Category: new

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Brief description:

My MFA projects explore my physical engagement and gestural interaction with materials and forms. Through the use of materials I create experimental abstract installations to question the border between abstract painting and sculpting in space.

The items in this dossier have been collected around my conceptual framework of new materiality and formalism. I look at the making process, formless, material qualities and also exploring the relationship between body movements and materials in space.

There are some broader structures which are the basis of this collection and the relationship of the items to my work.

The first one is the connection and effect of consciousness on the art work, specifically the effect of awareness and paying attention to everyday life experiences on emotions and body movement and its result in the artwork. I am interested in the artists who bring their consciousness to their artwork.

The next is Mono-ha movement and Gutai group’s attitude of engaging with materials and exploring their properties.

Through this lens I explore the materiality and material forms. I am also interested in the relationship between materials and space. I question how I change the material’s form, how the material changes my body movement and the effect on space.

From Mono-ha movement, my idea is closer to Nobuo Sekine’s attitude than Lee Ufan. Sekine uses the material in a way that raises the question of what is this in front of us, in the viewer, which is an important aspect in my work.  

The important criteria of the artworks in this dossier is: simplicity, unusual forms and materials, going against traditional rules, techniques, materials, forms and nonrepresentational art. I am interested in the artworks which look unusual and chaotic but I can feel a logic behind them.

By pinpointing these criteria, I can see the effect of a few art movements in my collection, such as Abstraction, Modernism, Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, Formalism, and New Abstract Expressionism.

I have added tags and categories to help divide the items based on details and keywords. Being able to see which keyword has been repeated helps me place my work into families, such as installation, modern, minimal and so on. I specifically created two tags for circular forms and lines because currently composition between these two elements appear in my works.

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WATERLOO


Artist : Frances Scholz

Year : 2009

Size : –

Media : –

connection between this artwork and my practice:

The way Scholz looks at the artwork is very close to my work. Thinking about creating a form which is not boring and trying to create something new in form. Although she works more in abstract painting, she use space to paint similar to my ideas about activating space or separating a part of space.

My thoughts are similar to her ideas , she wants to create something that hasn’t done before. interestingly she chooses abstract forms in painting. for me transferring painting in space as expanded painting is the way to make something new.

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Common matter series


Artist : Neil Hoffmann

Year : –

Size : –

Media : Wood Fired Stone

connection between this artwork and my practice:

Hoffmann’s work is process-based. He follows the idea of materials creating the form during the firing process. He tries to minimise artist’s conscious decision making and let the material get the form. He places materials such as glaze, clay and stone next to each other. He lets materials react to each other during firing and become one Anti-form that has its own character, rather than the artist forming them.

The firing process plays the most important part in his sculptures. He uses local stones and places them in the kiln. During the multiple firings, stones lose the solid form and become a formless sculpture.

The most important thing that attracts me to his works, is how he uses traditional techniques and moves away from representationality of ceramic objects. How material and making process play and control and the artist absorbs and guid the form instead of limiting the artwork.

Being conscious that we can’t control everything is coming out of his conscious choice of natural material and uncontrolled process such as wood fire for a main making step.

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WEATHERING & VISUAL COMPLEXITY

Artist : Sandy Lockwood

Year : –

Size : –

Media : Wood fired ceramic

connection between this artwork and my practice:

sandy says “My way of making and firing allows for each piece to tell the story of its becoming ” (Sandy lockwood)

Lockwood is the artist that is conscious about her surroundings, in her speech, during ceramic triennial, she talked about how she pays attention to texture, objects in everyday life and how she cares about materiality of the objects.

It is interesting to see a ceramist who cares about materiality of ceramics instead of ceramic as a functional or representational object.

It is important to mention she has a strong relationship with making process and material she uses. She collects specific type of dust or stone and mixes and makes her own materials. In her work it’s so clear that material qualities and making process steps play an important role.

In Her speech she mentioned the term “Meshwork” from Tim Ingold’s books.

Ingold says: ” I have borrowed the term ‘meshwork’ from the philosophy of Henri Lefebvre.” (Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials- Page 12)

Meshwork as something that we all weave in our work from our life experience. Ingold says: “When I speak of the entanglement of things I mean this literally and precisely: not a network of connections but a meshwork of interwoven lines of growth and movement” (Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials- Page 4)

I think what makes an artwork unique and art is when artist finds his or her own meshwork that is woven to the work. And I don’t think meshwork can be a meaning or describing or categorising the artwork.

