J. Peña

Him, Her, and the Strangely Significant Nobodies, acrylic on board, 2010

2010-05-23T05:01:00.000-07:00

Things Thought and Overheard, mixed media, acrylic, and oil on board, 2010

2010-05-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

Good Models are Hard to Find, acrylic on board, 2009

2010-05-23T04:56:00.001-07:00

Revision Process, Acrylic on Steel, 2010

2010-05-23T04:31:00.000-07:00

Xerox Lithography

2010-05-23T02:49:00.000-07:00

This is the result of of my xerox lithography attempt for the assignment I mentioned earlier. There is a lot of trial and error involved in the process and each print turns out differently; some are more successful than others. The variation of each print is a quality of the process that I enjoy and I was pretty happy with how this particular print turned out. I definitely plan on trying this process again with other drawings.

The Tired Virgin, intaglio print, 2009

2010-05-06T12:54:00.001-07:00

Rites of Passage, pastel and ink, 2010

2010-05-05T21:29:00.000-07:00

This was the first of our subgenre assignments. Having a choice between tribal and graffiti, I chose the tribal subgenre- I had a pretty difficult time wrapping my head around the assignments at first, wondering if the idea was to imitate them or... whatever. Following a lecture by Adam, where he spoke about tribal customs and ritual scarification, I developed a new outlook on the assignment and became excited about the prospect of researching each of these subgenres and then applying concepts from each one to my own ideas. For the tribal assignment, I chose to focus on the ideas of ritual scarification and how people in various tribes would receive these scars during certain stages of life or to mark significant events. I thought about my own "rites of passage" experience and this is what I came up with...

The figure is shown with a number of C-section scars along with marks and bruised from IVs- marks of her childbearing experiences.

Old Fashioned Girl, marker and ink on paper, 2010

2010-05-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

Subgenre of Choice- ALL COLOR!

2010-05-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

I really struggled with this assignment. To kick off the introduction of color into the class, the assignment was to make a drawing in any subgenre of our choice in any color media. The only catch being- NO using black or white! Ugh. I was completely stumped on this one because I tend to be all about the black, white, and neutrals. I was excited about the "any subgenre" part; I immediately came up with an idea for transhumanism... the only problem being that I was set on doing that one with pen and ink. So that idea was out (I still plan on working on it following finals and I will post the results). Finally, I decided to go with a riot grrrls idea. My original thought was to make a drawing about a "glorified mess" sort of thing. I am constantly getting nagged at because I tend to make a mess. Since I never have any time, getting dressed in the morning or at night tends to result in clothes being left all over the place. My room is usually decorated with several colorful hats, socks, scarves, and sweaters on the bed and floor. My response to the nagging is always something along the lines of "don't tell me what to do!" Rather than a more riot grrls-feel, however, my little colored pencil drawing of a girl undressing and getting ready to throw her shirt with the rest of the clothes that are everywhere looks more like an acid trip.

Biomech Subgenre

2010-05-04T16:19:00.000-07:00

This week we studied a number of subgenres including geek, science, sci-fi, biomech, and post-apocalyptic. I chose to make a drawing using some concepts of biomech art. The premise of much biomechanical art is that mechanical principles are applied to living creatures. As in the art of the well known artist, H.R. Giger, this often manifests itself in the violation of humans by machinery or the reluctant fusion of the two.

My dawing, Hospital Nostalgia, was drawn with pen and ink and shows a woman in the middle of a hospital room. I played with the idea of violation by machinery and applied it to my own experiences. This drawing is based on my multiple experiences in the hospital during my two pregnancies. I felt that I had an easy time exaggerated the scene since I had unpleasant feelings associated with my numerous visits. Here, the woman is sick and clutching a garbage can while she is hooked up to IVs, fetal monitor and contraction belts, and a catheter. She is surrounded by IV bags, wires, tubes, monitors, and a trail of fetal readings. There are bruises and bandages visible on the woman from previous IVs, blood tests, and fetal lung development shots (the most painful shot I have ever received in my life). To top it all off, I decided that I wanted the piece to have mid-toned washes to add an old, nostalgic feel to the scene. While, naturally, the scene is exaggerated I did not feel as though I had to stretch my mind far to come up with it.

Sex, Death, or Otherwise Leaving my Comfort Zone

2010-05-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

For this assignment, Laura wanted us to research sex, death, or some other topic in art that involves leaving our comfort zone. I did a bit of research on this, and I discovered that there's not a whole lot out there that truly forces me to leave my comfort zone. In my research, I looked up a few contemporary artists that have put on or are currently working on very controversial exhibitions. Here are some of the artists I read about...

Yale Student Aliza Shvarts who in 2008, over a nine month period, documented a process where she artificially inseminated herself as often as possible and then took abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages.

In 2007, Guillermo Vargas had a show in Nicaragua that included a live, emaciated stray dog tied to a length of rope in the corner of the gallery with the words "Eres Lo Que Lees" ("You Are What You Read") written on the wall in dog food. The dog starved to death in the gallery as part of Vargas' work.

In 2008, German artist Gregor Schneider announced that he wished to create an exhibit that would explore beauty in death. He explained that he wished to display a dying person in a museum; a volunteer who was already mortally ill and would die naturally in the museum under his or her own terms.

So, after hearing about some of these things I realized that there is a lot going on out there that I was previously unaware of. After probably TOO much thinking I thought of a topic in art that really consistently irks me. One where I don't find much commentary or underlying conceptual factors and that I can not somehow justify or rationalize in the defense of art and artists; art that is sexually degrading. Such as the lips-urinals in the toilet bar in Vienna designed by Rudolf Scheffell. I had also found a lot of troublesome pictures when I was searching around for art during anime/manga week; I found way too many manga drawings of women being raped or sexually violated in other ways.

For my "uncomfortable" drawing, I decided to go the sexually degrading route- Mine is not nearly as graphic as some of the stuff I have seen out there and includes elements from some of my other pieces. I did something a little different for this piece. I knew that I wanted to include text and I knew that I was specifically designing this drawing to be made for xerox lithography. I pretty much knew what I wanted the final product to look like, so I drew individual elements for the piece on separate sheets of paper: the winking man, the pointing finger, three different babies, and the carnival booth. I then photographed the individual drawings, messed with them in photoshop and placed them where I wanted. This allowed me to create the sign with text in photoshop, and then size the man and hand accordingly on the sign. This also allowed me to arrange the individual babies in groups, duplicate the groups,and then arrange them in front of the booth to appear as hanging prizes. I decided to approach the drawing in this way for a couple of reasons. First of all, I wanted to see if it appealed to me. Mostly I chose t do this because of my experiences with my comic genre drawing- where I spent an inordinate amount of time on the text. My plans with this drawing from the start were to make it simple, easily readable, and something that, once xerox lithography prints were made, I could go back in and hand draw different elements, and play with colors and shading differently in each print.