Drawing

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/10217/180166

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 61

Open Access
Nico Olivo: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Olivo, Nico, artist
The artist's statement: During my time here I have taken my time exploring the topic of love and intimacy in my practice through the lens of a queer man. I find it important to explore the topic of romance and relationships from a queer perspective due to the representation of queer love having been mostly from a cis, straight lens. This causes both the demonization and fetishization of the queer community and queer relationships. I have taken to exploring romantic love and all of the complex feelings that might arrive in different relationships. Love is so complex and unique that I find that capturing these ever evolving feelings to be an intuitive and introspective process is really just reaching out to be understood.
Open Access
Forest Squier: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Squier, Forest, artist
The artist's statement: Throughout this semester I have become more and more intrigued with empty space, letting the paper just be as it is. There is something fascinating about emptiness, seeing past an object and into a world of the unknown. It exists in contradictions, it is beautiful, absurd, and terrifying, and yet it doesn’t exist at all. My work is inspired by my environment. I chose to use natural subjects like pine cones or flowers because they are things that I have encountered myself. Everything here is something that I have collected or observed. When I go outside I do not know what I will stumble upon and what will serve as inspiration. Most of my practice is informed by botanical illustration. It is methodical and rational– its main purpose being to depict a form with scientific accuracy. For me, there is an aim to being true to form, but also a relaxed intention. I approach my work through the practice of botanical illustration, but then I think of how to break the rules. The goal of my work is not to be viewed as tools for science but for dialogue between what we do and do not know.
Open Access
Carlos Moreno Loachamin: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Loachamin, Carlos Moreno, artist
The artist's statement: The body of work I have made in my four years at CSU has been a ramping evolution in the exploration of contemporary American mental health struggles, the notion of the sublime, and the beauty in such raw emotions as shame, guilt, and exhaustion. This evolution has primarily taken place through material exploration. Beginning with pen and ink on paper my freshman year, I have ventured into different media as I've painted, sculpted, and animated pieces which grew imbued with flashes of self-flagellation, exhaustion, and the buckling weight that follows when one holds onto torturing ideals for an excruciating amount of time.
Open Access
Brian Pena Garcia: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Pena Garcia, Brian, artist
The artist's statement: As a Mexican immigrant I've had to witness and experience a lot of mistreatment while living in the U.S. Feeling the pressure of being the absolute perfect model citizen in a country that doesn't respect or care for my existence is exhausting. With no financial sustainability or support medically, I've seen my family and other immigrants struggling year after year. Even though Undocumented Immigrants pay Billions of dollars in taxes every year, we are still not accepted as citizens. For my project I would like to explore the feelings and sentiments I have felt through my life in growing up in the U.S. as a Mexican immigrant. Throughout my years of watching the political climate in constant fear, to my personal experience of racial discrimination, I want to create illustrations in ink that demonstrate the aspects of being an immigrant in the United States. Some examples of concepts I'd like to explore are the experiences in the work environment. Being underpaid, working more hours, and having no choice in where to work are a few points that describe the situation of work for undocumented immigrants. Another aspect is the ability to see family from their home country. Undocumented immigrants usually don't have the money to travel, and if they did it would be impossible to leave the U.S. because they would no longer be able to come back. This causes them to not be able to see their family. This is an experience I had to go through in my family and witness this pain in my parents. Pieces like "Thinking of Mexico" explore this feeling of diaspora that Mexican immigrants deal with when it comes to being in the United States. Only experience my birthplace through memories while experiencing the unjust systematic discrimination and oppression in the U.S.
