Here are some more images of my most recent work.

Things are awfully busy lately, so I have not been able to make as much posts as I would like. I am working on my senior exhibition and everything that goes with it: show cards, thesis writing (still in it’s earliest stage), and trying to finish up some pieces. So, to prove I have been working, here are just a few things that have been in production. Some of the pieces are going towards my show, and others are territories to be continued. I hope to be doing a bit more writing on here,God willing, and maybe even to talk about the pieces in this post.

I haven’t posted in some time, so you’ll have to forgive me; I have been quite busy. I thought I would make a post I have been meaning to make, and it happens to relate to drawing/collage that I had posted a month or so ago, call Joseph and Nicodemus. In making this piece, I had been thinking about Christ’s wounds, His death, and His burial. In the book of John, chapter 19, verses 38-42, the claiming of Jesus’ body is described:

38Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. 39He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.[a] 40Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

In working on this piece, it aloud me to reflect on my own faith in Jesus, and the way in which I prescribe it to myself. In this passage, Joseph goes to claim Christ’s body, but he does it in secret. He is afraid of the Jews. He is afraid of being associated with Jesus. He is afraid of being persecuted because of his association. He is afraid of death. But not just Joseph, but Nicodemus as well, had gone in secrecy. Nicodemus had already visited Jesus in secret when he was alive out of fear also. These two men, disciples of Jesus, go to claim his body for burial. So here they are doing one thing; claiming Jesus (but in secret for fear of persecution), and disassociating themselves with him. Then after they claim him, the do something that seems somewhat contrary to their previous action. In private, the prepare and dress Jesus for burial. Rapping him in strips of linen, and applying spices to his body, and overall, taking such care, devotion, and lending intimate and loving care to the Lord’s body. What they did in private for the Lord, is quite different in comparison to what they did in public. This made me think of how it is related to our every day lives (if you are a Christian). Do you claim Christ in secret, but deny him in public? Do you fear being persecuted for your belief when in the world? Do you claim him in private? In your room? In your car? In your bathroom? And do you leave him there? I asked myself these things, and realized that I was claiming Christ in private; praying, worshiping, praising, reading God’s word, and devoting to Him in the comfort of my own room. I was afraid of what people would think, say, or do because of my belief in Jesus. Secretly a disciple, afraid of persecution. All my art work is centered on my faith in Jesus, yet when it came time to talk about it, I kept it secret. Then what was the point of making this work? What was the point in being a follower of Christ? What was the point of the work Christ did for me if I were to just deny him and do nothing? When I realized this, I came to the conclusion that this needed changing. John 16:33 says this:

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Christ has overcome the world. On the cross, Christ said “it is finished” (John 19:30). All that could be done was done. We will be persecuted, but Christ is with us.
Matthew 28:20 say this:

“…and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Christ did not die to makes us safe, but so that we might follow after him and be bold for a cause. To speak God’s truth, and have his guidance. I have decided to claim Christ in public as one of his followers, and to believe in Him as He believes in me. I decided to not be afraid. For if God is for me, who could be against me? (Romans 8:31)

What I've Been Working On

“The Sands”
10x11 ¾”
Collage on paper bag.

“Blood and Water” 2009
32x64”
Oil and chalk snap line on raw vinyl.

“facing a certain future” 2009
9x12”
Collage on Hallmark bag.

“In Exile” 2009
16x20
Collage on graph paper

“The Great Escape” 2009
18x22”
Collage on craft paper.

“I AM” (I) 2009
18x22”
Pen and graphite on paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" I
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" II
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" III
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" IV
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

"Out of The Silent Planet" V
18x22"
graphite on craft paper

It Is Near
18x22"
graphite and charcoal on craft paper

Amendment I (Or Science Must Not Touch Religion)
18x22
graphite and charcoal on craft paper

“Out Of The Water” 2009
72x72”
Oil on raw canvas

“Won’t be the same” 2009
11x11”
Collage on box lid.

Here are the images I said I would be putting up. This is the work accumulating in my studio; what I've been working at, and there is more to be added to this. However, It Is Near, and Amendment I, are from the last spring, and are not apart of this body of work--I just thought I would put them up because they are relevant.

Also, I have formulated another sort of artists statement about this body of work, and it gives a little insight into what I'm keeping in mind as I work:

My abstract work is very much about the formal as it is the spiritual and emotional. In my work, I deal with symbolism through the means of minimal abstraction as a way to represent larger concepts in a simple way. In some cases the pieces are more of an embodiment of a concept or ideal, and in other cases, they stand to represent something more narrative. I agree with Kandinsky, in the sense that I too feel that there is an initial, physical, and optical reaction to an image that takes place in the eye, but that it may also go further to touch on another level of a being: the emotional and spiritual level. I believe that the formal issues of art are perfect vehicles for the allegorical, and may further more even stand to supersede the work itself. I am in concordance with Barnett Newman, in the way in which he would want people to view and see his paintings: all at once and up close. In this mode of showing or viewing, one gets the picture more immediately, and the image is presented with a more straightforward depiction of a concept or idea. Though my work is somewhat “quick look”, I try to lend a meditative quality to the pieces, so to provoke a contemplation that would extend beyond the optical and formal reading alone.

Today, some friends/colleagues and I shot photos of some of our work, and for me, there were many things to shoot. I hope to get some of these images up within a day or so, and I will talk a little bit about them as well. We got some decent images, so I should have something worth showing.

Draft

Draft for an up coming painting.
(White pencil on graph paper)

So, here is a sketch for an up coming painting that I will most likely be starting within the next month. This is a painting that will be coexisting with two other paintings (one finished, that I mentioned in a previous entry , and another that will be in production after this one). Just to touch briefly on the concept behind this trio, I have been thinking about transition, as I have also mentioned, and baptism. In this case, I am more or less considering three things: an idea, and ideal, and the living truth of it all. This is still something I am trying to grapple with and refine, so I apologize for the vague and ambiguous explanation. None-the-less, I am moving forward with the project, and learning as I go along. With these, I am trying to reconfigure how I go about making, especially in terms of my painting. I still believe in having a plan, but I'm starting to take the approach of Barnett Newman, in that I would start a painting by simply painting. And whats more, is that in the process of affecting the canvas, in turn it would have an effect on me. Thank you Mr. Newman.

Not a moment to lose!

In the midst of all this talk of time, and it being my main subject as of late, something rather profound, yet ordinary had struck me. I had been thinking, as I was looking at some pictures of some people that I know, that are around my age, and thought: My God, one day I shall look back at times such as these when I am much older (if those days do come that is), and I shall say “look how young we all were then,” and how time had run such a game on us all. How we’d been tricked into thinking no time had past at all. That is, until we see the proof, and then we are taken through the loop, and we start to count the days, and even seconds perhaps, that we missed as it slipped out the back door, hardly letting a floorboard creek. And then we might even carry on to say how if it were only that way again, how much more we would have done and experienced, seized the moment, and made every second tamper and toil at that back door with the amount of locks and efforts put into containing them. And even still in this thought, I could almost awake as if from a dream, and take account of what took place in my mind and the actuality of my being: I am still young! To have thought of this made me think of what a gift it is to be at such a point in life. It helps one to think as to what they are doing about it as well, and to contemplate on the so very preciousness of each and every moment. There is not a moment to lose! Or perhaps it is quite the opposite, and that is what the saying suggests.