TERM 4: Week 3 - Tiffany Singh "COLORS"

Our guest speaker this week was Kiwi born installation artist Tiffany Singh. With a Maori, Samoan and Indian descent she has explored and exhibited in New Zealand, Samoa and India. "Engagement and participation are two important element to consider when your an Installation artist" is how I have summed up Singh artwork throughout he seminar. But as our lesson for this week being around the use of color. Singh idea of color originated from Hindu/Buddhism religion on chakra and how there are seven colored chakras within living human beings.

Her work "What color is sacred" really emphasis her idea of color and its meaning and feelings towards others. Her artwork are small (palm of hand) scale mimic of Hindu goddess and the Virgin Mary positioned inlined with over 400 models of the form but using the seven color chakra to give each model a meaning through its form and color. She quoted "Shape and form are intellect with each other throughout her work" and telling me they both work together in one mind, people reacting or relating to each clone form differently. The conclusion she got on this artwork was the that religion/ethnicity/Western society plays a major role of people choice of color models. Singh explained that one lady was emotional because of a purple Hindu goddess she choose to trade with was like her see her past.

It seems that spirituality connection seem to contribute to Singh work and to me that a bad thing. Singh is pushing the boundaries of religion and spirituality because of her practice being really focused on religious and ethnicity forms or colors. People may be offended or angry by her artwork "what color is sacred?" as depiction of mary used as an art piece kinda of offended me because being a catholic, any depiction/statue/painting of Mary is highly regarded as a spiritual symbol/object/form that we heavily pray to through our rosary beads and must be blessed by the Priest/Archbishop or Pope. Singh colored models of the Virgin Mary is creative and authentic as an artist but its bit offensive to me as a Christian(Catholic) believer, however I can understand her idea of colors relationship with individuals.

When Singh first mentions about chakra in her talk, I immediately fought about of Japanese Manga writer and Illustrater Masashi Kushimoto "NARUTO". In Kushimoto manga Chakra is molding physical and spiritual energy together within an individual. Then once controlled, the energy can be exploited out of the body into visible physical form. There are different forms and color that are visible and relate to the element that an individual uses. The five elemental chakra nature system is associated except lightning with the Japanese philosophy of the Five elements. As I read the definitions of Fu(Wind), I realize that Naruto, the protagonist in Kushimto manga characteristic and color highly associated and related to Wind as its his main chakra element. The use color in Singh work is tied to the philosophy of chakra in the Hindu religion as to Kushimoto chakra system similar to Wu Xing (Chinese philosophy) and giving chakra visible/elemental form and color that is distinctive to each element.

As of my favorite color, I'll have to say BLUE because of the childhood memories of being raised in Tonga. One thing I remember and loved about Tonga was the sky and the ocean. One memory of mine was lying in top of a container during the night, staring at the sky daydreaming, wishes, looking for shapes or form clouds create and wondering how my mother was doing back in New Zealand. Blue to me is a peaceful and meditate color that makes me think about the world and God. Another memory of mine was walking to a nearby wharf for swim with my cousins and family on the weekends and holidays, As I look out into the sea/ocean, the ocean color blue seem like a never-ending sight as the blue looked real dark and deep as I looked out from the wharf. I thought NZ ocean had the same feeling and sight I remember in Tonga but it didn't catch my imagination. My childhood and nature plays a major roll on the colors I remember well and love.

http://www.aucklandprintstudio.com/tiffany-singh.html (Singh latest project "Wave of Possibility"

http://vimeo.com/10592897 (Singh "What color is sacred" by Mic Oti Rerehiko)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA6j5jNyBz4 (interview about "Stealing the Senses"2011)

http://www.sanatansociety.org/yoga_and_meditation/seven_chakras.htm

http://www.maryourmother.net/Mary.html

http://www.fengshuinatural.com/en/five-elements.html (Chinese philosophy)

http://www.aetw.org/jsp_godai.htm (Japanese Philosophy)

http://www.naruto2.com/Information/Chakra_Guide/Naruto-ChakraGuide_Main.aspx (Kushimoto "NARUTO " world Chakra system)

http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Chakra

Term 4 Week 2: Fran Alison

This week special guest speaker, Fran Allison talked about her experience in collaboration and her background practice as a Jeweler. The born Christchurch artist went to Middlesex University before graduating with a Masters degree at the Royal College of Arts in London. Her area of expertise graduallyexpanded as her early years as a silversmith to aluminum to contemporary jewelry. Her artworks changed throughout the years, materials and scale to be precise, from metal/aluminum objects to contemporary brooches and handkerchiefs and badges.