Open Access
Erik Reynolds: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Reynolds, Erik, artist
The artist's statement: In general, my art is a visual expression of change in my world. These changes are often highlighted through the process I take to get from concept to completion. I do very little sketching or planning for my projects, instead that process part of the work and is integral to the final piece. This dynamic way of creating has led me to mostly work in series because a series allows me to explore how one idea can morph and change over time. I start with a conceptual phrase that I try to keep each piece aligned with. As that concept becomes more fleshed out, the image gets more and more refined. Most of the time, by the end of the process I have moved so far away from the original concept that the original concept has evolved into a different idea all together. However, this new idea contains the same roots as the previous image, and thus is contained in the same conceptual idea. It's a type of narrative; not a narrative for the viewer to be absorbed in, but one that allows the viewer to consider the different possibilities of a single event. The majority of my work is done with pen and ink, though it may be many different iterations of that tool. Technical pens, brush pens, calligraphy pens, dip pens, fountain pens, all are contenders for the different kinds of marks they are capable of making. In many ways my work relies on the exploration into these different marks and how they interact and support the other materials. The interplay between marks is where a lot of the change I search for is found, out of the rough and chaotic nature of a single mark blooms an endless number of collective ideas.
Open Access
Emily Pfanstiel: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Pfanstiel, Emily, artist
The artist's statement: I create illustrations based on altered realities. My latest series tackles a long-term experience in one's mental fog, due to grief. This concept was then split into bodies of work dissecting the recognition, recollection, and relinquishing of grief. I find great significance in the use of memories and their deterioration over time. Whether caused by physical displacement, a migration, or a grief of loss, I use these moments to visually demonstrate how individual realities are impacted by psychological pain. Often those in bereavement carry the collision of past and present to their experience of everyday life. This projection is where I feel most compelled to approach the corrosion of a memory. When we hold nostalgia for moments of time, this is often attached intrinsically to an item symbolic of those memories. With memory, my images contain personal references to objects of attachment, or the social life of objects. There are connections to our environments that continue to bring us fulfillment after they have served their purpose. My media works to demonstrate the context of erasure and disintegration. Alongside the medium, I work with fading a recollection of memory, adding graphite in layers as a rendering technique that disorients the viewer. I am drawn towards ink, watercolor, and graphite-based tools. Textures of paper and its application to the narrative play an important role, as my erasure techniques connect with ideas of loss or the absence of something important. Text is also used to quietly support this idea of the finite construct of time. Working with limited material keeps my process evolving deeper into experimentation. Some pieces are fused together as a storytelling element, with a variety of color palettes, materials, and textures to connect into a singular moment of expression. These media allow each composition to evoke the impression of events fading into the fog of memory, or the loss of a moment altogether.
Open Access
Ava Schuetter: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Schuetter, Ava, artist
The artist's statement: My name is Ava and as a multimedia artist my work allows me to navigate through what I struggle with. Between the materiality and process of creating each piece, I can confront what is troubling me and understand it better to continue growing as a person. I wouldn’t say this process allows me to fully overcome everything I face, but rather gives me the space to approach it in a comfortable, therapeutic way. Recently, I have explored themes of mental illness, gender, sexuality, and family. Currently, the work I am doing centers around my existence within domestic spaces. A commonality between all my work is material and sourcing materials second-hand is a large focus of my practice. I believe there is value in continuing the life cycle of objects that already exist, rather than buying something just to be used once. This largely stems from my fears for the future of the earth, but I draw some satisfaction from reimagining what something can be used for. For instance, using an old, gifted window to become an interactive wall installation about my experience being a woman. Or my most recent work, where I use scrap fabric from second-hand stores to applique an imagined view of my current bathroom. Both are very different materials used in a similar process to help me understand more about myself.
