Date of Submission

Spring 2011

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Advisor

Nicola Lopez

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Last year, while walking in New York City, I began looking for abstract things that people do not usually look for. I took pictures and made sketches of the things that I saw. Some of the images I recorded were tree branches, forms of exotic plants or the bone structure of sea animals. I took all of these shapes and forms that I saw and I combined them. I believe that the structures I incorporated into my project are the ones that are usually ignored, and I made new ones that I based on these structures. My other method was to take a part of the structure and continue it with my own flare of imagination, as I did in the blending from drawing to structure and vice versa. I made different categories for the pictures that I would take or the sketches that I made. From these different sorting of my images, I made interesting; individual structures and prints that ended up forming a collage display of a collection of my ideas.

In my mind some of the word that come up are anarchy, chaotic, confusion, disruption, complex, rough forms. These abstract depictions are a fusion of construction material: I-beams, pipes, concrete walls, etc. all of which reveal the hearth of the wall, buildings that are falling apart and display a seemingly abandoned building. I mixed all the facets of these forms and combined them with my own imaginary forms and structures. Therefore, I have created an installation of drawings and sculptures. This project is clearly focused on joints; the connection of materials that are forced to be put together, and my goal was to allow one to see the mark of that action. I also attempted to create an inward sense of space in the drawings and an outward motion with the three-dimensions of sculpture. The sculpture is then a part or continuation of the drawing, and allows me to then create a narration. I created a collage of sculptures and drawings, and I used the language of abstraction and chaos to identify and create my work. Additionally, the sculptures are all comparatively large, and they are made to create another way of drawing lines through the creation of shadows. With these pieces, I have attempted to create all this structure from materials such as metal that I found in dumpsters, and thus they have been used and have left marks from their previous uses that add more to the industrial feeling that I want to create. At the same time, I have implemented wood as a somewhat contradictory material to the metal.

My work is about structures that are not structured. It is about revealing the structure, its marks and its shadows. What I am trying to achieve a creation of structures that are not structured; a contradictory statement in itself, and thus forming structures that are abstract. I am taking the line as my main medium to create the form of these structures. From there, I use different materials such as pipes, metal bars and wood to depict the structures and create an additional drawing in a three-dimensional sculpture. The goal here is to create space within the drawing and then to have the structure come off the drawing and take place in an actual space. From this sculpture, one can see the force of the drawing launching into the physical world, and the materials used to connect them.

My other goal is to make structures from pre-existing structures. These structures will be the base for a brand new structure by creating a shadow; and the drawing on the wall corresponds with this shadow. This process is the direct opposite of my previous method for creating structures. In addition to the drawing structure, my work is about structures coming out of the wall and being aggressive like they are alive and growing out of the wall. Furthermore, shapes are another factor in my work; shapes that are found in nature or from collapsed buildings, which I believe hold a kind of profound beauty. I put all these images and materials together and made a collage that will flow and move in space and have a transformation trough out the installation.

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