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Formless: A User’s Guide

Authors : Rosalind E. Krauss and Yve-Alain Bois

Year : 1997

connection between this artwork and my practice:

I got this book recently and I haven’t found time to finish reading it.

There are some elements in my works which align with formless art works but there are some question that I should research more to create a clear connection between my work and formlessness.

As I am not finished with this book, I am going to dot point the parts I am interested in:

Use of term ‘Operation’ which is neither a them, nor a substance, nore a concept to define formless. Use of ‘what we see’ which I found similar discussion in Mono-ha movement, as what is in front of is exactly what we should see.

Formless categories in four section, Horizontality, Base materialism, Pulsation and Entropy.

In general reading I think I should concentrate more on Pulsation and Entropy which I think might be closer to my work. Pulsation which can be described by Morris works and talks about not standing for something else and movement that is Aesthetic. Entropy which can be described by Oldenburg bring disorder illusion into chaos.

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Cretto

Artist : Alberto Burri

Year : 1975

Size : –

Media : Acrovinyl on cellotex

connection between this artwork and my practice:

Burri’s career came in the form of an aesthetic, he exaggerated the processes that led to the natural appearance of fine, hairline cracks in various painting mediums as they aged over time and I use medium which I can create the feeling of aged or changed during the time through making process.

There are a few connection between Burri’s work and mine:

The simplest are : his exploration of abstract art, and his interest in Joan Miro’s artwork.

The next one is the way he uses different materials and pushes the boundary of painting, He confounds the meaning of sculpture and painting and questions the border between them.

The last one is the exploring beauty in his process-based works, the use of texture and formless which is the effect of materiality of his work.

Although his works contain the subject of trauma that is different to my subject of no definition or translation of my work, the use of material and the aesthetic of them and the way he explores the surface aligns with my work.

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Clay Painting (for John Cage and Merce Cunningham)

Artist : Robert Rauschenberg

Year : 1992

Size : 43.5 x 57.8 x 6 cm

Media : Unfired clay on wood panel

connection between this artwork and my practice:

I have selected this artwork only in relation to my new work in which I used clay to paint.

I have a similar feeling about Rauschenberg and Alberto Burri. The texture of material the forms that material created during the time and making process is what I search for in both of these artwork. This work is more significant because Rauschenberg used clay as his materials.

To see a trace of artist’s fingerprint, hand making, and seeing making process are other important elements in this artwork.

Rauschenberg, similar to Burri questions the boundaries between painting and sculpture.

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Formalism

I don’t even know if I should write anything about this or the photo is clear enough.

In most of my work the importance of aesthetic for me was so clear, The visual balance, composition of forms, appearance are things that covers all my ideas. finding about formalism helped me to understand my critical framework.

Choose of abstract for as a universal language, visual balance to create universal element comes out of my works. Learning about formalism helped me to understand what I make and why forms and visual balance are important for me.

I think formalism doesn’t only cover my artwork also answers most of my question about my previous works . In first semester at MFA I was arguing about my identity of being not representative of Iranian girl and searching for a meaning to talk about accepting me as only a human. My struggling of not belonging in a concept of Westerners nor Easterners.

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Anna Maria Maiolino on Poetic Wanderings

Anna Maria Maiolino on Poetic Wanderings from Hauser & Wirth in Vimeo

Artist: Anna Maria Maiolino

connection between this artwork and my practice: I have placed this video in my work to hear what I talk to myself about from someone else. Maialino’s works are incredibly wonderful, I decided to place her video instead of her artworks for many reasons, I do love her work but I think she is the main inspiration for me and not only her works, also I couldn’t choose between her works as I love most of them .

What makes me interested in her work is not only forms or materials but the combination of everything, her connection to the work, the art work by itself as something unique, connection of the objects in the installation and most importantly using unfired clay, going against the norm and creating new life for a tradition material.

the next aspect is the way she adds temporariness and recycles the art back to nature by only choosing to not firing the clay. Also how she emphasis the making process and evidence of her body being involved in the art work without leaving a body trace .

I am still researching on her works and I believe my work is even more connected to hers.

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Japanese rock garden

connection between this artwork and my practice:

I still don’t know why Japanese rock garden can be related to my work, but I feel a really deep connection to it. I think it might be because my works is related to my life experiences which I start to feel true meaning of life. Also it might be because of connection of materials, repetition of circles or the connection of things.