Painting

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10217/180171

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 75

Open Access
Molly Haynes: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Haynes, Molly, artist
The artist's statement: "Her Spirit…Reflections" explores the feelings of grief and loss from a hopeful and nostalgic perspective. Through multiple mediums, I explore what it means it to find peace and joy through the creative process. Clay and paint are materials that hold memory; memory of its shape, the artists' mark, the collective moment in time, of where it has been, how it has traveled and its purpose. They hold the memories of ancestral stories, how people have thrived or survived. In its fired state, clay holds the memory of the practice and the process. It tells so many different stories, nourishing the body, representing the body, containing the body. Similarly, the process of painting are many moments and marks, frozen in time. I use a traditional style of painting to create a feeling of dream-like nostalgia using symbols close to my heart, in relation to my late mother, who passed from early on-set Alzheimer's in 2006. I explore the beauty in missing someone so profoundly and the memories I carry. Rather than dwelling in how the pain makes me feel, I aim to share the joy from having felt that love. The poet, Ross Gay reminisces on the sensation of seeing birds flying in the airport as something he must share with others by saying, "I wonder if this impulse to share, the urge to elbow your neighbor until the bird flew between you up into the pipes and rafters you did not notice until you followed the bird there, is also among the qualities of delight? And further, I wonder if this impulse suggests- and this is just a hypothesis, though I suspect there is enough evidence to make it a theorem- that our delight grows as we share it." This is the sentiment I aim to bring into everything I create, whatever medium that may be. Each clay feather is a representation of motherly spirit, essence and the memory of her. The shadows that the feathers make are not unlike a memory; intangible and existing only because the form exists somewhere in time. They are a reminder of loss and grief but also grace and beauty. Attached to the physical body of the vessel, the feathers become weighted and grounded. They become personal, bodily, and intimate. The forms represent an opposition between spirit and physical. The spirit of the feather, a collection of her memories, lives simultaneously in the ether and the body, where one is formless and the other is bound by change. The paintings of the owls represent a deep connection to spirit, a reminder that they are close and always watching. Not only are they close through our memories, but maybe also through something much harder to comprehend. Clay and painting have given me the space to reflect on emotions and experiences that I have a hard time putting into words. Multi-media artist, Rose B. Simpson, reminds us that we are all guests on our earth, in our bodies and in this space. With that knowledge, I am honored to have been a guest in my mother's home, and now a guest in the memory of her. This is a reminder to hold space for gratitude as I am given the opportunity to honor her through my personal expression. This space is a meant to be a place of reflection for myself and anyone else. We aren't alone in our losses and grief; these emotions are communal. Remember that the greatest grief comes from what has given you the greatest joy.
Open Access
Samantha Homan: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Homan, Samantha, artist
The artist's statement: Throughout my time working on this series, my paintings progressed into a collective study of liminal spaces. Although this was not the original intention of the body of work, I am attributing this common theme to my subconscious feelings associated with transitioning from student to artist during my final semester at Colorado State University. My final semester has been full of nostalgia for moments that have not yet passed; this feeling is strange and nearly indescribable. This series is a peek into my attempt to capture the present and revel in the spaces in between. Titled Light in Liminal Spaces, these works are a balance between my guiding interest in the technicality of light and my innermost feelings and worries. It is my hope that these pieces evoke similar emotions from within the viewer and serve as a reminder to appreciate the luminous moments in between destinations.
Open Access
Gabrielle Haberman: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Haberman, Gabrielle, artist
The artist's statement: Painting with an idealized viewer in mind has always captivated this idea for me of creating an experience for the audience. With my paintings I want viewers to be able to approach what they're seeing from the perspective of an observer. This perspective allows for having a looking in the mirror type of experience as if the viewer were observing one their own reflections or portraits while experiencing something outside of ourselves. I have noticed, especially with paintings depicting mundane expressions and relatable context, that viewers relate and will actually have similar experiences and can recognize it in the paintings. Whether someone who never remembers what they look like but thinks it's interesting or someone who relates more to body image as expression, the goal of the viewer is to create an artist or art-interested community that occurs when viewers start to question their own face/portrait/reflection and want to get curious about it. I want the paintings to bring together a community where it is safe and understanding to do so. As an artist this is important to me because having a sense of a community has helped me in many ways in personal life and with understanding deeper parts of myself and my place in the world. The paintings reflect that by portraying my experiences and using color to illuminate a sense of light and bioluminescence to make it more vivid, which portrays how I visualize the references in my mind. I take inspiration directly from my dream journal and then sketch the visualizations from certain dreams or my personal photo references. Then usually I paint on a larger scale because it is more comfortable for me and gives me the space to capture everything I want in a painting. After building the canvas size I collect different references to help me paint different scenes from my dreams or photo references and then slowly build up layers of color that show through each layer, eventually, building up the whole painting together and then adding last marks to help the viewer's eyes gaze around the canvas evenly.