Allison in the last few years has glued herself with contemporary jewelry and her work reference the fashion industry with her 1999 series "The Dress". Her idea behind the work was attraction and attention towards the body through her flowery painted stainless steel mesh on the girl hair. The scale and color helps her achieve her idea. Allison who lives in Auckland has always adorned and became interested in Pacific Island fashion. Polynesian floral headbands, Samoan Sei and Taualuga Tekiteki are some of her influences and response with her "The dress" series work that directly connected with Polynesian fashion and style.

The "Weeds" collaborative group formed in 2005 with Allison herself, Lisa Walker, Andrea Daly and Shelley Norton has really pushed and expanded both herself and her piers knowledge and practice. Allison said that the group have become a platform for experimentation and influential in her practice. One thing she said that got my attention was "artwork is created on top of a pre-existing work". Allison work in 2005, at the second "weeds" outing in Wellington at the Quoil Contemporary Jewelry gallery were the four traditional card shapes depiction of Spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds constructed into pieces of brooches.

She remade the forms she constructed on the king of hearts card but decorated and pushed it further with a few fabric materials and jewelry to give it more lively color and presence.

http://www.fingers.co.nz/exhibitors/Allison_weeds_05.htm

http://www.quoil.co.nz/artists/fran_allison/

http://www.masterworksgallery.com/index.cfm?action=artists&page=profile&artist_id=86

http://www.icebox.org.nz/LIKEFA.html

Term 4 Week 1: Daborah Crowe + Filipe Tohi

Our class had another great seminar by practicing artist and fellow tutor Deborah Crowe who talked was about the importance of collaboration and building around the body. We also took a trip over to the Mangere Arts Centre to see Tongan sculpture artist Filipe Tohi latest exhibition "Fatuemaka Mei Falekafa" which he shows his skills as a sculpture through his stone artworks.

First Deborah Crowe, Principal lecturer of the school talked a little about her background and her ideals in art. Her ideal as a practitioner and not an artist got me into her talk as she explains to the class the reasons. She tells us that to her "My work is about doing it, not create". She also likes to very opened about her practice, expanding from fashion, jewelry, Installation and crafts. Her ideas behind her works is "wanting to construct things" and as a practitioner she says relationship and construction are two important things to think about cause you got to get feedbacks from dealers, artists, students etc. to help you develop and grow as an artist. I also see her artwork referencing architecture with a lot construction of lines made out of find materials, creating an abstract productive objects. Her 2005 installation work "construct" is an inventive of interior space within household using normal architect matrials such as timber, glass and acrylic.

I really loved the "Fatuemaka Mei Falakafa" exhibition, thought Filipe Tohi work were astounding and inspiring as a fellow Tongan. I Thought his stone sculptures had unique features that correspond with each stone names. Being a Tongan I felt I had an advantage over my fellow classmates with knowing the meaning/definition behind each stone sculpture name but was more amused with Tohi being there with curator James Pinker giving an introduction of the gallery space and exhibition. It was a great pleasure meeting Tohi in person and getting more incite behind his works with a lot of questions that he happily answered and explained using some of the classmates favorite artworks like Tohi 2008 "Makamatakupenga". In simple english translation "Rock face fishing net". The stone is supposed to represent fishing net and I know because fishing is one of many typical Tongan hobbies. He told us that it takes him 15 mins to patiently carves a line and smoothing it out after he carves out the square forms. Just by looking at the artwork I notice that he carves a square within a square until its small, resulting a negative squared carving shapes.

http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/news/whats-on-show-reviews/2011/apr/83746-deborah-crowe-fancywork (Deborah: Fancywork)

http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/2011/sep/mangere/sopolemalama-filipe-tohi-fatumaka-mei-falekafa (Information on exhibition "Sopolemalama Filipe Tohi: Fatue Mei Fatuemaka")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhgBWOWmilI (Pacific Beat Street: Filipe Tohi)

Last Blog of Term 3: Grant Thompson + Auckland Art gallery

I was late again for class this week but I managed to get some good information on Grant Thompson seminar. The head of MSVA talk was predominantly focus on forms and function and how the two are inseparable from each other. Our class also visited the renew Auckland Art Gallery in town and was a great experience.

Thompson talked about the idea of "Form follows Function" explains that forms of shapes are somehow belong with a specific color form. In 1923, Russian theorist and painter Wassily Kandinsky claimed that there's correlation between the three basic shapes and three primary colors. Kandinsky added "Moving from hot to cold, light to dark and active to passive, the series is an elementary sentence in the language of vision". I did a little research and found out that Peter Leler 1923 "Bauhaus cradle" precisely follows Kandinsky's theory with a blue circle for rollers, red squares on the front and yellow triangles for the sides. Kandinsky is one of the originators and famous of modern abstract art.