Open Access
Dorie Keck: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Keck, Dorie, artist
The artist's statement: I always feel at home with either a book or a pen in my hand. Actually, it is when stories and art are combined that I feel the most at home. Stories and art are like two sides of the same coin; both introspective and have massive potential for creativity but where stories have almost unlimited page space for exploration, art is limited to a single viewing plane. The drawback for stories is that within this limitless vat of vocabulary, the core of what is being told can be lost. This is why I believe stories and art function best in tandem, with the universe of possibility for exploration pared with the stagnant picture of a feeling. My drawings and illustrations are homages to the most treasured stories from my life; both those read in books and those that I have lived. I touch on what I feel is the essence of these stories as well as how my memory has shaped them since my initial experience. This ends up turning into a mix of rose-tinted idealisms and stoic reflections of the past which never feel correct until at least the second full iteration of the piece. A lot of my process is trial and error. Recently, every piece that I embark on gets fully finished before I realize that I want to go in an entirely different direction and start anew. However, I wouldn't have it any other way, as though this process I have learned more about the works themselves as well as myself as an artist than I ever would have if I got it right on the first try.
Open Access
Miles Buchan: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Buchan, Miles, artist
The artist's statement: My work serves as an exploration of my personal condition and experience with extreme light sensitivity and "legal blindness". Between the binary of the sighted and the blind exists a spectrum of perception, which drastically effects lived experiences. As an individual with Oculocutaneous Albinism 1, my sight varies and depends greatly upon my surrounding environment, particularly when it comes to light, movement, and scale. This has impacted my life beyond my own understanding, as it is all that I've known. As I learn more about myself and the world around me, I begin to question how deep these implications lie. I've addressed and confronted this reality in both scale and material to include paintings, sculptures, experimental drawings, and installations. For drawings and sculptures which exist three dimensionally, I am interested in exploring and manipulating the effects of light, physical space, and orientation to engage with viewers own senses. For two-dimensional work I focus on some of the same qualities through composition. Utilizing color, contrast, and pattern to create a sense of space which interacts with the viewers perception to create meaning. As a visual artist working and living with a visual disability my style, process, and finalized work are all informed by both preference and ability. Whether I'm creating something meant to be representationally naturalistic or fully abstract, I must work and negotiate with my eyes, sight, and senses throughout.
Open Access
Joshua Brown: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Brown, Joshua, artist
The artist's statement: Inspired by how a complex work's content is revealed through in-depth examination, I present my conceptual drawing through layers of meaning, hidden by subtle compositional and surface level details. Subjects convey a range of themes through these aspects of my work. One theme in my work is artistic struggle, represented by animals that best communicate the struggle focused on in a given work. For example, the presence of an elephant in the composition signals that the content is communicating a difficulty in drawing from memory. Other themes include the accurate and speculative portrayal of animals both living and extinct, and interactions between different animals and humans. Such ideas may take form as juxtapositions between scientifically accurate and older reconstructions of dinosaurs, or diptychs highlighting the shared toxicity of unrelated species. My conceptual drawing additionally pursues site specificity regarding rendering landscapes which hold personal or conceptual significance, and astronomical imagery. Most of the themes discussed here incorporate varying levels of storytelling into their presentation. My work explores and experiments with an alternating array of materials and techniques such as, colored pencil, pastels, ink, brush pens, oil paint, and paper cutting, layering, and texturing to maintain a diverse visual range. The use of these materials in any combination offers further opportunities for development and experimentation in my practice. They are also an integral part of my research process for making art, which employs the composition of brainstorm lists, exploring approaches to depicting a given theme, and producing thumbnail sketches, full-page sketches, and material studies. This process aids my visualization and understanding of an artwork’s plausible result before I apply the first mark.