Open Access
Rachel Garrison: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Garrison, Rachel, artist
The artist's statement: My works are focused on my internal dialogue that is brought to fruition through my imaginative processes. Before starting each piece, I choose a specific concept or experience that I want to explore emotionally. While working with my canvas, I allow my imagination to wander, creating characters and narratives throughout. Being in complete control of this process has been reminiscent of the times when I would play with dolls as a child. My canvas serves as a safe space to engage in the playful and straightforward child-like thought process while coming to terms with complex emotions. Creating in such a way has blessed me with the ability to create hand in hand with my inner child and present self. It has given me the fulfillment of exploring emotions, controlling the narrative, and providing fulfillment for myself. My paintings have become a messy reflection of my entire being and the complexity of life and self. It has given me a window to see myself and how I operate. Artmaking has become an interaction with my adult self, my inner child, and my canvas, all tangled into one conversation.
Open Access
Amanda Rooms: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Rooms, Amanda, artist
The artist's statement: As a multimedia artist whose primary focus is sculpture and installation art, my goal is to let the materials guide my process in creating interactive artworks. My current body of work combines sculpting and painting, centered around my generation’s experience with unsolicited videos found through social media. These videos, which have content viewers don't consent to consuming, contribute to a lost sense of innocence. Unsolicited content is burned into the consumer's memory. There is no agency in viewing this unregulated media. The work I create focuses on conceptualizing how these videos affect us. The forms in this body of work aim to capture desensitization, curiosity, and discomfort these videos come with.
Open Access
Noemi Gonzalez: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Gonzalez, Noemi, artist
The artist's statement: Working primarily with found objects and collage elements, my oil paintings deal with social issues pertaining to race, class, and immigration. I work with an array of found material that is relevant to these issues such as wood or drywall retrieved from construction sites, found imagery from magazine interviews, and personal abandoned family photographs. I see these themes working in conjunction with the process of collaging, sanding away, painting over, concealing, or revealing. Informed and often inspired by personal experiences, my paintings shed light on the complex immigrant experience through the everyday life moments while also surfacing hardships pertaining to race and class. Thus, the work grapples with reconstructing narratives, materials and their context, the found and lost, the past and the present.
Open Access
Dominic Nagle: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Nagle, Dominic, artist
The artist's statement: My art is the result of my perceptions, filtered through my intuition and created using mixed media. My intention is to create art that provokes visual sensations in the viewer. Whatever the viewer takes from my work is none of my business. My pieces in this space reflect abstract and instinctive urban art with a concentration on graffiti and street experiences. Much of my art throughout has a masculine, and even working class focus, yet it is often balanced with feminine language and pastel colors. Much gratitude for taking the time to view my work.
Open Access
Annika Lahr: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Lahr, Annika, artist
The artist's statement: My series of oil paintings explores the relationship between gender roles and societal expectations from a feminist viewpoint. I explore concepts of femininity and masculinity within western hegemonic ideals and interoperate ideas of the gaze through my work. I am interested in the preconceived perceptions of gender that influence ways of seeing. I aim to present these issues within my paintings by combining realism and abstraction, two art styles that I reference particularly in their abilities to have conflicting interactions and multidimensional elements. Organic versus the structural and rigid implications of form I feel reflect a level of feminine and masculine stereotypes. In relation, Cubism and Surrealism especially influence my practice because they question our means to understand life outside of our reality. Color interactions, form, and movement are all technical elements in the production of my work. Experimenting with these elements allow me to question how images can be distorted and altered to have multiple meanings. My process involves compiling recognizable imagery, specifically of the human body, natural environments, and symbols which are then layered and merge together as one image. My interest in the human form comes from the idea of self-awareness of our own bodily autonomy and how this serves as a form of reflected gender identity. My reference images later develop into the physical painting which then offers a certain level of intimacy with the viewer. Viewer interaction is particularly important to me as the distortion within the paintings can vary from short to wide distances. Spatial awareness can offer a chance for the viewer to recognize patterns of seeing. On a broader scale, I am motivated to understand audience perception of my work and I question the ways they interoperate the narratives hidden within each piece. Through my studies of feminist viewpoints, I have gained a deep sense of personal understanding of my own gender identity and my creativity allows me to explore these feelings through an introspective process. While I aim to express my own experiences, my work is not meant to express a single narrative. Ambiguity is a constant motivational concept in my series, and I hope to inspire others to search for their own level of introspectiveness. I am interested in developing this series further to create a communal discussion around gender issues and pushing the limitations of traditional painting with new non-conventional ideas.