His theory has been an influential stepping stones for some of todays practicing artist like Lindsay McClendon, graduated from the University of Tampa with BFA degree in 2007 explore and responded to Kandinsky theory with her own interpretation with her 2009 artwork series "Creativity" a three piece abstract painting pushing her ability and knowledge. She reference Kandinsky as her artist in connection with this specific series. She quoted "This painting was inspired by the famous abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky's unique artistic style".

As we visited the Auckland Art gallery later on the lesson I became more aware of the three basic shapes and three primary colors within the renew constructed art gallery. One area that stood out for me was the north atrium with South Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa "Flower Chandelier" large sculpture being displayed in a circular shape form with viewers getting a 360 degree look at the large scale artwork. I also realized that the atrium is in a square blocked and the ceiling shapes were triangular form as a response to Kandinsky's theory.

http://www.lindseymclendonart.com/gallery.html

http://www.aucklandartgallery.com/whats-on/news/commissions-launched-in-celebration

http://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/color4a.html

Emma McLellan and Xavier Meade

This week we had two special guest visitors. Our school lecturer and practicing artist Emma McLellan and Xavier Meade, Curator of Purakura (WINTEC). I really enjoyed and absorb both talks by both visitors especially Meade seminar which he put his sense of humor and personality into his talk made me happy, laughed and enjoyed the lesson.

McLellan approaches Printmaking in a decorative way to expand her creativity. Her works has mix painting and dominantly printmaking medium. she uses a chunk of layers within her work and told the class she just likes to play with her work and see what the outcome. I was more surprised when she told the class that she doesn't know when a artwork is finished and just loves to be decorate her work. I liked the way she plays with her work because I think most artist need to relax and not get precious about their work. I learned an important lesson from McLellan talk and thats is patience because when you get older you'll get at least 1-2 hours a day to work on your artwork because of your jobs, kids, bill e.t.c.

Xavier Meade in the other hand uses Printmaking for political mindset. Meade is heavily influenced by the Mexican Muralist art movement in the 1920-1960s with Diego Rivera as the most renown Mexican artist of the time. Didn't know much about the word "Mural" so I did a little research and found out that it means "an artwork painted or applied directly into the wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface". I realized that that these were the surfaces that Rivera and others used to protest and send messages against the government. Meade explains that they're group movements still running in Mexico and they changed their form of mural art to poster form to protest, and raise political issues through different color, shapes, figures and text to emphasis the meaning or message behind each work.

I tried to find another artist who has similarities to Meade work and I found California based artist Favianna Rodriguez Giannoni. A Printmaking artist and teacher who's renowned for her posters against political issues such as racism and war (Iraq and Afghanistan). She states that her posters reflect history, struggle and social justice through graphics and has collaborated with many other artist around the world.

Her work "Resist U.S Imperialism" in 2003 is a direct statement against the U.S War. Dominant three dull colors of red representing death/blood, orange representing ethnicity, white to give a clear text message and black to help with the text statement. Her use of a young mexican man with gun shell ammo tells me she is against U.S War because it takes away families love ones and doing the government job.

The general public of California and the world have become aware of the American justice and immigration system today because of Giannoni artwork. Another of her work that I really like was "Malcolm X", she used a stencil of Malcolm X and a famous quote Malcolm X made back in the years of the Civil rights movement as her reaction to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005.

http://www.favianna.com/bio/ Favianna Rodriguez OFFICIAL WEBSITE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmIrI06IMUo an INTERVIEW with Favianna Rodriguez

http://inciteblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/take-action-against-state-violence-against-immigrant-families/ an insight into IMMAGRATION injustice in U.S.A

Bill Riley, Dion Hutchins and James Ormsby

Although I was late for class, Our class had three visitors, practicing artist and lecturers Dion Hutchins and Bill Riley and Waikato based Maori artist James Ormsby. All these three artist got together for about 6 months and held a collaboration exhibition called SEEK and have exhibited throughout numerous galleries around the country including Melbourne, Australia.