Open Access
Abril Maranon: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Maranon, Abril, artist
The artist's statement: My work as an undergraduate student has consistently explored sociopolitical issues and gradually shifted towards making politics less intimidating to the viewer. This has created a body of work that attempts to interact and open conversations about real problems in our community. Unfortunately, as the political environment stands now, what we consider true is so easily manipulated, and the distribution of information is not equal. When a hesitance to talk about politics with others is added to the issue and we use our stance to attack, this creates hostility and prolongs the problems we are trying to solve. Through optical effects and illusions, my works explore issues like human rights, censorship, and the current political environment. Using mixed media, watercolors, gel sheets, and other materials, this body of work aims to invite both sides of the political spectrum to talk to each other. My current project is my Perspectives series, a watercolor series and installation that uses optical effects and illusions to explore politics. This is a two-part series, with each part exploring a different facet of American and international sociopolitical issues. The first part explores Either/or arguments concerning human life. It uses stereoscopic anaglyphs to explore how one political alignment is used to shut down another. Part two discusses censorship and international parallels concerning how we are allowed to talk about politics. The Ishihara color blindness test is applied to this part of the series, speaking to varying degrees of censorship in supposed democracies, including the US. In their base forms, these methods are fun and encourage interaction. However, the principle of these effects was also a source of inspiration for me. These methods can describe what is going on in politics right now without necessarily being intimidating to viewers. I am interested in exploring how we come to understand the truth and how this understanding can be blocked or distorted based on the information we consume. The way these works are installed is also meaningful in that it gives the viewer a sense of choice and responsibility. Throughout the series, the viewer is offered gel lenses from which they can view the works. These either enhance or delete details rendered on each canvas. Each piece always ties back to the presence of media and how that frames our opinion on the subject. The source images used for each project have been pulled from the news or articles with specific political views. The thought in mind that media creates the frame and forms public opinion. Whether you see your own beliefs or are open to receiving opposing viewpoints is entirely up to you. Ultimately, this body of work is meant to open conversation, one’s own willingness to listen to others is a deciding factor in how this work impacts the viewer’s perspective.
Open Access
Sage Collett: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Collett, Sage, artist
The artist's statement: A restlessness fuels my art practice. As we face challenges, experience, and learn, we constantly receive new information. It is easy to become overwhelmed, and there are too many things to say and too many things to create art about. I continuously question how art is defined in modern times. What qualifies as art? Is ‘true’ art based on skill or professionalism and experience of the artist? Or is it based on a more subjective criteria of passion, creativity, or intention behind the art? When does this categorization become too rigid and constraining? Perhaps, subconsciously, I ask these questions because of my interest in the ever-changing language of our times and my personal identity that often resists efforts to categorize and define. In terms of art making, rather than become specialized in a particular media or subject matter, I find myself inclined towards exploring various processes, being ‘inconsistent’. For the most part, I work within 2D parameters, but I often rapidly switch between media, subject matter, theme, etc., using whatever I instinctively feel will best communicate my current thoughts. Up until recently, I used these aspects rather singularly, but for this series, I thematized inconsistency itself. Rather than avoid my innate restlessness, I made it the focus and explored that process. To aid my decision making within this broad concept, I began by creating separate lists. One for traditional art styles and movements along with some personal additions. Another list for media, including charcoal, pastel, watercolor, ink, paint, etc. Finally, a list for subject matter, determining whether I would be incorporating elements of the natural world, an interior space, something more figural, or abstract. I then plugged these lists into an algorithm that would randomize my choices. Accordingly, I created works based on those randomized combinations, impulsively deciding canvas size, composition, and imagery. For some, I still produced singular pieces with two styles, one medium, and a main subject matter. As I continued within my project, I began operating in a looser manner, incorporating multiple styles and media on a single canvas, either making each section distinct or allowing the aspects to blend and interact with one another in a natural, spontaneous way. When I first planned this series, I wanted to see what would happen if I gave myself parameters – if I relinquished some of my agency – and surprisingly, in return, I received some control. Each random set of guidelines sparked an excitement, a challenge, almost like solving a puzzle. I learned how to toss aside inhibitions, and instead, work spontaneously, rapidly, allowing my intuition to guide me. The technical ‘success’ or visual unity of the series faded as a concern because this series centers around the process, finding meaning and expression within my system as it evokes questions about how we view art in modern times.
