Exhibition Intoduction

Title of the Exhibition: Lost in a Dream

List of Artist: Vincent van Gogh, Louis Wain, Salvador Dali, Bryan Lewis Saunders, Sergeev Vladimir, Yoan Capote, Andreas Gursky, Rook Floro, Rodney Lough Jr., Jee Young Lee.

Exhibition Statement: This exhibition is about expressing "a state of soul" or emotion in an artistic medium.  To almost treat the mind as a physical structure, exploring depths of the thought process, good or bad.  These works all manifest and portray aspects of the mind in very different ways, the personality of the artist bleeding into their work.  For some the backdrop to their mind may be a serene oasis - an escape or safe place, others it could be a hell - representation of a tortured soul.  Landscape of the mind is almost self explanatory: just as each landscape is organic to it's environment, each piece reflects the artist who made it as well as the person who chose it.

Wheatfield With Crows

Artist: Vincent van Gogh
Title: Wheatfield with Crows
Media: Oil painting on double square canvas

Dimensions: 50.2 cm x 103 cm (19.9 in x 40.6 in)
Date: July 1890

Artist Information:

Vincent Willem van Gogh, born March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890 was a post-Impressionist painter of Dutch origin whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found). His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still.

Artist Statement: 
"They depict vast, distended wheatfields under angry skies, and I deliberately tried to express sadness and extreme loneliness in them"

"I am almost certain that these canvases illustrate what I cannot express in words, that is, how healthy and reassuring I find the countryside."
  
Kathleen Erickson finds the painting as expressing both sorrow and a sense of his life coming to an end.

Background Information on Piece:   One of van Gogh's most famous paintings, it was made in the final weeks of his life and is subject to the most speculation of any of his works.
 During his time in Auvers, van Gogh painted numerous landscapes in the same size as above on elongated canvases.  Jules Michelet, one of van Gogh's favorite authors, wrote of the crow: "They interest themselves in everything, and observe everything. The ancients, who lived far more completely than ourselves in and with nature, found it no small profit to follow, in a hundred obscure things where human experience as yet affords no light, the directions of so prudent and sage a bird."

Connection to theme:  The reason I chose Van Gogh for the first piece in this exhibit is mainly the brand recognition.  Van Gogh's signature style is instantly noticed by practically anyone who has seen a painting, but still carries much significance despite being wildly popular.  The style exhibited here, known as impressionism, manages to evoke an array of emotions through a simplified landscape.  The path leading to nowhere gives "a heightened sense of isolation", and the dark clouds and murky sky compliment the feeling of uncertainty and loneliness.  This painting was made during the final weeks of Van Gogh's life, and is argued by many to be his last work.  Knowing this was made by Van Gogh in the final moments of his life make the themes of death become so much more alive, epitomized with the birds representing death, rebirth, and freedom.

Van Gogh is perhaps the most accessible choice to introduce the unfamiliar to our theme, Landscape of the Mind.  The medium through which Van Gogh chose to express himself represents his personality and arsenal of emotions felt at the time, effectively capturing an emotion in time forever.

Mischievous Cat

                                                         Artist:  Louis Wain

Title: Mischievous Cat 
Media: Colored Crayon 
Dimensions: 9"x6 3/4" 
   Date: 1902

Title: Paisley Pattern Cat
Media: Pencil
Dimensions: 10"x7"
Date: 1929

Swans Reflecting Elephants

Artist: Salvador Dali
Title: Swans Reflecting Elephants
Media: Oil Paint
Dimensions: 1' 8" x 2' 6" (51 cm x 77 cm) 
Date: 1937

About the Artist:
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marqués de Dalí de Pubol , known as Salvador Dalí, was a prominent Spanish Surrealist painter born  on May 11, 1904 in Figueres, Spain.  Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters.  His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.

Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an "Arab lineage", claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors.
Dalí was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose
behavior. His eccentric manner and attention-grabbing public actions sometimes drew more attention than his artwork, to the dismay of those who held his work in high esteem, and to the irritation of his critics.

Artist's Statement: Dalí explained his process as a "spontaneous method of irrational understanding based upon the interpretative critical association of delirious phenomena."

