Another week into the semester, ideas are action.

by Aliene de Souza Howell (MFA 2011)
I re-incarnated a piece from Leipzig about a business man walking past a flooded city street into a mock-up diorama. I also did a drawing for the next in my series of catastrophe meets quotidian, incorporating the Guatemalan sinkhole into a supermarket scene. For my Thesis, I am launching into a new endeavor, testing out an idea that has been formulating for years in the back of head and has finally sprung out like Athena from Zeus.

diorama for business/flood

Combining my love of theatre/opera/film with my passion for painting, I aim to turn my paintings into a life size diorama. A walk-in art world somewhere between Red Grooms and William Kentridge. After speaking with my advisor, I was opened up to even more possibilities in terms of scale and materials. Transparency verse opacity--plexiglass or wood. Intimacy verse Impact.

I am anticipating updating my website with images from my Thesis and other Academy work! Academy alum Nic Rad is giving a series of lunchtime lectures about getting your work online and accessible to all. My previous computer was stolen along with all the software I had to update my website and Nic is going to show us how to use cloud computing and keep all files online. I am very excited about this.

sketch for supermarket/sinkhole

Hilary Harkness recently gave a stimulating lecture about her work as part of the ongoing Art & Culture Lecture series. I was impressed with the world she had created for herself within her paintings. When she spoke colloquially regarding the history, location, and narrative of the figures and spaces in each piece it seemed more like she was speaking as a novelist or documentarian. Every aspect of the Bosch-like energy in her paintings was considered and related to each other.

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass