Advisor Meeting #6 (8 April 2017) & #7 (13 May 2017) & Evaluation #2
with Jean Marie Casbarian (Studio Advisor)
Jean Marie has been both invaluable to the entire process and hugely generous with her time. We have had several advisor meetings over and above what was required and each meeting has resulted in lively conversations and lots of links and guided direction towards further research. The following list are links to that research:
- Vija Clemins - especially look at her Black Board pieces and drawings
- Robert Gober
- Yves Klein - Air Architecture
- Gerhard Richter's paintings (Film) & look for the documentary also
- Moyra Davey and her photographs of dust. Also look at her writings such as White Light Cool Life
- From these readings think about the idea of dust and what it is and how it co-insides with breathing.
- Look at Moyra and how she archives things
- Capitalise on the possibility of variations
- Phases of the moon
- Eclipses
- Tacita Dean's Eclipse Film Banewl
- Keep experimenting with the light drawings - there is something in the movement of light
- Leonardo Katz and his Lunar Alphabet
- The Third Mind Catalogue - Western artists responding to the East - an exhibition held at the Guggenheim
- Alan Sonfist's Gene Bank
- Bottled Air and labelled jars - is there a way to conceptually realise the breath along with the drawings?
- Question how your work intersects with the paper - how has it changed? Do the holes need to be exisiting in paper? Maybe in the wall instead.
- Think about the passage of air
- Look at Anne Hamilton and her Braille work
- Question what happens when the environment doesn't have much/enough air
- Mexico City
- China
- Everest
- Brad Killam and Michelle Grabner - The Suburban
- How close are we to what we are surrounded by?
- Take Charcoal to the drawings
- Document and photograph the work at night - play with the light. Think about all the different ways of lighting the drawings - from above, from below, from the side etc
- Put colour behind the pictures
- Look at Robert Longo's large charcoal drawings
- Leo Villareal
Evaluation 2
Jo Michelle and I met often via Skype on February 11th, March 24th, April 7th, May 6th and May 12th. She has worked steadily and consistently throughout the semester, attending meetings with an open attitude that was eager for feedback, critique and discussion on her latest interventions.
JoMichelle’s studio practice has grown tremendously this year. Her light drawings (tiny pinholes pricked into paper) continue to shift form with each iteration ultimately surpassing the meaning of the last. Concepts and themes of the body continue to reappear either through literal translations of the lungs to the phenomenology of breath to cartographic mappings of environmental and/or biological systems. JoMichelle has been steadfast in her experiments with light (projector light / window light) means of documentation (photographs / video experiments) elemental signifiers (smoke / steam / humidifiers). Yet even amidst these numerous experiments, there is so much more to be done and explored. She is only grazing the surface.
Although her process lies parallel with Jules Etienne Marey, Robert Irwin, Zarina, Kusama, to name a few, I can’t help but think about the action painters, not so much in the application of the medium but in terms of the body/surface relationship. JoMichelle may do a bit of research in this area specifically as it relates to physical movement and subconscious patterning. Collaborative filmmakers, Sandra Gibson and Luis Recoder may provide some clues as well. Kentridge, too, speaks much about his relationship with his body as an integral component in the process of making his hand-drawn animations as he walks back and forth from camera to canvas.
It’s also curious that the photographic image (drawing with light) has become a by-product of these light drawings as a form of documentation. JoMichelle is not sure where to place these documents as yet (and neither do I) but they play a part in this practice and I sense they will find their place within this whole.
JoMichelle has been a delight to work with. She is a serious student who has an impeccable practice—hard working and forthcoming—curious and determined edging somewhere towards objectifying the scientific realm that surpasses the visual experience of artmaking and instead becomes dependent on bodily experience. It’s this experience that she needs to sort through, contextualize and translate for the viewer. I have no doubt that she’ll find it and I’m extremely excited to observe her along the way.