Open Access
Alisondra Stephenson: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Stephenson, Alisondra, artist
The artist's statement: My work is primarily about the residue of human touch that builds up in ourselves and in the objects and spaces around us. I create airy, low-contrast oil paintings that use specific lighting and color variation within white tones to create empty interior spaces with an atmosphere that feels reverent and melancholy. My interest in memory and association started with painting figures directly, describing intimacy and connection in tiny moments or gestures, but as I continued to explore these ideas, my interest shifted to the echoes of those experiences, the fingerprints of attachment, brought on by instances of loss and isolation in my own life over the past two years. My more recent paintings have become more concerned with developing a visual language to talk about absence, loss, and the things that are left behind. Through experimentation, and with the restrictions of a limited color palette and value range, I’m trying to suggest memory and transience. As I continue working with these motifs, I’m looking for objects and spaces that feel weighed down by memory, to the point of almost becoming figures in their own right, with their own agency and gravity in the world.
Open Access
Charlie Dillon: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Dillon, Charlie, artist
The artist's statement: My paintings are a love letter to my friends and to the world around me, written in bold colors and intimate scenes. Through the permanency of paintings, I hope to make solid these snapshots of temporary moments, and with it capture something fleeting and usually lost to our bloated phone camera rolls or foggy memories. I am fascinated by the role that mundane technologies act to mediate, disrupt, or otherwise alter moments in our memories, whether that be something more direct like a phone camera recording a scene, or more indirect, like being on Twitter instead of being emotionally present in one’s life. Growing up with technology as both a barrier and a condenser of space, I’m interested in this mediation in connection to time. I aim to explore what power we give moments by tactilely and visually considering them with paint, through these forms of attention. With this, my practice involves collecting images from these quick moments with little or no staging. Currently, I’m excited by building compositions and color palettes to convey the everyday chaos and intimacy of my early 20s, which feels like a second coming-of-age, or an Adolescence 2.0. These paintings convey this transitory period; the disorder of it through partially obscured figures and the uncertainty through dancing around the canvas with brushstrokes and colors. Within this, I’m interested both in the cues that demonstrate individually who a person is; such as fashion, mannerisms, expressions, and gestures, while also being interested in more formal elements and building compositions structurally and with colors that convey universalities and common feelings or moods through these small, specific moments. Through these pieces, I am considering the reverence and power given to mundane moments by deliberately painting them for hours.
Open Access
Orion Gizzi: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Gizzi, Orion, artist
The artist's statement: For this series of artwork, I focused on how gender dysphoria affects me in my life. I am a transgender individual and gender dysphoria something I experience on an almost day to day basis; this causes me to have a lot of mixed emotions about how I feel about and in my own body such as insecurity, frustration, dissatisfaction, and embarrassment. I wanted to explore the ways in which how I feel about typically gendered situations has changed the further along in my transition I get; focusing mainly on prom and weddings. These situations are seen to have a more feminine connotation to them and are events in which clothing takes on a more gendered structure. Imagery such as dresses, flowers, cake decorations, and the color pink tend to also be seen as more feminine, which is why I have included those in my artwork. I also took inspiration from contemporary artists who incorporate cake piping tools to create textured paint that protrudes from the canvases. I used the cake piping technique in my own art to create the 3D floral decorations in Self Portrait and Prom Dress. Events like my prom and my future self’s wedding – a day that I used to dream of being a princess on – now no longer feel so special. There’s new feelings of discomfort and uncertainty about them now because wearing a dress and being viewed as a girl causes me gender dysphoria. My goal was to use very muddied and harsh colors on the wedding dress to display the feelings of discomfort and bitterness towards the conflict of no longer getting the chance to be the bride i dreamed of being as a kid, but also no longer wanting it. Since this project focuses mainly on internal feelings about my body, I felt that it was important to also be able to put the artwork on my body and wear it around. Painting on dresses allowed me to express these feelings in a true-to-life size. In addition, I wanted the painting of the bridal portrait to feel almost daunting and larger than life with how big it is. I wanted this to emulate the overbearing feeling of gender dysphoria.
