Roblog

As many of you may know, thanks to financial support from the Rosalie Chauncey Scholarship, I was able to study painting in Paris this summer. As a service to prospective students applying for the Chauncey this year, I will be giving a presentation in Melchers 207 Thursday September 25th, at 5:00 PM. I will briefly present on my experiences in Paris and the opportunity provided by the Chauncey scholarship, which will be followed by a question and answer/discussion section. All are welcome. More info and images below… (more…)

Support Group I (My Arcadian Woods)
site specific installation, Melchers Hall (9 wooden studs leaned against arcade columns)
2008

Like “Storm Tossed Ship,” the title of this work alludes to an art historical standard: in this case, the Arcadian landscape. The tradition of Arcadian landscape incorporates the idea of nature as a pastoral extension of man’s dominance of the earth; this work casts such support relationships into doubt: is the wood holding up the architecture or is the architecture holding up the wood? By extension, the classical-revival architecture plays the role of the Arcadian society, while the wooden planks take on the role of the natural world, greatly undermined by their subjugation to human purposes. Finally, the exposed wood suggests the whole structure is decaying or sinking into this dangerous earth, a feeling of uneasiness reinforced by the precipitous location of the viewer inside of the architecture.

Piss Break (Robert Lynn Sucks Cock)
site specific installation (wooden boards in men’s bathroom, Melchers Hall men’s bathroom)
2008

(Just as a point of reference, The title of this work incorporates both the intervention of the boards in the functionality of the bathroom stall, but also the found graffiti in the bathroom stall homophobically insulting the artist.)

Professional Practices in Studio Art

Annual Presentations

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

5 PM, Melchers 107

featuring presentations by the following artists:

Beth Wilkins, Robert Lynn, Richard Jones, Matt Czapiewski, Katherine Arens, Molly Sheldon, Christina Falcone, Daniel Roberts, Christina McGovern, Michael Mosely, and Davette Leonard

And a faculty panel including the esteemed Lynda Sharpe (Assistant Director, UMW Galleries), the magnificent Dr. Joseph Dreiss (Professor of Art History), and the inimitable Jim Groom (all-powerful creator of UMW blogs).

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Special thanks to Matt Czapiewski for his excellent photo-editing work and Professor Garmon for letting us recreate Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading The People during class (and doing a great job of playing a dead body). Also, to avoid any accidental false advertising, I should note that I will not be topless like this during the presentation.

Professor Och made a blog post about the mysterious comings and goings of the Mona Fridas.

I came back from West Virginia this past weekend to discover all the bulletin boards in Melchers wallpapered with photocopies of the Mona Lisa with Frida Kahlo eyebrows. I snagged a few pictures of them when I brought my camera in to photograph some of my printmaking work (which was really lucky because they were all gone by Wednesday.)

Nobody seems to know whats the deal with these or who put them up. I figured it was a promotion for something but then nothing happened, and they disappeared just as quickly as they appeared. I have to admit I’m dying to know what was going on, so come forward, whoever you are.

Anyway, for me, the most interesting part of this whole thing was how quickly the students joined in. After just a few hours doodles started appearing all over the Mona Frida, and some were pulled down and taken home or moved around into weird places in the building.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I was the one who couldn’t resist turning Leonardo’s Mona Lisa into Leonardo the ninja turtle.)

But in seriousness, I think this brings up a topic instantly relatable to the new world of internet publishing, anonymity and appropriation: what happens when art becomes open-source or wikipedia-styled, where everyone just builds on eachothers work with no care towards ownership or individual credit?

Maybe this will lead to a new world of post-modern possibilties?

(…or maybe it will lead to this?¹)

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¹ You know, I really didn’t want to be known as the first guy to put the word “poop” on umwblogs, especially not as the featured blog, but I did it, because sometimes art demands sacrifice.