The one thing that got my struck about their collaboration work SEEK was the differences they all had in Art views, ideas, culture and religious backgrounds that make each individual unique but somehow come forth with a conclusion and ideas they all agree and respect. I

really like the way their work reflects their culture and personality background. All three artist works are different in media, form and composition. The ideas behind their collaboration SEEK was engagement, community, interactive and authentic. All these principle are well established in their own unique way through their works. One of their collaborative artwork was through buying groceries. Visitors and the locals got engaged with the artwork by buying and adding more food and grocery and as a result, Hutchins, Riley and Ormsby idea of engagement and community were done.

http://paulnache.tumblr.com/post/6196497690/seek-aratoi

http://paulnache.com/exhibitions/2011/new-drawings.aspx

I did a little research on the word collaboration since I don't know much about the subject. Collaboration means in short terms means "working together to achieve a common goal, a process where two or more people or organization work together to realize shared goals".

I also found out that artist collaboration only started in the 1960's and remember that most artist in history worked individually. Another fact I found out was they're art groups/movement who are renown for their collaboration movement in the late 1950's called Fluxus. An English printer and early Fluxus artist Dick Higgins quoted "Fluxus means among other things. Fluxus moves out form its old center into many directions, and the path are not easy to recognize without lining up new pieces, middle pieces and old pieces." The group movement throughout the years have explore new directions and have dig into areas outside the Art world and still running today but in a more business negotiation between ideas and information. Fluxus in my opinion has changed from a fun collaborate between fellow artist into a more business sharing of ideas and information to gain incomes. In relation to Hutchins, Riley and Ormsby they collaborated to engage and connect with the community while Fluxus did start with an art collaboration movement that throughout time has adapted and changed into a business with a lot of arguments through its history.

http://www.fluxus.org/audiofile.html (Allen Bukoff and George Maciunas)

Going to Auckland Museum after the class seminar was a great experience for myself. The Pacific Masterpieces and Lifeways gallery section grabbed me the most because it was the first time I witnessed the materials, objects and artifacts of my origin background of Samoan and Tongan. The Pacific Island migration of language graph grabbed my interest a lot because I didn't know the origins of each different Pacific Island language was and how some are linked closely through early human history. The Austronesian language family originated from Taiwan was a surprise to me because I thought my language was of African origin. I did a little research on Formosan language and found out that the language still exists through the Indigenous people of Taiwan who holds 2% of the total population of the country.

http://language.psy.auckland.ac.nz/austronesian/research.php (more info)

AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGE FAMILY TREE AND MIGRATION

Eldon Booth

This week we had a visitor, a Moving Image tutor and graduated filmmaker Eldon Booth who shared to the class a bit about his works as a filmmaker. One of his methods he explains is his use of facts and fiction within his films, portraying families real-life photographs into a fiction story and interviews in an untrue documentary style film.

Eldon mention he got hold of his friend private family albums and was aloud by the family to put them into fiction film story. That's struck me with surprise because the privacy and precious photo-album are and the history content it holds for a family. I wouldn't ask or accept my friends photograph albums because of the history and events the photograph albums have. Eldon transforms these historic and memorable events into a fiction film content. I personally found offensive and disrespectful to his friend family even if he got the family consent because of the public viewing of sum films may upset the family and audiences.http://www.eldonbooth.com/

I found on a couple of true story films on the net that blurs the lines of fiction or facts but Sir Peter Jackson "Heavenly Creature" in 1994 movie, was based on the 1954 Parker/Hulmer murder case was the film that had a lot of real-life contents.The setting and location of the film were the location of the actual events and the selection of the cast were chosen primarily of their physical resemblance to the real-life characters.

Another mix of facts on the film was the scene of Pauline's room has a real picture of Juliet Hulme on the wall and all of voice over dialogue are truthful and directly from the real-life Pauline Parker Diary entries that Jackson used for the film and its the most truthful information he grasp about the Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulmer relationship.

The movie "Elephant" by Gus Van Sant has a mix of facts and fiction. The lighting and sound in the movie gives a realistic feeling and noise with less editing between shots because of the continuity footage with diegetic sound within the setting and location with barely any extra diegetic sound. After looking into the movie a bit more, I found that most of the cast are non-actors and were actual using their real names. In relation to Booth films, The cast in his films are mostly non actors with an exception, his main character. He gave advice about non actors quote "Do not give them much info" stating that its easier to explain by frame.

EXTRA: The film is based on the Columbine High School Massacre. As I watched the film on Thursday, the film remind me of a similar documentary I watched about 2 years ago that I couldn't recalled. As I research into the movie more, I found out that in 2005, three years after the movie was released. The Red Lake High School Massacre was heavily influenced and blamed on the film and the murderer Jeff Weise watched the film 17 days prior to the shooting and according to a friend of Weise, his favorite scene of the film was massacre scene. Some graphic violence in films are at times the pushing factor within someone and is influential in many ways, good or bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ_yluDQcMA&feature=related Alex and Eric Massacre scene

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4382087.stm