Open Access
Taylor Snell: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Snell, Taylor, artist
The artist's statement: I am an environmental artist and I use earthly materials like botanical matter, soil and various natural objects in my work. I make a majority of my own pigments and inks from soil and plants, despite access to premade watercolors. This artistic process furthers the connection that my work and I have with the earth and environmental conservation. I am deeply inspired by the minute, miniscule details of nature that are too commonly overlooked in our fast-paced society. My work intends to depict these tiny facets of nature in abstracted ways, while also exhibiting how our earth and environment must be protected by humans, as earth provides us with life and sustenance. Many of my works hold messages about the environment and conservation, and express a deep reverence for the natural world. I prefer to depict these important ideas in a delicate fashion, as I do not resonate with works that mercilessly wallop viewers with message and meaning. I want to invite in consideration and change, rather than make people defensive and fearful. I choose to depict the beauty in the misunderstood, overlooked and ignored aspects of nature, because I believe that people will take action if they see the beauty and splendor that will be lost, versus humanity being painted as horrid and hopeless. I believe in humanity's ability to create positive change and my art strives to make a difference through the appreciation of Earth.
Open Access
Luis Santacruz: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Luis, Santacruz, artist
The artist's statement: I have forgotten the memories of my Mexican home. My family and I embarked on the journey to America when I was four. We were part of a Mexican diaspora, where violence, poverty, and corrupt politics would push us out, and the greener pastures of American capitalism would pull us in. During this transition, we had to leave everything - family pictures, furniture, heirlooms, and the very home that my father built for our family. We had to make it seem like we were only visiting the United States to avoid questioning by immigration agents. My Mexican identity and history stayed trapped in Mexico, caged by the politics that have defined our lives. This has caused a deep desire in myself to connect to my Mexican heritage and unravel the identity that has been suppressed by the idealization of the successful American. In the United States, I have always felt marginalized - "ni de aqui, ni de alla", (I am neither from here nor there). This idea of being an outsider has prompted me to shift my artwork to depict myself and my reality. I hope to infuse my work with the beauty and grace that I see in my identity and that of other immigrants - which is in stark contrast to what the media and politics have shaped us to be. My identity as an immigrant has given me limitations. I cannot visit family in Mexico or leave the country, I can't vote, and I cannot apply for citizenship. I am having to find part of my cultural identity through means of technology and the resources I have available to myself. I begin the paintings by looking at Mexican artists like Frida Kahlo, Nahum B. Zenil, and Jose Maria Valesco. I also look to classical artists like Diego Velasquez and contemporary artists like Njideka Akunyili Crosby, where a lot of my inspiration for subject matter and composition comes from. This results in the use of photo media to create my composition through layers that are reflective of different parts of my identity. I rely on old family photos to give me a glimpse and idea of life in Mexico. I also take photos myself to capture my family in the poses I feel are best for the composition. The plants and wildlife that surround my family are symbolic of the great virtues and positive attributes that my family has provided to our host country and as a reminder that we are a part of nature. I hope this work will make the viewer rethink what role immigrants have in shaping the American landscape.
