Abstract Art
Design Year: 2008
Institute: New Jersey Institute of Technology
Responsibilities: Student Project
Primary Applications Used: n/a
“One thing I remember taking away from this exercise; during my peer critique, I recall explaining why these masses are the way that they are. A fellow student admitted, looking at this piece, he did not know what he was looking at. It was chaos, But after explaining that my inspiration was driven from Indigenous styles of dances, and explained each in summary, these pieces began to make sense.
It left me satisfied that, with explanation, the piece became clear… but how can I create my work in such a way that it has its own voice…?”
Summary of Work: Students were asked to create an abstract piece that focused on additive and subtractive components. With your canvas being a 2×2 Cube, leaving you with 8 cubed spaces total, you start with 4 masses, and 4 voids. Your goal is to create a freestanding piece that creates voids in the masses and utilize the subtracted masses within the void spaces.
The inspiration behind my piece; I was (and still am) very involved in my tribal community. I am a dancer and a singer/drummer. So I used intertribal dance styles as my inspiration. Dance styles such as Fancy, Fancy Shawl, Two Step, Grass, Southern Traditional, Round Dance, etc…
I could go on and on about these styles and how they reflect in my piece, down to the choice of material/color change…
1. Photo: Wrapping chipboard in aluminum foil: 1 star. Would not recommend.
“Note to self: Take better photos.”
2. Photo: Looking at these photos 15 years later and still remembering my passion behind the idea…