Open Access
Heidi Chrisman: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Chrisman, Heidi, artist
The artist's statement: My current work focuses on opening the conversation about our bodies and how they work. Personally, I was ignorant to how my body worked until recently. This was because I was not taught about my body as a child and I did not think to ask questions until I was an adult. I did not really know how sex worked until I was 17 and I think there is something wrong with that. I do not want others to have to wonder about things like sex, but be to afraid to ask questions about it. My work aims to make this topic less taboo and to make people less afraid of talking about their bodies. My work features a lot of nude figures and representations of genitalia because I think we need to realize that this is what humans all have in common and we should be able to talk about it just like we do about things like our interests. We all share these experiences with our bodies and our genitalia, but we are embarrassed when someone talks about it. To me, this is wrong. I work in a wide variety of media including, but not limited to: colored pencil, gouache, watercolor, ink, and acrylic paint. I am inspired by many artists, usually nude figure artists and feminist artists. Body positivity is another aspect in my work and the artist Jenny Saville has been influential to me in that area. I have focused more recently on female pleasure in my work, leading me to discover many new feminist artists. I feel strongly that there is not enough attention on pleasure for people with a vulva, sometimes people are almost scared of the clitoris and the vulva as a whole because it can be ‘harder to figure out’. My work is my way to open up the conversation about female pleasure, our bodies, and the problems surrounding these topics. I think it is a tragedy that we do not talk about our bodies and how they work more. The first step to correcting this, is bringing it up.
Open Access
Natalie Freeman: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2022) Freeman, Natalie, artist
The artist's statement: This body of work encompasses my experiences and thoughts regarding issues that are the focus of the contemporary feminist movement. This ongoing series provides both a reflective practice while providing a space for this assemblage of research to exist beyond my person. Present within my work are themes that consider the objectification and self-objectification of women: how individuals and communities alike can distill a person down to their parts. I dig deep into the conversation of violence against women, drawing my personal experiences of domestic abuse as a child and sexual assault I endured as a teenager. Women are valued for their bodies—how their physicality can serve and satisfy others—but this unwanted objectification reveals a disparity between a hyper-cultural focus, but a lack of research, study, and representation within science and medicine. Our understanding of female anatomy and acceptance of concepts surrounding female pleasure has continually lagged understanding of male anatomy and acceptance of male pleasure. Even when sex education isn’t a point of contingency, curricula censor topics and behaviors integral to every human being, regardless of identity. This educational ignorance and systemic shaming then affect individual opinions, cultural practices, and regulatory legislation that ultimately oppress rights to bodily autonomy. These issues are pervasive to my life. They enlighten my worldview, shape my behaviors, and impact me in very obvious, as well as insidiously unconscious, ways. I tell stories I haven’t had the strength to utter before and take up space I didn’t think I deserved to enhance recognition, advocate for change, and empower others to do the same. I present my personal experiences to solidify and contextualize these encompassing social issues. I chose “hysterics” as the title since this word has a complex and deeply gendered history. Hysteria was deemed a medical illness with symptoms only afflicting women. These symptoms (emotionality, irritability, anxiety, etc.) are attributes that have defined women historically. Since emotion was equated with the feminine, and reason with the masculine, emotion was seen as a flaw, an inferiority, and a trait used to disenfranchise people. It seems that hysteria lacked reason and reason lacked hysteria. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. My rational and analytical considerations surrounding my extensive knowledge of these topics makes me emotional: these inequalities upset me and should be upsetting to others. Being emotional or upset doesn’t make your point—or a movement’s point—any less valid. That passion that burns and roils in my heart keeps my hope alive and motivation strong. It is exactly what we need to initiate change. If you are moved by this work, ask yourself why. Let us renew, repurpose, and own hysterical.
