Perspectives of Art: An Emotional Phenomenon

Johar Manzar
Art Appreciation
Dr. Gibney
15 February 2008


I looked for a painting form the University of Texas at Arlington Fine Art Gallery, and found a painting that struck me as both interesting and a work that fell in with my senses. I chose, “It Never Occurred To Me It Wasn’t The Beginning”, painted by Kelli Vance. This painting was an oil based painting that was painted in 2007.
Looking at this painting, I see a woman, sitting down as if she was exhausted, or weeping. She seems to be ready to faint and looks quite brokenhearted. Her blue satin party dress and blue shoes along with her styled hair indicate she was at a party or something of the sort. After examining, reading and looking at Kelli Vance’s other pieces of artwork, (http://www.joanwichgallery.com/artists/graphics/vance/index.html) I can say that she is centering her paintings on two women, and one man. According to what I can perceive, the two women are both being dated by one man, and both of the women, one of whom shown here, found out. I think this painting is about the betrayal she felt after finding out.
This woman has detergent falling down from the brush she was using to clean with and has latex cleaning gloves on her hands. The sink is overflowing, and the fridge is open, representing some sort of sadness or disorder. Lines in this painting are used to define objects, not to signal a direction, and most of them are straight, thin and long. Since the subject has her head down, we are unable to find an implied gazing line, which tries to show what she is looking at. However, the hands and body position, along with her hair, place a vertical axis centerpiece for the focus to land upon. The lines are used to border objects and to create the implication of depth and reality into the picture. The most important lines I see are on the woman’s dress. These lines describe the crumpled up dress and give the perspective that she is sitting down, sad and lonely. Furthermore, the lines on the cabinet give the cabinets realness, and the light blue lines describe the water falling down from the sink. The other line that catches my eye is the detergent falling down from the brush, which has blue colored soap suds. The lines on the oak wood floor, which are perpendicular to most of the other lines in the painting, express a sense of quietness by bringing the focus down to her lower body, which describes the feelings of despair and hopelessness.
I see many flat geometric squares and rectangles in this drawing, found on the cupboards, the fridge, the inner tag of the shoe, the blue furry rug, the oak wood segments on the floor, the sink and the shape of the toaster. As you can see, most of them are found on the middle-ground. The most important shape that was most easily seen was the cupboard right beside the almost fallen woman. After the cupboard, I see the fridge, and then the floor. I then look at the appliances, like the toaster. When I look at the toaster, I see blue diamonds, which are actually decorations. What intrigued me was that the toaster decorations looked like handles, and because they were pulled down, I thought that there was bread inside being toasted. In reality, however, the diamonds look as if used for bringing attention to the toaster and the blender right beside it. These shapes look like they are placed in the background, as a place to explain what the subject is doing, or previously was doing. In terms of space and perspective, Kelli strongly imparts the three dimensional view into this painting. She does this by creating wrinkles on her dress, drawing almost real bends and curves of the body and hair, and creates layering of the objects and subject in a real way.
The source of lighting comes from the fridge, which imparts shadows correctly placed and a perfect way to impart focus on the subject. Without the fridge’s open door artificial lighting, the room would have been dark, as indicated by the area not lighted by the fridge. The light is brightest inside the fridge, as it is almost pure off white. The only problem with the shadows is that some are lighter and some are darker, as indicated by the blender and the toaster. Despite their being together, the blender’s shadow is much lighter, and the toaster’s shadow is darker. The artist shows a shadow by the difference in color. By using shadows, the artist sets the focus towards the woman, because her largely unaffected blue dress is the brightest blue in the whole painting. These shadows also emphasize the woman because it makes the wrinkles and dress’s texture appear more realistic.
The artist definitely chose a lot of blue in the painting, and made this painting feel immersed in cool colors and calmness. This color, often associated with silence, perfectly sets the setting for this scene and activity. This color complimented her brown hair and the yellow latex gloves very well. She used a certain degree of complementary colors by using cyan and yellow-brownish-orange, almost on opposite sides of the color wheel. Blue was generally used in places where the artist wanted to create focus, such as the rug, the woman’s dress, the shoes, the toaster, the detergent, the brush, etc. The opposite of atmospheric perspective is used, because it looks like the cupboards, warm in hue, are in the background whereas the cool cyan is in the foreground. The texture of the woman’s dress is smooth and silky, as it looks like it is made of satin. The gloves, wall, and the floor look glossy, as do the shoes lying on the floor. The rug appears fluffy and soft, whereas the toaster looks metallic. By using satin for the woman’s dress, it looks like she just arrived from a party. Her brown hair is also silky and smooth and it is quite helpful to note that it flips a little on the bottom. The actual texture is rough and spotted with tiny one millimeter wide polyps.
The artist employs balance by placing an equal number of objects colored on one side of the picture as on the other. However, one side has it scattered throughout the appliances and the left side of the dress, whereas the right side has it mainly on the bottom side. The right side has much more lighting and darkness (on the far right) at the same time. The left side has a medium lighted medium throughout.
The artist heavily uses emphasis by the beauty and brightness of the cyan. There seems to be a repetition of the same color of blue over and over again, trying to bring focus on different parts of the painting, such as the dress, detergent, toaster, shoes, etc. The first object that my eye is drawn to is the dress, bringing about thought to crying face, which then brings attention to the bright yellow latex gloves, thereby focusing attention to the detergent and then the overflowing sink. We then notice the shoes, which look as if thrown and out of order. As you continue to look at the picture, you feel an increasing emotion of sorrow or a reminder of a past event. I noticed that as I looked to it, my head tilted to the left side, as if I tried to understand why the woman was crying. By looking at the scene, it feels as if the woman, who was on a date, found out that her boyfriend was cheating on her (because of another painting I found painted by Kelli) and so she rushed home, threw her shoes on the floor in frustration, tried to vent her sadness out by cleaning her house, but eventually was overtaken with grief and sat down to cry as she felt helpless and isolated.
Since this painting was in oil, it was durable, but took very long time to dry. However, because it was easily smudged, this was harder to paint with. This oil painting gives a glossy and shiny appearance and gives me a greater view of the depth within. The artist was most likely able to make long brushstrokes and blend the colors in each other easily, leading to the greatly enhanced depth perception. Since it was painted in 2007, I believe it looks no different than it looked while being painted. The texture is rough, causing the artist to control the oil medium more easily and allowing for easier perception of depth. The practice of painting on oil requires great practice, and with such great skill and beauty that is seen in this painting, Kelli must be a great professional. This artwork looks bigger than life size, but still employs the same proportions of objects to person, etc. I think this is a very consoling art where one can start to feel the sorrow of betrayal through someone else, that is, the woman in the painting. I think this gives one a sense of companionship and understanding if one has undergone such an experience oneself.

