived from a study of sunlight as a primay light source.
My drawings use form, shape, and direction of line to visually and abstractly represent both changing light and the city structures it hits, while following a key to maintain cohesiveness throughout the series of drawings. To illustrate the affected structures, I used vertical lines to represent buildings, the dotted lines windows, and the triangles trees. Meanwhile, the subtle diagonal lines represent harsh sunlight (semicircles indicate direction of light) and the pointy, staggered lines to represent subsequent shadow.
WWW
News
My newspaper pages are created in the form of a sequence, with the objective of abstractly representing the growing influence of technology on the photographic medium over time. With the growth of technology, the photograph has become highly ditigized- and subsequently, the accessiblity of photography as both an art form and in general has become widespread and feasible for anyone. The news pages- chaotic, tattered, and scribbled- are meant to visually describe how both frustrating and unpredictable the ever-changing medium of photography is with the modern digital age.
The first page, which shows darkness with mixed media, represents photography in its earliest stages, when making photographs was dependent on the camera obscura, and later, the darkroom. The "infiltration" of technology is indicated with shiny gray duct tape, which progresses throughout the pages. Slowly, bits of color enter, and the growing commodization and commerciality of the medium is highlighted with snippets of texts, such as "Capture it. Then sell it." Similarly, I drew attention to photography's widespread accessibility with growing technology, as well as the subsequent change in the art and process of making photographs.
Whitney
Line Drawing
This drawing, alongside other line drawings, uses various forms of line to create distinct and repetitive pattern of shape. The artist emphasizes some of the triangular shapes over others by creating a stark contrast in tone, filling in the shapes in the foreground with dark black. Utilizing gray tones, the artist creates a gradient of blackness, differing the tonality with the shapes and lines. Some shapes are filled in, while others are comprised of consistent lines. In class, we have discussed the effectiveness of line drawings through decisive usage of tone, shape, direction, and consistency, which is prevalent in this work, creating a harmonic balance throughout.
Sol LeWitt: 4th Wall
Lewitt uses stark contrast in this work to bring attention to his linework. The black negative space enhnances the white lines, which are for the most part consistent in their tonality, length, and form. However, LeWitt focuses on experimenting with direction and placemenet of line, overlapping the thin white lines in varying sequences and layers. He creates a "meeting point" where many of ends of the lines connect, forming a star-like shape within the composition with a deep white center. Through this, LeWitt experiments with how overlapping line can result in starker contrast. Though the piece is simplistic in its components, the experimentation with line direction, layering, and positive and negative space, adds a sense of vast complexity and intention to the work.
Mika Tajima: Negative Entropy
Tajima's "Negative Entropy" creates a rush of movement in this work through an acute attention to tonality and consistency of line. The build up of thin lines, closely packed together and compiling to create gradients of color brings an attention to the larger composition, rather than an emphasis on individual linework. The softness of the piece is mastered in the blending of both color and line, pulling the viewers eye from left to right of the artwork. Finally, Tajima creates a contrast and transition between cool and warm tones, as the piece fades in and out from a dark blue to a deep orange.
Color
This photograph is part of a body of work I called "I Wish I Still Felt Young" where I portrayed the strange period between youth and adulthood for women, where in a sense, it feels like being stuck in an undefinable limbo. The sense of nostaligia and escaping youth is intrinsically connected to the color palette of the photographs like much of my work; I narrowed in on light blues, hazy oranges, mellow yellows, and bright red.
The brightness is apparent but not overwhelming, the colors wash into each other and create a dreamy haziness, prolonging the feeling of dettachment between subject matter and audience. The intensity of the colors mystify the reality of the photograph, recontextualizing it almost as if in some kind of dreamscape. The colors themselves evoke a sense of warmth, perhaps in the direct representation of sunniness and warm tones, but also in the wash of startling gradients that reinforce the promiment feeling of nostalgia. The blue reaches halfway through the compositon while the warm tones occupy the second half, balancing the feeling of meloncholiness with a sense of comfort and familiarity.