Open Access
Wren Strother: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Strother, Wren, artist
The artist's statement: This series is based around connection and disconnection, especially as it pertains to forming relationships over distance. We are social beings, constantly seeking ways to feel less alone and to relate to others as we navigate the world. Through digital communications, we build a landscape that transcends physical separation. We create meaningful relationships despite barriers like slow connections, blurry pixels, and crackling audio, which I represent through layers of digital glitch. These altered layers embody internal disconnection from self and the aspects of personality that we curate and share online. We weave digital personas, networks, and communities in order to create meaning during times of isolation. Analog and cut paper elements of these works include maps, musical scores, messages, and jokes, referencing the locations of individuals and the aspects of them that I enjoy, miss, and wish I could witness in person. These ways that people seek to relate with the world around them reference the way I am simultaneously connected and disconnected from a given individual, allowing these works to function as portraits. My work is about seeking meaning, and ways to feel known, seen, and loved. The relationships that I build and the works that I create are ways for me to communicate, connect, and feel closer to the people that I care about, regardless of distance.
Open Access
Elise Ribaudo: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Ribaudo, Elise, artist
The artist's statement: Much of my work is focused around material exploration and experimentation. I'm always testing new unconventional materials and methods of creating. A common theme throughout my work is the distortion of the familiar into the unfamiliar, whether it be through materials or imagery. I want viewers to be intrigued yet disturbed when they look at my art; to simultaneously want for more and for less. This collaboration of the beautiful and the grotesque reflects my perception of myself and the world around me. I see myself as a complex and confusing mess of different layers, much like my work. I've always found art to be my most effective means of communication. Art allows me to express and explain myself when words fail me. Creative expression is a power that I am so grateful for; one that I want to share with as many people as I can. I want others to see the beauty in the grotesque the way that I do. There is always something beautiful to be uncovered, and there is always something ugly to be uncovered. My work is about finding them both and exhibiting them to the rest of the world.
Open Access
Maiya Hannon: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Hannon, Maiya, artist
The artist's statement: Trauma is defined as a "deeply distressing or disturbing experience". I gather inspiration from the trauma that resides within. Flashes of pain and intense emotion cloud my mind as I attempt to navigate throughout my daily life. Through my artistic practice I face the entity within with grace and confidence. I see it for what it is: the result of an experience. This experience is impactful, yet it does not define me. I reclaim my mind and body through abstract self representation within my work. I use my own face and body as inspiration and as a tool, which forces me to essentially face my demons as well as reality head on. My work is also driven by an element of process. I demonstrate various processes through anatomical monoprinting, chemically altering materials, hammering metals, and integrating metallic elements in contrast with clear or opaque surfaces. While these techniques can be tedious, they are not perfect, placing emphasis on the element of chance. Each print, twist, and chemical reaction is extremely unpredictable which prevents me from knowing exactly what a finished piece will look like. This evokes a process within myself: the process of letting go. This is crucial to my personal healing process, and I demonstrate this vulnerability through creation. By leaving aspects of my work to chance I surrender to the piece, allowing and accepting any and all "mistakes" that occur. Previously, I have struggled with the idea of how to address my trauma and healing process through my practice, however, I feel that I am in a position to do that now. My work not only serves as a visual representation of my experience, but also a representation of how trauma can affect people in general, even to the point of deterioration. Leaving only an imprint of themselves behind.
Open Access
Isabel Heiland: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Heiland, Isabel, artist
The artist's statement: Recently, I have found that I am still learning about what art means to me and what my artwork encapsulates. Art, in a general sense, is constantly changing the more I learn about myself and through my education. I am confident in saying, however, that I use my art as a means of release. I want to be able to communicate to others how I see the world. This is one of the best uses of art, in my opinion. One of the ways I view the world has to do with the environment- nature has a big influence on my everyday life and helps keep me grounded and curious. Because of this, I wish to use my art as the vehicle for my environmental and sustainability work. I minored in Botany here at CSU, which gave me even more of an appreciation for the natural world than I already had. The more I learn, the more I want to help aid in the battle against climate change and the negligence of humans. By using materials such as ash, recycled paper pulp clay, and dried natural matter, among other typical 2D mediums, I wish to convey a sense of gravity in my work. I want to encapsulate that same gravity that nature holds, like a thousand-year-old tree standing strong in a forest, and also the gravity surrounding the situation that is global warming and the destruction of our planet. My pieces are somber, but they are also a celebration of planet Earth. Art helps me process the trauma Mother Earth is going through, and helps me figure out what I can do about it. From start to finish, working on a project leads me down paths that further inform my practice and pushes me out of my comfort zone, material-wise. Art is, of course, also a creative outlet, where I don't have to communicate with words (something I'm not great with at times). I really enjoy looking at the world through different lenses as it broadens my language, so to speak. It's not so much of a literal language, but a cache of feelings, and it simply adds more into my "vocabulary" of how I experience the world, the environment, and my life.
