Jonathon Garza - Crit#1

 CRITIQUE #3 - April 10th

Ashley Burnett

I use allegorical storytelling to explore the journey of growing up, as a woman, under the influence of the Church. Pulling from personal experience, I investigate the inner workings of maturing under the strict, repressives standards of the Southern Baptist community. My work is an expression of my own personal relationship with navigating womanhood and coming to terms with the power of femininity.

Through the use of mythological creatures and objects, I subvert elements found throughout the Bible to begin weaving my own mythology. My personal journey includes feelings of anguish, isolation, disdain, and hope, which I interlace into different aspects along the story. My goal is to subvert the overall concept and allow the viewer room for mystery and discovery.

The Church continues to uphold harmful patriarchal ideas and standards in their community. More specifically, the traditional gender roles and subservient attitudes taught to women from birth. The creatures represent the women who were raised under these constraints of the Church, and the story of reclamation of womanhood.

The mermaid is an appropriate vehicle for representing the central ideas of the story. Their purpose is to be beautiful and lure men to their demise. She has the power of seduction; the unspoken promise of sex. She knows that either way they will lust, and uses it to her advantage. The repossession of her objectification takes the power from the oppressor, and is therefore the ultimate sin. Because the mermaid is a dangerous seductress, she threatens one of men’s biggest vulnerabilities; desire.

I am taking specific moments in the mermaid chronicle to expand and explore further. Creating in-the-round narrative models help support the conceptual ideas being presented across multiple mediums. The dimensionality of the ceramic pieces help support the space that is created in my paper works. Giving form to the fantastical creatures allows them to feel more substantial and concrete.

My influences include several artists who make work about their own experiences as women, or women’s issues. It has allowed me to see how they express these ideas and gave me a path to start walking on my own. Some of these artists include Kathryn Polk, Jenny Schmit, Hannah Wilke, and Andrea Keys Connell. Each of these artists present a unique perspective to consider when approaching my own compositions and narratives. 

Jonathon C. Garza - Artist Statement

 

Rooted within memories of tending to the garden with my grandfather, and in my experiences in nature, I have developed a profound connection to the natural world. The natural world is resilient and pushes back as we live in a time where the environment is shaped more by human activity than any other influence. This body of work narrates nature’s resilience, legacy, and interconnectivity.

As my grandfather and I worked in the garden, we frequently wore gloves to protect us from harm. I utilize sculptures of gloves to represent memories, legacy, and protection. On the other hand, gloves are found left-behind and littered throughout countless ecosystems. Each glove I sculpt is left-handed, and created as an icon representing what is left behind. 

Humans’ legacy and handprint on the natural world can be positive. In my backyard, Istrive to nurture the land and cultivate a symbiotic relationship with the ecosystem. A diversity of creatures such as toads and birds thrive in my backyard and when present in my work representcoexistence and a healthy ecosystem. Other organisms such as fungi, flora, and fauna flourish in my backyard and symbolize regeneration and the cycle of life. 

I create each sculpture out of red clay, and often utilize alternative techniques of finishing such as pit-firing. Pit-firings take place in my garden and I include materials from my backyard in each fire. Creating each unique saggar, building the bonfire, and tending to the pit is my final effort to connect with each sculpture. I utilize reference left behind by artists when creating this series. When sculpting gloves, I reference the trompe-l'œil qualities of Marilyn Lavine’s sculptures of leather garments. When painting scenes from my backyard, I reference Jeremy Miranda’s attention to luminosity and depth. Each painting allows the audience to experience a place in my garden at a particular micro-season that takes place each year. Ultimately, I aim for viewers to question; “what is left behind?”

Mariana Ruvalcaba Cruz

Through my creative process, I delve into the multifaceted nature of change, exploring its dynamic interplay and contrasting effects. I shed light on the dual nature of transformative forces that sculpt my life, investigating deeply into my personal experience of displacement and self-discovery. In unraveling the complexities and nuances of these themes, my aim is to foster a deeper understanding and connection with the viewer, empowering them to perceive my artwork as a window into my perspective while also encouraging self-reflection.

*Drawing upon a constant sense of 'being in the middle,' suspended and uprooted from a sense of belonging. I aim to share my perspective through a visual language that defies conventional boundaries and challenges the established reality. By merging, distorting, and manipulating the human form alongside natural elements, I blur the line between the tangible and the imagined. In this 'middle ground,' I craft hybrid creatures including depictions of human-tree figures, dragonflies, and hermit crab shells, that encapsulate the complexities of my personal journey and experiences. 

