Thursday, March 29, 2012

Botanic / Organic 2012

 Botanic / Organic- National Exhibition 2012


February 29-March 31 | 2012  
Juried by Elizabeth Whiting, Curator for the Union League Club, Chicago, IL
Opening Reception Friday March 2nd | 6-9pm



This was a great exhibition! Alot of governors state university student artist work were in the exhibit, along with the university's alumni and current professors.  You may go to this link to see the online exhibition as well  http://www.unionstreetgallery.org/botanicorganic2012.htm

It was exciting for me to hear that Juror Elizabeth Whiting selected my work to receive Honorable Mention!! Thats a total of 2 awards this year!! haha sry can you tell its my first art awards :)

But please check out the online exhibition there are some pretty awesome pieces there!!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

G.I JOE- COBRA "In progress"


SOOoo im drawing a 5 foot tall Cobra G.I Joe soldier..it is about 95 % done, I need to go back in and render things a bit tighter (in some areas). this was truly a project about process, and alot of time management. Working 2 jobs and making time for this project was a challenge. But one that I was able to handle! I divided it into sessions, a total of 7 session to add up to roughly 25 hours or drawing time. YIKES!

Its actually about the time it takes for me to do a painting as well, actually a painting probably takes alot longer! anyways, this was nuts, it was fun and i hope people like it. I have been getting pretty good responses from the people that have seen it thus far! So i Hope some more of that to come.

OK! concept: the idea is about. how "life" represented by the COBRA soldier  is brutal! so when we are children, our way of coping with problems is through play-  play becomes our meditation.   Our childhood however gets almost raped and attacked by real life tragedies and this is what the toy represents.  this piece is only 1/3 done I will have more soldiers in a Swat like position getting ready to attack more happy toys, video game and cartoon characters.  So hopefully there will be a huge contrast between color in the piece and also happy vs evil.

At this point the toy by itself doesnt convey the message- so for now its a piece that may be shown alone, kinda becomes a one liner.. but i think its still effective by itself, its drawn well enough to stand alone. People are sucked into it because the fact thats its a drawing of a huge toy! people can relate to it, and you can even argue that conclusions could be made as to what this toy (alone) represents. I think its successful. well see what others believe.

what do you all believe??!





Thursday, March 1, 2012

2012 Illinois Community College Juried Exhibition

The Visual Arts Gallery located in Governors State University,(where I work as a graduate gallery assistant)is having their 2012 Annual Community College Juried Exhibition. It is for all student artist enrolled in a community college in Illinois. This has been a super tough exhibit to organize but it has also been a lot of fun and a great learning experience (working with young students). I was responsible for designing the Prospectus, promoting, doing all the data entry for the exhibit, and well all the good stuff that goes into doing a large exhibition. The exhibit is up and running, there is some awesome artwork come check it out!! Reception and awards ceremony is Saturday March 3rd from 1-4pm.. Here is a link to the exhibit facebook page http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.339432779420521.84788.164905230206611&type=1 ICCJE Numbers 2012 Entries: 236 art works from 93 students from 9 schools 11% College of DuPage 1% Heartland 1% John Wood 23% Joliet Junior College 31% Kankakee Community College 1% Malcolm X 9% Parkland 10% Prairie State Community College 8% South Suburban Community College 12% [unknown – entry forms incomplete or missing] Selected Work: 55 Juror’s selection (55 art works from 34 students from 7 schools) 23% Percent of total entries (77% were eliminated from the competition) 6 College of Dupage 0 Heartland 3 John Wood 17 Joliet Junior College 8 Kankakee Community College 0 Malcolm X 11 Parkland 6 Prairie State Community College 4 South Suburban Community College 0 [unknown – entry forms incomplete or missing]