Full Moon in a Tree, Wonsook Kim

Ryan Neubauer

Review

September 29, 2016

Contemporary Art

Full Moon in a Tree, bronze 2011.

Wonsook Kim

University Galleries College of Fine Arts

Beauty in Nature

Wonsook Kim: Lines of Enchantment is about the recurrences in archetypes: a shelter, a small craft on the water, a figure crossing a fallen tree trunk or a bridge-often seen in various combinations and states of transformation These universal symbols of life’s journey and its attendant longing also reflect Kim’s experience as a Korean transplanted to the Midwest to attend art school, then to New York to live as an artist, and since that time shuttling between these three locations.

            I have this obsession with trees. Trees to me represent more than just a plant; they represent life and grow with each individual. When they first start growing its rough and hard to keep them up straight so support is needed when they are growing. As it is through life when we are little we grow up being guided by our parents. Parents give us the guidance that we need and when that support is gone we continue to grow. As through our life, we experience new things branch out and learn new things. In learning new things we sometimes lose against an obstacle, but we always get up and learn from what we have lost. That is the beauty in trees, we against all odds they still grow though gravity is fighting them the whole time. We learn from falling down and having the strength to get back up.

            The moon to me is another thing that I enjoy. The moon is something so mysterious because of its brightness in the darkness. It’s the one thing that light’s up the night in the sky and whether it’s full or not its draws us in. The moon lures me into looking at its beauty like a flower lures a bee. It’s beauty shows by having to be alone in the sky at night. It stands to me the most dominant thing and the most confident thing. It doesn’t need the stars to help support it stands on its own, that’s the beauty of the moon.

            Full moon in a Tree is interesting to me because it’s combing two things that I view a beauty. Though the moon is in the tree not above it or beside it. It’s on the top right of the composition and being entangled by the tree itself. This piece scares me because to me this feels like the moon is being lost in our memories. Memories are a good thing but they can also be bad things. The good thing about memories they hold the things that are most precious such as your first kiss, family, friends and some much more. The bad thing is that memories are forgotten lost. It’s scary to lose something that is precious to a person because it feels like something has been taken from the body.

Artist Lecture: Danny Volk

It gets Weird

Danny Volk got his BA in Theater Studies at Kent State University in 2006 and his MFA from the University of Chicago in 2014. His work focuses on the truth of objects and actions by using his theatrical semiotics to explore the social world.

            In his lecture, he was first talking about his experience as a theater major and how he worked in shows, directed them, and did some playwright.  Then he went on to talk about when he was in a play in high school he played a major role in the play, then in college, he was a minor character, a professor. This professor had a monologue and when he was doing the monologue he looked out and saw the audience, “They’re faces weren’t silhouettes anymore.” As he was explaining he says, “I could see faces and no longer hold on to that character. Both me and the character were happening simultaneously and in theatre that’s not good.” In theatre, everyone is hidden from the actors and actresses. The point of seeing a show is to transport you into that type of setting whether it be fantasy or within reality. The actors/actresses are trying to entertain us and can’t really hold the character by distraction. Those who he knew distracted Volk, such as his mother and friends, therefore pulled back into reality a little bit.  Both him and the character were happening at the same time and it felt awkward. This is true in a theatre because to be you in a play is wrong. Acting is an art form, like painting and sculpting; it’s a projection of person with a unique twist. To be projecting through you is good but being both you and character is not a good thing as he says.

            As he was talking about the work a couple of things came to mind. First thing came to mind was his artwork. His artwork pushes to our limitation of awkwardness puts the member of the audience into a “character” in a “play,” for example, his GAP project. As he was explaining what this was, I was thinking about a game of pushing boundaries when I was a freshman and I was as a stagehand for a play. The last showing of the play, whichever play was playing at the moment in time; the actors/actresses would play a game called slap butt. As the title of the game explains it all there was a twist to it. They would play it during the play. Trying to sneak a slap on another actors butt without any of the audience members noticing. It is almost exactly what he was doing but to a different degree. He is doing to an “audience member.” He was pushing the limitation of someone’s comfort zone and was waiting until someone reacted to see how he or she would react to what he was doing. The second thing that came to mind was the art movement, Dada. What he is doing is similar to what Dadaist did in the early 20^th century. The Gas Heart by Tristan Tzara has a similar effect on the audience member. The Gas Heart affected the audience by pushing boundaries with its characters and when those boundaries were pushed passed the line they left. Volk’s work in the GAP is similar; he used the element of touch to push those boundaries and was thinking about the reactions of the customers. As he was doing this project he documented how the customer reacted and added into the space in which he was presenting this project. 

Formal Analysis

Ryan Neubauer

Formal Analysis

September 15, 2016

Contemporary Art

But They Didn’t

Rob Swainston

Woodblock print over inkjet print on paper (5 works)

University Galleries College of Fine Arts (May 21-September 11, 2016)

Layer Upon Layer

But they Didn’t series pushes the limitations of what can seem three-dimensional. He uses multiple layers to make each piece seem three-dimensional on a two-dimensional plane, which plays with our eyes. Our brains have this natural ability to fill in information, which causes our eyes to be tricked into believing that there is more than what is intended. Such as giving us a depth on a two-dimensional plane.

In Rob’s series But They Didn’t he uses woodblock over inkjet print, which interest me. He is using a more contemporary and more efficient use of printing layered under a more primitive and time-consuming use of printing to create pieces that give us a sense of depth. It's interesting how he uses the something so primitive and slow on top of something that was fast and more efficient. By doing this, he is saying something about these two things how they both have in common and how they differ from each other. The things they have common are that they press ink onto paper with any size. They also differences, such as; the ink jet has this robotic feel to it. It’s more efficient and faster than the wooden block and has no feeling to it. It’s just there to print things out and not to be worked on like the woodblock. Woodblock has a spirit to it; meaning when someone puts an effort into taking the time to make something it’s not the same as being printed out. It has an aura to it. This aura, which Rob has made by layering the old on top of the new, it’s intriguing, and creating depth on a two-dimensional plane with two very different techniques of printing.