Open Access
Elliot Stemen: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Stemen, Elliot, artist
The artist's statement: My work shows repetitive imagery, compositions, subject matter, and colors as a critique of the echo chamber of ideas that are presented on social media and media at large. There are mannerisms that people follow, habits that get formed all in a quest to be seen as a better, or more humorous, or more genuine, or more intelligent human being. The idea of needing to act a certain way or look a certain way or talk a certain way to gain the approval of others deeply frightens me. It takes away what makes us each unique and can limit new approaches to intuitive thought. Using flat oils and acrylics to depict scenes of human and animal interaction, I aim to show the monotony of ideas proposed through media. I enjoy working with large spaces of color, but deliberately shying away from using stencils or tape to create my linework. This is because I find it important to show my hand in the work, as I believe there is life behind these rather static compositions. I show motion through unsteady lines. Imagery of dead animals and industrial waste spawned by COVID-19 act a metaphor for the limitation of ideas that we succumb ourselves to when failing to question simple ideologies. Social media platforms in particular fail to offer us the motivation to engage with deeper conversations that we have in our daily lives. And at times can push a narrative that deeper conversations and better understandings are inherently less important because of manipulative functionalities like 'likes' and 'comments.' This is worrisome when social media has become a major, or the major, means of communication for many of us. The flat composition of the works also acts as a representation of what is happening in the images we view without the application of a perfect filter, witty caption, or predisposed attitude towards the person who is posting. I find it paramount that as a society we view social media sites, not through fantastical lens, but as they are.
Open Access
Emma Corwin: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Corwin, Emma, artist
The artist's statement: What is a pilgrimage? A pilgrimage is a journey of devotion. It is a search for transformation. It is not easy or simple. The destination is not always direct. There are religious pilgrimages, but there are also individual pilgrimages, and pilgrimages that seek cultural and systemic progress. My journey through this series has been a pilgrimage, just as the modern day social movements to end hate and racism should be regarded as such. This series explores different journeys of devotion on micro and macro scales. This is my capstone series of oil paintings on canvas. I challenged my process and tried to break the conventional approaches I typically take in the studio. The speed and application varied and the solutions that arose relied on balance; a balance between energetic and controlled compositions, a balance between flat and organic marks, a balance between delicate and abrasive applications and colors. This balance was echoed in the broader theme of pilgrimages to reflect the energy they possess. Through this series, the application of paint on canvas and the ability to identify marks and process became more important to me than the readability of subject matter. It is about the inside energy and emotions behind these pilgrimages. This series is an ongoing quest for recognition and transformation in journeys of devotion.
Open Access
Brittany Micho: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2020) Micho, Brittany, artist
The artist's statement: My works explore the idea of the soul struggling to remain within the human form. The grotesque and abstracted features are used to highlight the moment the soul begins to escape. The soul does not know how to make sense of being human and therefore longs to escape from its stressors. It mimics a boiling point where it explodes into broken and distressed forms. The Soul keeps trying to remain and look human but parts of its ethereal reality slips in with ours, even obscuring the majority of the bodily figure itself. I enjoy the idea of intertwining the narrative of the body versus that of the soul. It allows for an environment where the figures are eternally menaced by some invisible and sombre power. The insecurity of torment and fear pervade the world in which the figures move. While the body and the soul are intricately entwined, I feel that there is a clear difference between the two. My aim is to engage with how the soul feels within the body when it is confronted with depersonalization, derealization, dissociation, estrangement and defamiliarization. I use oil paints on metal surfaces such as copper and steel while also applying chemical solutions to create rust and patinas on the piece. I use those natural colors and shapes to help form the atmosphere in which these souls live. The use of metal only adds to the pieces, connecting them to natural decay, rust, putrefying states, melting, dissolving and dissociation to express the impermanence of their bodily life. I want the viewer to be immersed in this extreme environment and feel the tension for themselves.
Open Access
Erin Riner: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Riner, Erin, artist
The artist's statement: I really focus on the application of the paint and how I could be more loose with not only colors, but also with the way I placed the paint. Some of my paintings have a figurative reference to it while my most recent pieces have and absence of the figure. One of my Inspirations that propelled my desire to leave the figure out was Helen Frankenthaler's Blue Lady. Just like Frankenthaler, I suggest a subtle dance of colors throughout each piece. My earlier works containing the figure suggest the idea of distancing myself from my own social role, where the painting I create of myself is one on its own. Instead of self expression and telling stories of myself through predisposed ideas I have of who I am, I let the paintings speak for themselves and allow myself to be open to what they have to tell me about who I am after I have finished the piece. After some time and reflection with the work, I can conclude as of now that there is an underlying meaning of myself changing and evolving where I can see areas of my past and present to be evident. The intent behind each painting is left up to the viewer, that being said, there is no underline, predisposed meaning thus creating an open experience for each individual. Some may relate my recent works to water while others might suggest references to patterns in the sky or space. From the beginning, my work has never felt forced. Going in with just the idea of creating a work of art creates a process and experience for me like none other. These paintings were made with the absence of anxiety that came with trying to represent a specific object or figure. By using a different medium (enamel) I was able to create layer upon layer. The application process was crucial in creating the final pieces that the viewer experiences. Just as the shades of blue dance around the canvas, so did I in creating them. From one side to another, I would move my body and arms in variations of speeds to create the illusion of fast and slow moving blue.
