giving up

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on June 28, 2013 at 1:45pm

I'm happy to hear I was on the mark with my observations- I kept seeing these images as part-photograph despite the obvious painting media.  This is very interesting work, especially when we consider all of the possibilities that can result from photographic and digital influence.  Thank you for sharing your artwork, and enlightening us on the process.

 

Kristen

Comment by Nayana Glazier on June 28, 2013 at 12:44pm

Thank you for such a thoughtful assessment of my work. It leaves me wondering if I look out the window of my studio will I find you there watching my process..lol.

I indeed begin all my work with a photograph or collection of photographs. My education is in fine art photography. I then sketch out an idea with information from photographs and imagination and then paint. Through the painting process it always ends up drastically different then the originally intended concept. There is no manipulation however other then what I do with paint based on the photographs. The cubes for instance is based around a concept from digital editing software however none is used to achieve the look. Cubes are pre sketched and then the image is painted after with a grid concept to break up the reference photo. All of which done by hand with a ruler, pencil and lots of patience. 

Thank you again for your incredibly thoughtful assessment!

-Nayana

Comment by Resident Curator on June 28, 2013 at 8:51am

Curator’s Comment:

 

The predominately achromatic palette puts an interesting strain on these images.  Emotion appears intentionally curtailed or arrested in the variations of gray, and denial of temperate fluctuations. In some works I feel as though I’m viewing a classic underpainting, and the human figures are just beginning to emerge.  But there’s also a photographic clarity in other areas- crisp edges that belie the intended final abstraction of the paintings.  Giving Up also presents an absorbing visual maze of shapes.  The individual cubes push out and pull back in as they construct the shadows of the crouched figure at the bottom of the picture plane.  There’s just enough identifiable imagery to make out the face of the subject, as the rest of the body dissolves back into the textural ground.  Cold Surrounds Me also has an appealing degree of abstraction, and blurring of the figure-ground relationship.  I sense some manipulation of an original photographic source?  While it isn’t indicated as such, the defined edges of shadow appear to be drawn and enhanced from a flattened photographic or digital rendering.  And yet the piece doesn’t rely on a photographic read of the figures. It has me contemplate the nature of memory and understanding as constructed from a secondary source. There’s an unmistakable feeling that the true scene pushes past the likenesses caught in one static moment.