Appreciating Art: A Message Through Pictures

Gohar Manzar
Art Appreciation 1301
Professor Debra Gibney
15 February 2008


When searching for a painting, I chose “Apples”, which was made of plastic, rubber, automotive paint, and was sculpted by Betsy Odom. I found this piece of work in the University of Texas at Arlington’s Fine Art museum, where I found it hard to choose between so many effectively moving and interesting works of art. I thought this sculpture, made in 2007, to be unique for its three dimensions and message, which according to me, related to the environment and pollution.
In this painting, I see nine black apples surrounded by black glossy liquid (actually plastic). Upon closer inspection, I find that these apples are bruised and seem to be covered in this “liquid”. After reading the work’s name, I think that the “liquid” must be car gasoline, and suppose that the message this painting is trying to send is environmental in nature. These apples seem to have fallen from a tree, randomly placed and positioned on top of car oil spills and droplets.
The apples make a “Z” or square-ish pattern in their placing, and I believe this is to show that the apples feel down from one tree. Sine this is three dimensional, I don’t see a line specifically, but only curvy borders, which are defining the oil spills. The oil spills take the form of a round contour because of the scientific principles of surface tension, so the artist utilized this fact to make his artwork look more authentic and real. There are lines on the apples themselves, which indicate that they were bruised and tortured as they fell down and became covered in the oil. The apples are also almost round, just like apples really are. Most of the shapes in this artwork are organic in nature because the artist wanted depth and realness. These figures are detailed, as seen by the top of the apple’s branch hooks and the bruises and bumps which were sculpted. These apples are life size and can fit into the palm of a hand, just like a real one would. I noticed that most of the apples were placed on the oil drops and that there was not a single apple which did not have any gasoline under it.
The lighting in this painting gives the apples and the gasoline a much shiner look than without, making the gasoline look genuine, but the apples a little fake. However, because of the yellow, dim and multiple lights around this sculpture, I can infer that Betsy Odom intentionally did this to the apples because she tried to make us notice that the apples, with highlights of green and purple because of the lighting, are covered in some sort of glossy material. I think Betsy wants us to find out that the apples are covered in automobile oil. Therefore, by the lights used near this structure, she employs the use of emphasis for the apples. The shadows are quite distorted and give a sense of fakeness in this sculpture because the oil should not have this dark of a shadow unless it was opaque, which oil really isn’t.
I saw that the color the artist predominantly used in this sculpture were dark shades of black. I think Betsy chose this hue because of the filthy feeling it gives the viewer. Especially after figuring out that the “round” objects are apples, I get a sort of obligation to wash the fruits and to keep them delicious and fresh. Betsy tried to use the black color also because gasoline is originally black in the real world. Therefore, she tried to make her message real in substance so that we could understand what the apples were immersed in. After figuring that the “liquid” stuff surrounding the apples and under them is gasoline, I can actually smell the gas, giving me a feeling of nausea and a disliking of over-polluted cities. I then realize how pollution can affect the environment adversely. The color is one of the most important elements in this artwork, since it generates a feeling of uncleanness and abhorrence towards automotive waste. This psychological method of convincing the viewer is integral for the art to convey its message. The texture of this sculpture is plastic, smooth and shiny. But from appearance, the gasoline appears liquid and the apples appear to be made of glass.
By placing an equal amount of gasoline on each side of the sculpture, the artwork appears balanced. However, there are a few more apples on one side of the sculpture than on the other, which I think is utilized to bring attention to the apples. Interestingly, it seems as though the apples on the left side are more bruised, whereas the right side are more slashed.
