Reflections

Introduction to Reflections

The reflections project is an interesting project because it focuses less on the actual creation of content but more-so the interpretation of created content and how we react and utilize it. More specifically how you as the artist interpret your own work. There’s also a little clever wordplay going on here since we worked with creating Mandalas and those are art pieces based on reflections. But projects like a reflective essay for college in English and a short reflective video about who you are in Film hammered home the point of the other type of reflection. This was a fun unit overall because I really got to thinking about how I view my own work and how I want other people to view my own work and I cold mold this into several ways that I take in my world and my surroundings.

 

Personal Museum Curation

The personal museum curation project was one that entailed us to critique other people’s art and show art that we liked and art that we didn’t like. Our curation pool was the entirety of the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art which is a place I really love and holds several art pieces that are near and dear to my heart. So choosing ones I didn’t like was difficult but I was able to limit down a few. I made a point to be as honest as I could about these pieces because for me I don’t appreciate art for it’s deeper meanings I really appreciate it more by what I get at face value. And with modern art there’s a lot of that.

RichardF-Museum Curation (1)

Art I WANT In My Museum:

Crimson Springing
Adolph Gottlieb
Oil On Canvas
1959

“Ever since I saw this piece last year it’s captivated me and stayed in my mind. It’s a very dissonant picture which is something that makes me very interested in. There are many different versions of the painting that I can perceive and it’s so cool how whenever I come back to it I can interpret it in a different way. Also the colors are very pleasing to me.”

 

Cristina De Middel UMEKO
Photo
2019

“I love outer space and this image reminds me of so many outer space flicks like 2001 and Interstellar, just the aesthetic of a worn in astronaut in some place they shouldn’t be appeals to me in a lonely and despondent way.”

 

Alexander Calder Double Gang Wire
1953

“I just like it, it’s like a wall decoration taken to the max. Also the color palette reminds me a lot of Mexican art, like the red pieces look like chili peppers and the white ones look like garlic. It’s pleasing to look at and absurd enough to picture spinning in my own head.”

 

Art I DON’T Want In My Museum:

Henri Matisse Femme Au Chapeau Oil On Canvas
1905

“I’ve never cared for orderly paintings, it’s just not my thing. Very impressive sure but not enough is led up to the imagination. It’s not a thing about pretension I just enjoy interpreting more than viewing, it’s more stimulating and interactive to have a meaningless shape in front of me than an organized collection of scribbles. Also the colors are butt ugly.”

 

Henri Matisse La Conversation Oil On Canvas

1905

“This is another orderly painting I don’t like from the same artist. The colors are much nicer here but the way that they are blended and arranged looks ugly from afar. The conversation concept has been done to death as well and is meant to bring up questions like what are they thinking or saying. I don’t care honestly, a conversation’s private. Keep it to yourself Matisse.”

 

Mandala Section

This was my favorite project of the year. Creating a Mandala was very therapeutic and interesting to me because you have complete creative control as to how it’s going to come out. And I always felt like no matter how much or how little effort I put into it I’d always end up with a quality and satisfying project because mandalas in nature are symmetrical and symmetry is pleasing to the eye no matter what. A mandala is a traditional middle eastern art form in which art is refracted around a main focal point in order to create a winding work not too dissimilar to that of a spider web. A lot of doctors offices and therapists have these because they’re so entrancing and tempting to look at and I cannot disagree, I’m very critical of my work and even I enjoy looking at my mandala from time to time. I took a lot of inspiration from Buddhism and Metal Music and so I tried to mix that benevolence you get with the religion and that harshness you get with metal music and create a hole I would like to crawl through whenever I need comfort.

My First Mandala to be printed with a laser cutter on black and white plastic.

An additional colored mandala we were tasked to make for fun.

My final mandala printed and displayed in a white case.

 

And here’s a fun little video that details all of the individual parts of the mandala. As you can see, each part was not reflected individually it was done via the help of Adobe Illustrator.

 

Personal Reflection Video

This was a video I created in order to introduce myself to other people. It holds a lot of principals I have mostly alluding to music and sound which has been with me for my entire life. It’s also in a mostly experimental tone with much of the context coming from the dialogue that I perform. It’s not for everybody but that’s kind of the point because you really can’t get everybody to resonate or like you, sadly.