PRESS ON/OFF by John W. Ford

PRESS ON/OFF

Rowe 151 Department of Art & Art History UNC Charlotte 9201 University City Blvd Charlotte, NC 28223 704.687.0200

704.687.0100 http://coaa.uncc.edu/

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This catalog documents the outcomes of an undergraduate course in the Department of Art and Art History - UNC Charlotte, conducted during 2010 Fall semester. Listed under the course number ARTA 3000-002 Topics in Art, the course format was designed to engage students from various artistic and scholarly backgrounds. We would like to acknowledge Eldred Hudson, Chair of the Department of Art and Art History, for embracing the concept of the project and supporting the residency of Jennifer E. Price who team-taught the course with Print Media instructor John W. Ford. Design and production considerations by Karen R. Pierce, and made possible by the self-documentary photographs, and written statements, submitted by each participant at the end of the project. Special logistic support provided to the visiting artist Jennifer E. Price by Sharan M. Downes.

PRESS ON/OFF What is the nature of Print Media at the start of a new millennium? Is printmaking an ancient form best understood from historical perspectives? Is Print Media on the cutting edge of visual expression? How does Print Media inform and infiltrate our lives? Even if we do not consider ourselves makers of print-based images or objects, are we able to integrate traditional and alternate forms of graphic media into our particular frame of reference, and employ their intellectual and plastic properties to serve our own individual professional imperatives? This special project was inspired by the work of London-based artist Jennifer E. Price, artist in residence during the Fall term of 2010 at UNC Charlotte. Price facilitated the work of young artists from a variety of aesthetic and material backgrounds, helping them to challenge the confines of Print Media as well as professionalize their own work. The objective was not to make prints, per se, but to make art that referred directly or indirectly to the history and traditions of printmaking, and to expand the future potential of Print Media as an evolving contemporary art discipline. JOHN W. FORD

CREATIVE PARTICIPANTS Jennifer E. Price - Visiting Artist-in-Residence (Special Participant, UK) Suje Garcia - BFA Painting candidate Nicholas Garris - BFA Print Media candidate Giovanni Gutierrez - BFA Digital Media candidate Damon Hood - BFA Painting candidate Bethany Kern - BFA Photography candidate Karen Pierce - BFA Photography and Graphic Design candidate Amber Watts - BFA Painting candidate

Jennifer E. Price

Taking man-made objects that perform a task for us in modern society Price inks them up and prints them. Two main elements underpin this series of work. The first of these elements concerns dimensionality. Price might take a recognizable three-dimensional object, such as a television, and print it so that it is splayed out flat onto a canvas, thus turning the 3D into 2D, and removing its purpose and function. The second element underlying this series of works are their association with psychiatric ‘Inkblots’. The concept behind this aspect is the creativity of the viewer as much as the art or artists themselves. Similar to a psychiatrist’s inkblot, the imagination is engaged and the accidental can become a whole new image: the emergence of creativity. By using a recognizable object to initiate the process of audience engagement, Price challenges the viewer further, asking them to look beyond the obvious. Their interpretation is their own, and not the artist’s: they become the works meaning. Artist, art and audience are all part of a piece of work. Here they are inseparable.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Untitledâ&#x20AC;?, 2010, Monoprint on Fabric

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Constellationâ&#x20AC;?, 2010, Monoprint on Fabric

Artist at work: Printing a Car

Artist at work: Installing the Car Print

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Dodge Whiteâ&#x20AC;?, 2010, Monoprint on Fabric (Site Specific Installation)

art-at-heart@hotmail.co.uk www.jenniferpriceart.com

Suje J. Garcia

I gather information by collecting physical objects during my lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experiences. Along with ideas and images contained in my sketch book, the collected objects become messengers of my life, manifest within my work. I seek out human response shaped by perceptions of physical objects. This may be as simple as my daily response to life, or capturing a moment of time with emphasis on location and the interaction of surroundings. I employ multiple disciplines as a way to inform the development of my process. Great emphasis throughout my work is influenced by compositional interplay. Serving in the United States Military has allowed me to experience many influential lessons. These lessons include improvising material and exercising critical judgments in the midst of human tragedy, in both clinical and combat situations. As a result, I believe I can create artwork with any substance. Prior to its alteration, each substance has a potential meaning or purpose, and once that object is transformed it does not lose its meaning or purpose, it simply gains another. I often challenge the discourse of perception because of my life experiences. I focus on human engagement because I am a human, and through my work I gain complex understandings of life.

