Some documentation from this semester…
Spring Update
Tag: cell
Experimenting with Methods of Removal
Over the next several months I’m going to be making a lot more of these “cell” paintings that you may have been seeing and one thing I’ve been really interested in is methods of removal. Physically removing or covering these cellular shapes comments on both mortality and the nature of medical studies. I initially got the idea from artist Ross Bleckner, who has been a big influence on my work over the past year. He would paint flowers and then scrape them away to illustrate their short life span.
Early last week I completed my first official experiment using watercolor on Yupo paper. I began with a grid (of course) and wrote down a brief description of how I planned to remove or otherwise obscure the painted circle. I then painted the circles and proceeded from there.
Below are detail photos of some of my favorite results:
Thanks for reading and looking. Please share if you like what you see! xoxo
Everything Else from Summer
I don’t mean to imply that the following pieces are unimportant compared to the pieces that I’ve already shared on here. I tried to somewhat categorize the body of work I created in Chicago (sugar, medicine, small, etc.) and these are the pieces that didn’t really fit into those categories. Enjoy!
Untitled (Organs)
Mixed Media
18″ x 24″
Bodily
Mixed Media
11″ x 14″
I also wanted to include some of the pieces that aren’t done yet.
Untitled (Finger)
Ink + Watercolor
9″ x 12″
Untitled (Bars)
Acrylic
9″ x 12″
Untitled (Help Wanted)
Spackle
11″ x 14″
Don’t Give Her Cake
Mixed Media
11″ x 14″
Untitled (Cross)
Mixed Media
11″ x 14″
Untitled (Bubbles)
Ink
9″ x 12″
Floorwork
Works in Progress: Science + Art
Here are some paintings I’m working on right now. This Friday, I will share the finished pieces along with a little information about each one. Thanks for visiting!
Credits: Thomas Caceci and Yale Rosen
New Work: Islets of Langerhans
Last year, I was asked to donate a piece of artwork for an auction taking place at a JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) Gala in Pennsylvania this April. I agreed to create an oil painting related to diabetes for this event.
Islets of Langerhans
Oil
20″ x 16″
The painting is a close-up of the islets of Langerhans–a region in the pancreas where insulin-producing beta cells are located. In a nutshell, Type 1 Diabetes occurs when the body destroys beta cells and essentially cuts off its own natural supply of insulin. This means that insulin needs to be injected manually.
I’ve recently developed an increased interest in the development of diabetes, and that, combined with my love of imitating blown up microscopic images, ultimately led to this painting. It’s pretty small, so I actually plan on creating a much larger version of this painting in the future. As always, thanks for reading :]
Inspiration: Biology
Ever since I started making artwork about diabetes, I have found myself inspired by things in science–namely biology, and within that, cellular structures. I think this stems from my love for color, repetition, and organic shapes in art. I never attempt to accurately render a cell in a painting or drawing, instead I just gather ideas from images of them.
This process evolved quite a bit when I was taking an advanced figure drawing class. My final project involved using symbolism to create patterns that would represent “body armor”. I wanted to come up with symbols for protection, and one of the symbols that I designed represented the womb of a mother. I wanted the symbols to be very simple since I would have to draw hundreds of them, so this symbol merely consisted of 2 irregular rings, one inside the other, and a dot in the middle. It looked more like a cell to me, but this was actually still fitting for my project since different kinds of cells protect the body.
I fell in love with the look of this symbol in a pattern, so I continued to play around with it in my other work:
What inspires you?