By placing this black sculpture over the white stand, one seems to notice the sculpture more than any other sculpture in the room, giving a primary emphasis to the sculpture itself! But within the painting, most of the attention clearly lands on the apples, which, because of the lighting, have a CD-like multicolored effect. This painting’s focus is mainly on the right because of the many apples on this side, but it still has many foci for the eye to rest upon. By making the apples glossier and grayer than the pure black gasoline, one seems to notice the apples even further.
The apples are positioned in many places, and since they are mostly on their sides or upside-down, one may feel a tension. That is described above. By using the color black over and over again, one may further feel like cleaning up this mess and to take action against pollution. Evidently, the rhythm is the most influential factor causing the psychological effects described above.
By being forced to create two dimensional sculpture, the artist is obviously limited by space, as she is unable to show the various causes of pollution that could be painted in a two dimensional system. This sculpture was done in rubber, oil and automotive paint, which might have been quick enough to dry and control. Since the sculpture was black overall and has no other colors or details to paint, I think that this sculpture was not very hard to paint. I think that Betsy had to subtract and carve from the blobs of rubber in order to create the apples, therefore, a subtractive process. I believe the artist used a knife or a peeler to create the apples and oil spills, and then used spray automotive paint to give the mediums a black color. Then, I think she painted the apples with glossy oil, which she let to dry. The hardest part of this piece of work was to effectively show the message to the viewer and to make it as convincing as possible. I believe that this structure would be fit for an environmental agency room, and would very well represent the passions of many environmentalists and “green” people. It seems to be a decoration for an office or apartment, house, etc. That is what most art is, an effective message and argument, not through words, but through hands. A picture is, after all, more than a thousand words.

Jeff's Museum Visit

Jeff Lloyd
Feb. 15, 2008

Today I went to the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth. All of the exhibits were not open due to new exhibits being brought in. I enjoyed my visit to the museum. The way the museum is laid out and the design of the building was very impressive to me. The areas that over looked the water garden and were very cool.

One of my favorite artists of all time is Pablo Picasso and the Modern Art Museum had one of his painting in it’s permanent collection. I had never seen his “Femme couchee listant” until today. It is a very interesting piece.

The lines out line the shape of the woman and the object that are around her. Lines are thick around the body of the woman making her appear to be the important subject.

The shapes in the work are geometric. The shapes come together to form the body and figure of the woman. The shapes are flat and don’t show a lot of volume.

The space is filled up in the center of the piece. The space around the woman is the background and is very plain. The artist creates depth by making the background around the figure darker.

The light looks like it is directly above the woman. The shadows are depicted by sold black on the woman but there are shades of gray shadowing the objects and the background. The couch is the only object that shows a gradiance.

The color is black, white and grays. The black and white, to me gives me the feeling that the mood is calm and relaxing.

The art principal of balance is produced by the shadows on the woman not fading with grays but the sudden white on the top side of her body to the black on the bottom side. The balance of lines are asymmetrical. Black and white are used to show opposites.

Your eye is drawn to the woman because she is the brightest part and the white colors put emphasis on here to stand out from everything else.

I did not see much rhythm in this piece because all of the shapes are so different.

The media was two dimensional on a canvas that was large in size in my opinion.

This piece is a painting done with black and white oil paints. Oils are slow drying paints that enable you to correct mishaps when they happen. The lines were smooth and the look of the paint was flat. The painting was in good condition and I am not aware if Picasso made any changes to this piece later.

I enjoyed my visit to the Modern Art Museum and after taking some note on the Picasso piece I wandered through the rest of the exhibits. I took some pictures of some pieces that I liked and took a couple cool pictures with the Vortex piece that was outside the museum.

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Welcome to the Spring 2008 Gauguin Blog!