Background Information on Work:  This painting is from Dalí's Paranoiac-critical period. Painted using oil on canvas, it contains one of Dalí's famous double images. The double images were a major part of Dalí's "paranoia-critical method," which he put forward in his 1935 essay "The Conquest of the Irrational." Dalí used this method to bring forth the hallucinatory forms, double images and visual illusions that filled his paintings during the Thirties.

As with earlier Metamorphosis of Narcissus, Swans Reflecting Elephants uses the reflection in a lake to create the double image seen in the painting. In Metamorphosis, the reflection of Narcissus is used to mirror the shape of the hand on the right of the picture. Here, the three swans in front of bleak, leafless trees are reflected in the lake so that the swans' heads become the elephants' heads and the trees become the bodies of the elephants. In the background of the painting is a Catalonian landscape depicted in fiery fall colors, the brushwork creating swirls in the cliffs that surround the lake, to contrast with the stillness of the water.

How it Relates to the Theme: I chose this piece, because to me Surrealism is the epitome of our theme, Landscape of the Mind.  Dalí's character and personality carry into his work, regardless of the medium he chooses to express himself in.  The twisted and melting landscapes he produces are far from unoriginal, they are the product of a unique mind, and a reminder that reality is only how we perceive it.

Drug Induced Self Portraits

 

Artist: Bryan Lewis Saunders

Title: Top right=Hash, top left=crystal meth, botom right= cocoaine, bottom right=bath salts Dimensions: 8 1/2" x 11"

Media: metallic crayon

Date: 2001

Background Info on Artist: Ryan Lewis Sanders was born in 1969 in Washington dc is a performance artist and performance poet known for his disturbing spoken word rants, tragic art performances and stand up tragedies.

Information On Piece:  March 30, 1995, Saunders began drawing at least one self-portrait every day for the rest of his life. For 11 days in 2001, he started an experiment were he took a different drug everyday and painted a self portrait under the influence. This artist is part of landscape of the mind because not everyone has a happy landscape some people tend to fall into drugs or abuse alcohol and use art as an escape.

Still Donnets

Artist:  Sergeev Vladimir
Title: Still Donets

Media: Painted On Oil/ Canvas  
Dimensions: 35.4” X 42.1”
Date: 2002

Artist Biographical Information: 
 Sergeev Vladimir was born in 1950 in Kazakhstan. IN 1976 he finished the Alma-Ata Art School, in 1984 –Kharkiv Institute of Industrial Art. Since 2000 has been a member of the National Union of Ukrainian artists. Since 1974 he has participated in exhibitions. His works were exhibited in Kiev, Kharkiv, Canada, Italy, Germany, and also were sold to private collectors in the USA, Russia, Canada, and Italy. Vladimir Gennadjevich Sergeev died in 2005.

How It Relates to the Theme:
When I saw this piece it made me think of a happy place in my mind that I could visit whenever I just need a break from reality. The painting itself also gives off a relaxed feeling when I look at it because it looks so cal and peaceful. It also Captures the realism of the landscape really well.

Resurrection

Artist: JeeYoung Lee

Title: Resurrection

Media: Photograph

Dimensions: 38 x 47 inch

Date: 2007

About the artist: JeeYoung Lee / Born : Korea, 1983
 / Graduated from Seoul’s Hongik University / Lives and works : Seoul, South Korea.

Artist’s statement: "The primary motifs in this series derive from my questions about who I am at the moment. It is a photographic clarification of my concerns about my identity, exploration about myself and search for the things that I am capable of doing, desire to do, enjoy doing and can do well, and furthermore, my thoughts on how I should live my life."

Background information of work:

JeeYoung Lee created this installation in her 3 x 6 m studio, in Seoul. Her art is made of up materials that we use everyday like,  plywood, paper cups, and  straws. JeeYoung Lee decorated and did this all herself. The constructed landscapes are her interpretations of personal experiences, dreams, and Korean folk tales.

In the photograph titled “Resurrection,” JeeYoung Lee compares it to the fable of Shimcheongin. The fable is about a girl who throws herself into the sea and comes back to life inside a blossoming lotus.  She wanted the photo to show her coming to life again and that was her reason for having a picture of herself in the Lotus. She is very spiritual and wanted the art to show her coming into the world without negativity in her life. Her goal was to rise above her feelings and let her spirit guide her

How it connects to them:

This art demonstrates her imagination and allowing her spirit do the art. All of these references in her art connect with the Mind and every aspect of it, from the unconscious to the conscious.

