HAPPY BIRTHDAY - Studio 2: Visual Culture

HAPPY BIRTHDAY A Celebration of the Body

Integrative Studio 2: Visual Culture May 7, 2018

HAPPY BIRTHDAY A Celebration of the Body

Catalog designed by: Danni Go & Alyriana Ivey

NIHARIKA ADWANI

NATALIA ARTEAGA

SIDDHI BHANSALI

KYLIE BURKUS

MELANIE CAVE

KEN CHANTHARATH

CAMEY FALCONE

LINDSAY GARCIA

PHILIPPA GAUGHAN

DANNI GO

ALYRIANA IVEY

ELISABED KHISKIADZE

MARLEY LOPEZ

LOGAN MAGEE

MATILDE MONTI

MARIANA TOUS

MARY ZECH

NIHARIKA ADWANI Cloth, Henna

I believe: That taking culturally significant objects from their original context and placing them in an alien context is unacceptable.

Using ethnic objects without understanding the historical context is wrong.

That there is a line between appropriation and appreciation that is often crossed.

That there should be laws against appropriation.

That art should be original.

That art that is an imitation of other art should not be considered art.

NATALIA ARTEAGA

Digital Collage Natalia enjoys whittling soap dolls and shooting the breeze. When not partaking in these acts of leisure, they create art that when held at a slight tilt DOES in fact look like your great aunt Susie.

SIDDHI BHANSALI Rape in the Name of Religion • Oil on Wood

Reasons that are OKAY to rape: It is OKAY to tear open a little girls uterus if she and her family are living peacefully in their homes, and their only and biggest fault is that they do not follow the predominant religion of the country.

It is OKAY to physically pull out a women’s intestine if she is not wearing a religious item of clothing in her own private party with her loved ones.

It is OKAY to kill a woman who does not believe in a religion.

It is OKAY if she is ambitious and wants to create a name for herself.

It is OKAY if she doesn’t share the same political view as you.

It is OKAY if she is wearing jeans.

It is OKAY if she is not wearing jeans.

It is OKAY if she is covered from head to toe.

It is OKAY if she is walking alone at night, if she is walking alone in the day, if she is walking with a group of friends.

It is OKAY if she has a vagina.

It is OKAY because these have all been filed cases in which the perpetrator walks in society, unharmed and shameless while the victim is blamed. It is OKAY because the educated and high-class society officials and judges in such cases have said so. It is OKAY because we make it OKAY. We have that blood on our hands too, and we cannot remove it no matter how many times we wash our hands. Now, we can only mend those wounds by creating a new layer of skin, for the females who are still young and unborn.

By making it NOT OKAY.

KYLIE BURKUS

Weekend Warrior • Digital Layout I believe art is a statement, a stamp on the world I will leave behind.

Art represents time periods, feelings, events, cultures, and people. It has the power to transform. Art surrounds us. Art is on our body everyday with the clothes we choose to put on each morning. It is an expression of art that is an extension of ourselves. What we project to the world. It could be the art of not caring and wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts.

Art is a choice. Art is the connection we make when we sew a garment together or we see something in a store that we love so much we buy.

Art is finding the perfect combination of pieces in your closet to fit together like a puzzle to assemble a coherent outfit. Art can be messy. Art could only make sense to you leaving others confused. Art is a personal interaction between you and a medium of choice.

Weekend Warrior

MELANIE CAVE

Sculpture What makes my work “art”? Avoiding things of this nature since macaroni art and finger painting created a hostile relationship between myself and art until this year where I was confronted by it as a “business major”.

Learning how to use so many different materials and tools from scratch created a sloppy visual language for myself that includes stains, sloppy doodles, remnants of unfinished and unloved projects, bags upon bags of good ideas that festered into self doubt. So how could I possibly ignore the majority of this journey of a year and call the products “art”. I spent months excusing myself to teachers because of my lack of talents and my confusion. After being told multiple times that no one really cared, I started to ask myself why I even cared. I could have just learned and worked blindly rather than wasting time on feeling bad for myself. This self introspection and questioning that I encountered through the year changed everything I had been taught beforehand was a main result of my strange artist process. I began to create with what I knew and started to see themes and feelings within these motley creations of trial and error.

My art is within the doubt that turns into pride.

KEN CHANTHARATH In My Own Skin • Video

In My Own Skin: The New Queer Cinema movement was born in 1990, revolutionizing how queer individuals are portrayed in film. Voguing is a dance style that grew out of that revolution. Feelings of oppression, hatred and anger at being treated like second class citizens, manifest through this form of dance.

But there is more to Voguing than just dance; the performance aspect of Voguing is equally important. Voguing calls for model-like, exaggerated and expressive movements that scream empowerment.