Open Access
Preot Collins: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Collins, Preot, artist
The artist's statement: I have always been interested in storytelling. From listening to NPR in my free time to watching foreign cartoons, I firmly believe there is a story in all knowledge which comes my way. Absorbing that information, I create stories complete with various creatures and characters. Art is just what brings my phantasms into reality. Another key element outside of storytelling is science. Reality and science often inform my fantastical ideas. Having a balance between fact and fiction is important to me, making my work relatable. The story is first priority in my work, making my medium second. Recently, creating maps, fictitious field-guides, and medieval inspired manuscripts aids me in pursing my creative needs. I feel as though these items bring reality into my work when it strays too far into the fantastical because these items are objects viewers can interact with and are recognizable. This is especially the case with maps and manuscripts. However, these pieces don't often follow traditional convention and thus are unique to my creative process. I've likewise always been inspired by concept art and the roughness of its appearance, particularly from movies, graphic novels, and animation in the 80's. There's a certain energy and rawness within these works I wish to encapsulate into my own pieces. Using the same medium as many of these creators, I have adopted ballpoint pens, watercolor, and occasionally digital painting programs into my own practice. In recent years environmental protection has become a strong theme in my work. My current art pieces focus on humanities' destructive nature, animal extinction, and new ages dominated by our distant great grandchildren. There is charm to each piece however a grim undertone upon inspection, all acting as forewarnings to prevent environmental catastrophe.
Open Access
Woodrow Strong: capstone
(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Strong, Woodrow, artist
The artist's statement: I have been told that I am a very private individual, that I look like I want to become invisible. This is not entirely true; I desperately want to be seen, and it is that impulse which drives me. I want others to know me, deeply and intimately, but on my terms. This can only be achieved through this broad self-portraiture, combining drawings and text in a way that creates a broader narrative of myself, and the things that make me who I am today. Within the work, the depictions of myself vary, because the way I feel about myself varies from day to day and moment to moment. In Self Conscious 1, I appear both masculine and feminine, clothed and unclothed, active and at rest, in color and in monochrome. An image of myself in sexual, feminine clothing appears in full color and reflects the vitality I feel when inhabiting that part of my identity. My hair changes shapes as I grapple with my gender identity within the work; the person I want to be, Holly, appears in contrast with the shorter-haired depictions of Woodrow. The desire to change my gender is a source of pain, a conflict waged entirely within my head; it is only through the work that this conflict becomes visible. Objects become incorporated into the work as well, objects that I've come to be identified with, or feel strongly about. My own art-making implements appear in Exploded Self Portrait, an x-acto knife and an eraser and an inkwell. There aren't as many objects as self portraits, though, because I do not generally use them to identify myself. They retain importance in my life, however, so excluding them entirely would have been dishonest. The text appears in speech bubbles in Exploded Self Portrait; though the work is nonlinear and each drawing is outwardly disconnected from the next, the text ties the entire work together into a single nonlinear narrative. I feel it wouldn't be disingenuous to call my work narrative self portraiture. In Self Conscious 1, the text occupies a far more prominent role. The text reveals things that I felt could not be conveyed through imagery, things I felt I needed to be said, or things that I felt within a single specific moment during my work on the piece. The text is direct, as honest and as authentic as I could make it.