 

Open Mind

Artist: Yoan Capote
 Title: Open Mind
 Media: Marquette/PVC, bronze metal
Dimensions: 92x126x126 cm   (about 3 x 4 x 4 ft) 
 Date: 2008

Artist Biographical Information:
Yoan Capote is a Cuban sculptor who was born in 1977 in Pinar del Río. Yoan Capote lives and works in Havana where he studied arts at the Superior Institute of Art from 1991 to 1995. Even if he first specialized in painting, he finally decided to improve his sculpture skills, considering the latter as a way of developing three-dimensional and multi-sensory possibilities. He has gotten awards in his past, including the UNESCO prize during the 7th Havana Biennial with the artists' collective DUPP (Desde Una Pragmática Pedagógica).

Artist Statement: Yoan Capote states that this sculpture is a reflection about the human need of tolerance and open mind in a global world. He later explains his hopes to make this sculpture in a larger scale in the future.

Background information: The artist first sketched his ideas on paper, adjusting them as needed. Then the image of a Brain was carved in a volume of PVC (a type of plastic), creating a design of maze.  Lastly, Capote added the metal figures.

How It Relates to the Theme: This Sculpture demonstrates a man walking through his mind, watching the walls, as if viewing memories. The man is admiring the landscapes and images he seems so see on the walls of his mind.

Dubai World III

Artist: Andreas Gursky

Title: Dubai World III

Media: Photograph

Dimensions: 570cm x 383cm

Date: 2008


Artist Biographical Information:
Andreas Gursky is a German photographer. His work is particularly noted for his
photographs of landscapes and architecture, which are frequently taken from an elevated
vantage point. A photograph by Gursky, Rhein II, is the most expensive photograph ever to
come to auction, selling for $4.3 million in 2011. He has exhibited at many major events,
including the Venice Bienniale, and has won a number of photography awards. Although he
has used color almost from the beginning of his professional career, this aspect of his art has
become increasingly significant in recent years.

Artist's Statement: 
Peter Schjeldahl called these pictures "vast," "splashy," "entertaining," and "literally unbelievable."

Background Information: 
This photograph references the controversial “Dubai World.” The World (World Islands) is an artificial archipelago of various small islands constructed in the rough shape of a world map, located 4.0 kilometres (2.5 mi) off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The World islands are composed mainly of sand dredged from Dubai's shallow coastal waters, and are one of several artificial island developments in Dubai. The World's developer is Nakheel Properties, and the project was originally conceived by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. Islands in the archipelago range from 14,000 to 42,000 square metres (150,000 to 450,000 sq ft) in area.^[1] Distances between islands average 100 metres (330 ft); they are constructed from 321 million cubic metres of sand and 386 million tons of rock.^[1] The entire development is an area that covers 6 by 9 kilometres (3.7 by 5.6 mi) and is surrounded by an oval-shaped breakwater island. Roughly 232 km (144 mi) of shoreline was created. The World's overall development costs were estimated at $14 billion USD in 2005. The project was unveiled in May 2003 by Sheikh Mohammed and dredging began four months later in September 2003. By January 2008, 60% of the islands were sold, 20 of which were bought in the first four months of 2007. On 10 January 2008 the final stone on the breakwater was laid, completing development of the archipelago.

How It Relates to the Theme:

I chose this photograph because the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched  they must be felt with the heart. This world is but a canvas to our imagination. We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure.

Shadow

Artist: Rook Floro
Title: Shadow
Media: Glue gun, chair, mannequin, Black paint
Dimensions: Life size
Date: 2011

 Biographical Information On the Artist:
  Rook Floro is an artist from Bangkok, Thailand, and currently lives in Birmingham, England. His art investigates ideas of the tension between desiring change and appreciating oneself. Floro believes that advertisements, media, and social networking, friends, as well as our friends and family, all drive us to seek impossible perfection. He has received awards like the UK Young Artists, World Event Young Artist 2 award.