Dancers feel a high degree of control over their own bodies when they dance. That sense of control is personal, purely and uniquely arising out of a dancer’s own identity. Dancers empower themselves to be comfortable through their dancing capabilities. I have always been comfortable expressing myself with the Street Jazz style of dance. By combining aspects of both Voguing and Street Jazz, I will aim to reach a new level of self-empowerment.

CAMEY FALCONE Video

I believe: In always packing headphones In peeing in the shower In hard boiled eggs, with salt In lemonade In phone cameras In the idea of summer, until I start to sweat In going to the movies In curly hair In pie rather than cake In saving tomato sauce jars In linen sheets In Slim Jims and Snapple In calling my dogs “Linda” when they’re being naughty In sunscreen In over using the word ‘silly’ In never using the laughing-crying emoji, unless its ironic In putting raspberries on your fingers like you’re an alien or something.

LINDSAY GARCIA He Wants the Reward of Climbing the Mountain Without Knowing the Mountain’s Name • Collage

I felt in my soul the urge to not do anything. To not feel that sweet air between my fingers or count my breaths every time we speak. I wanted to stare out the window every day for eight hours exactly and then eat chocolate for the remaining time, knowing I would feel sad in my sleep. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happens when I do things and what it means to feel holy. I wonder if the earth, our mother, remembers each of us that has walked on her side, her back, her breast, her ear. I tried to kiss her every day, but it didn’t work. I hope she knows that. I hope she takes joy in the thought of quicksand and deep mud pockets instead of feeling bad about them. And that I’m not the same without our sun. When I smell the scent of castile soap I feel loving arms around my neck. I nuzzle my body into the air waves that create the space of movement and security and I feel like I’m walking through water. For some reason my thoughts are thicker than they used to be. I linger longer on rain that dissolves into my skin than the rain that spits it out. I am the space between where the peach tree grows and were your mother lays to rest. Each night my comforter tells me a secret only sleep herself would know. I dream of that mountain that has the grassy bottom and winter top and I stand there. And there is someone calling my name and I am no longer a bee, but a butterfly. I am me even when I am not me.

And I am me when someone places their hands on my head and says “still water lets light in and doesn’t forget its name”. I am bigger than the love I feel for all things when it is spring, summer, fall, and even, winter.

PHILIPPA GAUGHAN

Acyrlic on Canvas Ok so here are some things I believe in I believe in never taking anything too seriously I believe that airplane food is actually pretty good I believe in a nice cobb salad I believe in modern medicine I believe coffee always comes before coming on time I believe in doing things last minute I believe that I’m horrible at money management I believe that I still don’t understand what a manifesto really is.

DANNI GO

The Relaxation Station: An Intervention • ProColor on printer paper Art is experience. It is the inspiration I get from everything I witness. It is the artist block that overstays its welcome in my mind. It is the lack of sleep I get from pulling all-nighters as I work on and finish projects.

It is the way I was brought up by my family. It is migrating to another country after growing up in my hometown for 13 years of my life. It is the memories I have made with the people I love. It is the heartache I have dealt with. It is the loss of a loved one. It is the feeling of longing as I wait for the next time I get to go home. It is the nostalgia that engulfs me the more I grow older. It is the change I want to evoke. All of that is what I am to emulate in my art. My art traces, reflects, questions, envisions, depicts what I have experienced in my lifetime. Though I may be a workin-progress, it comforts me knowing that with each piece, with each experience I gain, I will eventually become a masterpiece of my own. As I grow as an artist, I grow as a person.

ALYRIANA IVEY

Culture • Digital Photograph and Layout I believe that photography is a way to say something. To bring awareness of things that may not always be talked about.

I believe that photography can reveal things about the subject.

I believe that as a photographer you can open people up and create a personal relationship between them and the lens.

I believe that you can capture things that you are unable to say.

ELISABED KHISKIADZE Digital Layout

I believe in movements.

I believe in people.

I believe in corruption in politics.

I believe in non-violent protests.

I believe in unity.

I believe in justice.

I believe in Democracy.

I believe in Immigrants.

I believe in hustling.

I believe in dreams.

I believe in art.

I believe in New York.

I believe in the beach.

I believe in curiosity.

I believe in the colors I see when I rub my eyes. I believe in corruption.

I believe in the little things.

MARLEY LOPEZ Cake, Dirt

Rebirth is female: Fat with ecclesiastic praise and ponder.

I was very young back then, when I first tried to scrub my skin Hopeful I’d end up raw Fascinated at what would happen to my meat when it met Sunlight.

We look for faces in everything.

An eye on a cherry tree leaf.

A breeze carrying tongues. Now we are never alone.

“Recreational re-creation”.