“Painted Wood”, 2010, India Ink Painting on Paper, 18"× 24"

Images

“1985”, 2010, Seriograph on Canvas, 16"× 20"

“Untitled”, 2010, Ink Rubbing, 18"× 24"

“Overstimulation”, 2010, Ink Transfer, 18"× 24"

Nicholas Garris

In general, my work focuses on the relationship between public and private persona. I employ masks as tools to conceal private persona, and as a way to project the personalities we must often project in the public sphere. We each experience human frailties such as substance abuse, personal image problems, and issues of what it is to be who we strive to be. The mask is a tool to magnify these ailments and to emphasize the absurdity of public and private image. The subjects of my work usually appear in personal private spaces, and are shown to partake in the behaviors intended to cope with the public world. Even though I may have a precise underlying intent for the work, the work is also open to viewer interpretation. This is the message behind the mask. Most of my work is created using print media methods as a means of making multiples and creating compositions that are often stylized yet recognizable. This current project serves to put my previous statement into action. Through video, the message becomes vivid, intense, and deranged as only my mind can narrate; the madness of social beings failing, coping, and inevitably ending it all. Through video, I create a window through which the audience may peer behind the mask and view my personal narrative of struggle. At another level, this project serves to relate artifice and reality, presenting subject matter that some have only read about, experienced, or failed to achieve. This tragic persona presents a victim of environment, ailment, and disease, all ending in suicide. This presents a crude message about what happens in the world every day; person with a disease, being left to their own destruction, only to be ignored.

“Struggle Between the Fine Lines of Life, Rope, and Giving Up”, 2010, Seriograph and Acrylic, 72"× 72"

Scene from “Death of Rampage”, 2010, Digital Video Still

“Who Needs the Grocery Store when the Buffet is Right Here?”, 2010, Screen Print and Acrylic and Inkjet Print, 36"× 36"

Scene from “Death of Rampage”, 2010, Digital Video Still

“Life Enthusiast”, 2010, CMYK Screen Print, 10"× 8"

Scene from “Death of Rampage”, 2010, Digital Video Still

“What I See Looking Back at Me”, 2010, Serigraph and Acrylic, 36"× 36"

Scene from “Death of Rampage”, 2010, Digital Video Still

Giovanni G. Gutierrez

I can remember the first film I ever made. I was six years old and I was putting my homemade whip around my waist as I climbed the tree out front. I prepared for the director to yell â&#x20AC;&#x153;Action!â&#x20AC;? Instead all I got was my mom yelling for me to get down. She filmed me the rest of the day reenacting Raiders and I had a blast! I have done many diffrent things since that time in my childhood. I have grew up, went to school, went in to the U.S. Marines, went to war in Iraq, went and fell in love with my wife, went back to school, and now here I am after all that time still doing what I did when I was six years old: making movies. Many people ask what I will be able to do with a Bachelors of Fine Art in a concentration of Digital Media. I tell them that I will do what I love. I have seen many great and many terrible things in my short 28 years here and if there is one thing I learned is that you have to sit down and reconnect with your childhood self and find out what he wants to do. I made this film illustrating the directions to a game I have developed. It is a Murder Mystery Game and I hope that you will try it soon with your friends, family and of course that little six year old right inside you. Thanks. Gio.

Giovanni G. Gutierrez as Georgie Green

Kristie S. Gutierrez as Polly Peacock

Patrick Creech as Professor Peter Purple

Paula Turman as The Maid Wendy White

Matthew Green as Colonel Mortimer Mustard

The Maid Wendy White finding out she is a Detective.

Georgie Green finding out that he is The Murderer.

Wendy White, Peter Plum, Mortimer Mustard, and Polly Peacock are comparing facts.

Damon Hood

My current artistic practice involves abstract figural representations of biographical memories. A semblance of my self appears in the work frequently. The artwork, sign of my existence, is represented as evidence of my singular bodily experience. The artistic process provides a dotted path for others to follow. Once I am removed from this indexical event, all that remains is a trace of my presence. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a trail of metaphysical crumbs left with hope for encounters by other humans being.

I’m using cardboard and other found materials to construct props for “Jar.” Several are visible to my left.