I've always been drawn to artistic movements like Surrealism and Magical Realism. The imagery and evolution of my ideas have been shaped by artists such as Remedios Varo and Frida Kahlo, who’s the exploration of identity, displacement, and their imagery deeply resonate with my own. Another pivotal figure in the development of my work is Dorothea Tanning. I discovered a profound connection between my explorations and her visual vocabulary, marked by a hybrid world that blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality, with figures undergoing constant transformation. Additionally, artists like Sandy Skoglund, Miles Johnston, and Sergio Bustamante have served as further inspiration and influencers in my work.

Utilizing clay as my medium for sculpting serves as a profound exploration of the concept of transformation. The sculptures undergo a captivating metamorphosis, navigating through a series of physical and chemical changes to ultimately manifest as the finished product. The inherent malleability of the clay serves as a symbolic reflection of the fluidity within my own mind, body, and the essence of reality itself.

 

Saffron Williams

My work revolves around the use of archetypical imagery and symbols, and how they are used to define cultural or metaphysical concepts. I focus specifically on art being used to define or facilitate both religious spirituality, and womanhood and femininity as well as how art is used to elevate the values of that which they depict. I feel intrinsically disconnected from both the feeling of Faith, as someone who was not raised around religion, as well as womanhood as an androgynous person.

Drawing from historical art techniques used by world faiths such as such as symmetrical and radial design ornamentation, I use the visual language of both to assemble objects that emulate what I believe faith or femininity could feel like. I'm interested in how these visual languages, a collection of mere objects and aesthetics, are used by society to define a much more complicated internal experience. By crystalizing these concepts into a visual format, perhaps I can come closer to understanding. 

In my ceramics work, this in the creation of masks. Many of these referencing anime and tokusatsu costuming, as women portrayed in them are abstracted almost to the point of non-human, yet we recognize and accept these figures as female because of the artistic language surrounding them. Masks serve to obscure the wearer and imbue them with an inhuman appearance. Wearing these masks is meant as a deliberate denial of human form in order to make a connection to the other side, across the veil and into the border. I also create narrative relic-like objects that are a way for me to explore specific symbols in their relation to each other, both visually on the piece and metaphorical in their role in defining an archetype. I use nails, needles, crochet, and other symbols traditionally defining the masculine or feminine.

Jin Sun Kim (03062024)

MFA Ceramic

Prof. Urrutia, Leandra

 

Art Statement

 

                I have realized that the relationship between a space like an urban city and humans is integrated or controversial toward conceptual relationships. The city has been developing in terms of human’s demand and convenience and the spaces like the urban city contain the intangible and tangible environment. Also, spaces contain the relation of human beings and nature, objectivity and subjectivity, voids and solids, and usage and preservation. These fundamental relationships utilize attention to the stipulation of its external material as its own physical vision. It is also including of an internal material as its own emotional element, constructing a plethora of perspectives for the human eye and mind to comprehend. This is what I consider the fundamental essence of this artwork. Since human existence, the development of cities has been evolving. That means that cities have been planning, developing, and extending. Yet, despite the creation of mechanical systems and massive spaces for human convenience, humans faced the innate negations of complicated urban landscapes. Although the urban city might be perceived as a space to amplify our urban life’s quality and quantity, I seek to find out where humans stand among the urban cities as a space and how humans feel about their life within the spaces.

            I will pursuit to add conceptual meaning to express my body of artwork. I would like to create the organic and natural style of forms, shapes, and color and structural buildings. Inparticular, researching to connect the relationship between inside and outside of space conceptually and visually will be keeping going on.  Many artists inspired me to create mine.  ‘House and Universe’ and ‘Where does your water come from?’  by Mary Mattingly shows the space in the city wrapped by vinyl, the space is the shape of sphere.  Architecture, Mario Cucinella’s natural form of building influenced me to access conceptual idea and building up ideas

    Map, skyscraper, and harbor bridge of city of Corpus Christi in order to express the representative image of city were printed on the clay. As the first step, the balloon was blownand it was wrapped by slab clay, and the balloon was popped in status of leather before the clay was dried. As the second step, four images like skyscraper, map, harbor bridge, and water pipe were exposure by light on the screen in the dark room. As the third step, Mason stain of black color and transparent ink were mixed for the prints on the slab clay, and vase shape in status of leather was rolled over the screen. 

   What is meaning of spaces to the human being? Inside and outside of spaces are made by line, shape, and forms. I sometimes define where inside of space and outside of space are. I also experience it could be changed inside or outside of spaces by someone’s eyes, location, memories or experiences. The relations of inside and outside of space are connected through the opened vase or windows.