Look into the belly-button deep enough To see origins: Appleseeds and dust soaked in Mother’s blood.

Blink twice and come up clean, (coated in skin (made from repurposed soil), The body plans to overthrow this vulnerable state) and return to its roots.

Perhaps amicable?

Nature inhabiting the human body (mo lec u lar lev el) Everything in pro(c/gr)ess: Pour a glass of water. Watch it evaporate, Only to appear in tomorrow’s forecast for rain.

Everything will come back to you, only if you are accepting of its multiple forms.

Art cannot be sacred in its displayed state if the process behind the piece holds no intention.

(Sometimes I forget that) my body is both a religious and scientific vessel.

(Sometimes I forget that) my body is a kaleidoscope.

LOGAN MAGEE Celestial Body #1 • Acrylic on Canvas

I have created art all of my life. Even when I was very little I would force my mother to draw smiley faces so I could see how she did it. When I began drawing, I drew girls and boys; their hair was the yellow crayon, their skin was the skin crayon (a crayon that looks like a mix of apricot, white, and tan. Should’ve been named “fair skin”), and the lips on their smiling faces were light pink. Growing up, I didn’t even notice that I was only drawing white people. I had normalized “white” as normal. I had never included myself. As I grew, I studied art more intensely and learned art history. I loved the Renaissance; porcelain white skin in flowing white robes was a common motif that symbolized innocence, purity, and most importantly, beauty.

However, I was internalizing this and applying it to myself. From about fourth to eighth grade, I started to hate my dark, tightly coiled hair, my golden brown skin, and my developing curves.

I decided to cut and relax my hair, and I hung out with a mainly white crowd. I also applied this negative thinking to my art. I painted white girls with blonde hair, and rosy cheeks. I remember quite often my mother would ask me “Why don’t you ever paint any black girls?”

My response was usually “No reason, I just paint,” but secretly, I was scared to. I neglected representing anything other than European beauty standards. Seeing only white women being the subject of both art and beauty ads made me process “white” as beautiful, and anything else as not.

In the first years of high school, I changed. I started seeing more black women in the arts, like Katrina Andry, Kara Walker, and Lina Viktor. For the first time, I felt compelled to do something about the fact that I had rejected painting women of color. I wanted to paint with more browns, reds, blacks, and bronzes, and I wanted to paint curly hair. I wanted to make my portraits of girls have more substance, and not just be something to stare at. And so I did – and ever since then, I have had the drive to represent what wasn’t shown to me in art class growing up. My work now has a lot to do with gender politics, race, identity, and inward feelings vs. outward appearances.

MATILDE MONTI

Shattered Posters • Digital Illustration I make art that is silly and playful. I like my pieces to be lighthearted because I feel like a lot of people care so much about coming across and making art that is serious and professional. In my personal life, I don’t take myself too seriously so it only makes sense to me that my art reflects my personality and who I am. I take a lot of inspiration from things that stood out to me throughout my childhood. Most of these are small things such as the way my room was decorated and the bracelets that I would wear.

My art is also influenced by the way that I would draw when I was younger and I really try to keep the open and imaginative quality that drawings that are done by children have.

MARIANA TOUS

Pursuit of Perfection • Sculpture My current piece, Pursuit of Perfection is an interpretation of what is considered “beauty” today.

It intends to criticize what has become of plastic surgery over time and how drastically it has changed in today’s society; pop culture. Leading to question people’s true motives: Is it purely a necessity or just a desire to fit? in to current societal standards?

MARY ZECH

Digital Photograph This is a story about a girl named Lucky/ Early morning, she wakes up/ Knock, knock, knock on the door/ It’s time for make-up, perfect smile/ It’s you they’re all waiting for/ They go/ Isn’t she lovely, this Hollywood girl?/ And they say /She’s so lucky, she’s a star/ But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking/ If there’s nothing missing in my life/ Then why do these tears come at night?/ Lost in an image, in a dream/ But there’s no one there to wake her up/ And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning/ But tell me what happens when it stops?/ They go/ Isn’t she lovely, this Hollywood girl?/ And they say/ She’s so lucky, she’s a star / But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking/ If there’s nothing missing in my life/ Then why do these tears come at night?/ Best actress, and the winner is Lucky/ I’m Roger Johnson for Pop News standing outside the arena waiting for Lucky/ Oh my god here she comes/ Isn’t she lovely, this Hollywood girl?/ She is so lucky, but why does she cry?/ If there is nothing missing in her life/ Why do tears come at night?/ And they say she’s so lucky, she’s a star / But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking/ If there’s nothing missing in my life/ Then why do these tears come at night?/ She’s so lucky / But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking/ If there’s nothing missing in my life/ Then why do these tears come at night?