Open Access
Brieanna Hirsheimer: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Hirsheimer, Brieanna, artist
The artist's statement: I am interested in creating a sense of confusion in my viewer. Whether that be from questioning whether or not the piece is digital vs. painted, or a physical sense of vertigo as they are looking into an optical illusion. My paintings display a mixture of illusion, illustrative motifs and patterning that resemble digital art. I experiment with spray-paint, acrylic, oil, as well as collage. One aspect of my current work involves graphically painted subject matter occasionally resembling pop art. With this, I have found a new interest that meshes traditional styles with graphic design and pop elements. My recent work has been heavily influenced by optical phenomenons. With these illusions my goal is to create a visually intriguing space that the viewer wants to jump into. A space that has never been seen before but looks inviting, yet suggests the viewer be cautious. Evoking this complicated set of emotions is compelling to me, I want my work to cause the viewer to sift through these feelings while looking at (what seems to be) a rather simple piece. On top of illusion, street art, pop art, and graphic design also play a significant role in my work. It is rare that we connect these styles when thinking about the world of fine art as they are usually depicted as more simple and straightforward. It is my goal to stray away from this concept and move towards the idea of meshed styles as a form of fine art. These styles being looked at in this light have been a recent conversation, and I enjoy pushing that line in my own work. I have found that bold outlines and intense, bright colors seen in these types of art have become a staple in my paintings.
Open Access
Donovan Parran: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Parran, Donovan, artist
The artist's statement: The truth of life and the conscious experience are strange, mysterious, and inexplicable. The ways we interpret the world and universe are subjective. They are only abstract understandings of an unfathomable reality. My artistic style and conceptual themes are parallel to my perspective and approach to life. My paintings unravel over the course of random and impulsive "streams of conscience" in a similar way to how the future is unpredictable. Plans in life can often go awry. Therefore, I usually avoid planning things thoroughly or bypass the process altogether. Sometimes it is liberating to accept the uncertainty of the future. Just as there are no discernible answers in life, there are no discernible answers in art. My wish is for viewers to know that my paintings are meant for individual interpretation. Although I sometimes integrate loose connotations, the content is usually abstract enough that the theme is unknown to the viewer. My paintings address the idea that our reality coexists with something that is imperceptible. This force, which we can only describe with an abstract understanding, is depicted in my paintings with abstract forms and gestures. I use these qualities to render three-dimensional space and surreal imagery. I incorporate representational motifs such as mountains, clouds, or figures to express the idea of coexisting realities. Although my paintings consist of abstract elements, the art itself is not abstract but rather surreal. It is surreal in the sense that it alludes to a figment-reality, which is ultimately my interpretation of life: I know little about what is really happening and I am powerless. The best way for me to convey something indescribable is with compositions of non-descriptive forms and gestures. There is no control over the unpredictable and wild journey that life is. It is a journey with no discernible meaning and ending with one fate. Therefore I find it necessary to use art as a record of my experience.
Open Access
Brody Olson: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Olson, Brody, artist
The artist's statement: Where you are now may be fine, but that doesn't mean it will always be that way. Nature is an unpredictable beast that can't be tamed, we must always be aware of what's yet to come. Dark clouds surround our planet, no matter where you live or what language you speak, nature will have an impact on you. People have always found a way to adapt to the storms and being able to find beauty and peace during the hard times is something magical in itself. I intend to show you how inspiring nature can be during times of rough weather. This work is based on different experiences and moments that I find myself in while venturing into the wild. I paint using my photographs and sketches to re-create these different journeys. Through the processes of painting, I am able to reminisce on times that are of value to me. I hope to give people a glimpse of what is still out there when you escape the busyness of life. If you venture into the wild, you may just find yourself surrounded by wonderful moments.