While constructing the set for my film, I documented the action. Many of those shots are used in â&#x20AC;&#x153;tJar.â&#x20AC;?

This vaporous body takes shape against my cardboard stage.

A disembodied head materializes amongst some fantastic trees.

The color red plays a dominant role in this film.

This head shifts and turns on an axis. It suggests the movement of a celestial body.

This figure is caught between worlds.

The title of this film references a poem titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Anecdote of the Jarâ&#x20AC;? by Wallace Stevens.

Bethany Kern

Since the earliest stages of my interest in photography, I have been drawn to the documentary aspects of the medium. I love that it is, most often, about simple things, simple people; people who are worth documenting often for no grander reason than the fact that they are human beings - with experiences, personalities, and souls. In choosing to tell a visual story of my grandparentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; life together, via the film medium, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m documenting the story of people whose experiences of the Great Depression and the Second World War will soon be impossible to record through the vessels of living people. I am telling their story because it includes documentation of a particularly significant time in Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history. I am telling their story because they are human beings. I am telling their story because they are my grandparents.

Video Still

Photograph

Video Still

video still

Video Still

Karen Rose Pierce

As a developing artist, most of my work deals with the theme of identity. This piece, “The Compass,” was inspired by a poem with the same name which was written by Adam Peter Shinn. One quote that specifically grabbed my attention was “Any fatal position has an off switch that dreams can locate.” It refers to how one can escape any hardship life throws at us through our dreams. I photographed the scene on Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, Georgia. The location itself is completely surreal and was perfect for this concept. After building the piece in Adobe Photoshop, I used the gel transfer method onto wood to imply a sense of deterioration. I chose the size of 36" × 36" because this was an opportunity for me to present a piece on a large scale, something that I had not accomplished before. Photography and Printmaking go hand-in-hand. Photography can be a way of intially creating art and Printmaking can be a way of visually presenting it in an aesthetically appealing way. This, of course, is just one way I see the two working together and the way I applied them for this piece.

Images

Photographing the scene.

Images

Finished digital image.

Images

Immersing the image into water. (Top) Pouring glue into a bucket. (Bottom)

Images

Applying glue to the front of the image. (Top) Applying a thick layer of glue onto the wood. (Bottom)

Images

Applying photo face down onto wood. (Top) Smoothing out the paper. (Bottom)

Images

Rubbing the paper off using water. (Top) Applying a thin layer of glue to seal. (Bottom)

Images

Finished Piece.

Amber D Watts

I think about all the people who have ever lived and people who will live in the future - all the spirits that have passed through this world. I wonder if some people get to pass through this place more than once, in different bodies. I think about what it would be like to live in another place and time - in a century and a culture many times removed from my own. Someone lived there and experienced that life. And where are all those people now? Influenced by these curiosities, both the context of my work and the mediums I use aim at a literal and metaphorical synthesis of things. I combine painting, printmaking, photography, and some sculptural elements in efforts to create harmony between the mediums, so that they fuse together into one. There is a hybridizing of different cultures and some non-specific reference to a time period, or an odd combination of time periods. This includes outer space and time that has not yet passed - the future. There are symbols and metaphors that make each work seem like a Rebus, asking to be solved. The works are closely related to shrines, in that they are made with love and respect in honor of great people. Each piece functions as a sacred place for the figure to be viewed and admired; and a place for the viewer to have a spiritual experience. The paintings are my attempts to create monuments to life and death over all spans of time, in honor of all of humanity.

In Progress. I am using multiple sheets of mylar, or acetate transparency film. They hang just slightly apart from one another.

In Progress. I am using photo transfer methods and attaching some lightweight three deminsional objects.

In Progress. I am constructing an image that is the result of transparent layers of paint and ink built up on each sheet of mylar.

Final peice. The painting hangs perpindicular to the wall, allowing it to be viewed form both sides.

“In Our Moment, He Slept on my Belly While I Slept on the Belly of the Earth”, Mixed Media on Transparent Acetate, 3.5"× 8"

“In Our Moment, He Slept on my Belly While I Slept on the Belly of the Earth” (Detail 1)

“In Our Moment He Slept on my Belly, While I Slept on the Belly of the Earth” (Detail 2)

To obtain a copy of this DVD or more information about additional projects contact john.ford.art@gmail.com