 Artist Statement:  
 “My sculpture/performance piece is inspired by Carl Jung’s psychological theory about the shadow. It concerns with the repressed ideas, weakness, and desires of oneself that the conscious mind refuses to acknowledge.  It represents my ‘shadow’ which involves my hidden desires to be different and become perfect in my own right. We always feel the pressure to be perfect by everything around us such as the media, social network, advertisement, friends, and family.”

Background Information: The sculpture was made using a hot glue gun and a mannequin to create the work. Then the artist paints the parts of his work, black, and sets them up in the placement seen above.

How It Relates to the Theme: The work demonstrates landscape of the mind, by demonstrating how the shadow represents our mind without “the pressure to perfect ourselves.”

Desire

Artist: Rodney Lough Jr.

Title: Desire

Media: Large format film/ Arca Swiss 8x10 f-line/ Lens 150mm/ 8s exposure.

Dimensions: 8x10"

Date: June 24, 2013



About the Artist:  Rodney Lough Jr. is an American landscape photographer and gallery owner.  After receiving a Brigham Young University Outstanding Achievement Scholarship, he earned a
Master of Science in Statistics from Brigham Young University in 1988, and began his
professional life as a statistician and mathematician. In 1995, Lough followed his passion for
the natural world and became a full time photographer. Lough has been photographing
America's National Parks, National Monuments, and wilderness areas ever since. Lough
opened his first gallery in 2001 and now owns six Rodney Lough Jr. - Wilderness Collections
Galleries at Happy Valley, Oregon; San Francisco's Pier 39, Sausalito, California; the Mall of
America in Minneapolis; Las Vegas at MGM's City Center; and his latest gallery in Park
City, Utah. He uses 4x5 as well as 8x10 large format film cameras. Lough lives and works in
Happy Valley, Oregon with his wife and their four children.


Artist's Statement: 

 "...But my goal is simply to get back to what I saw, without focusing on the black box of how I got there - so you believe what you see to be real, and you see the inherent beauty that is in nature."

Background Information:

The rugged nature of the barren southwest landscape never ceases to amaze us with its beauty. " I'd been traveling to this place for nearly 14 years before this moment was revealed before me. 'Desire' seems a bit of a strange name, until you've actually stood here and watched the sun come up over the La Sal mountain range on a cool crisp morning in the fall. Then and, I truly believe this, only then will you understand the 'Desire' you will have to return to witness the spectacle again. The moment stilled by the trip of a shutter reveals a glory and quality of light fleeting in real time. The desire to relive the fleeting light is exactly why you will return again and again."

How It Connects to the Theme:

 I chose this photograph because the world is a remarkable place full of beauty and splendor. To witness the simple grandeur of creation, the miracle of nature, is perhaps all we need. Beautiful things make people happy.

The Brook

By Jarnail Singh
Oil on canvas
30” x 40”
2013

 

 

About the Artist: The artist who painted this piece is Jarnail Singh. He was born in 1956 in India. He has been active as a freelance artist for the last 35 years and he developed an interest in art in childhood. After having a successful career in India he moved to Canada in 2000. He had a solo show called “Jarnail Singh – Discovering the soul of Punjab” at Surrey Art Gallery in 2004 and was a featured artist at Harrison Arts Festival 2005 at Harrison Hot Springs.
 
Artist Statement: I strive to create images of everlasting beauty. It is a humble effort to capture on canvas the beauty and grandeur of everyday life and bountiful nature; so that it gives joy and inner piece to viewers and instills in them a sense of gratitude for the gift of life and for nature’s never ending generosity. I can paint forever the beauty of nature and the simplicity and innocence of native and indigenous cultures, which ultimately will be consumed by soulless consumerist culture in this fast changing world.
 
Background Info: This piece was in the Landscapes of the mind exhibition at the Agora Gallery in New York last year. It was one of four pieces that he had in the show.
 
Connection to Theme: It connects to our theme because it was actually in a real landscapes of the mind exhibition and also it is just his own personal landscape of the mind.

 

Conclusion

Landscape of the Mind is a very personal theme, making each response organic and specific to the individual.  Trying to convey a thought process or mindset is difficult regardless of the medium it's presented in.  The difficulty in capturing a state of feeling is what made this topic fun to work with and left our group with an array of pieces ranging from drug induced self-portraits, to serene landscape.

We learned that although different artists works may seem arbitrary at first glance, if you delve deeper many art works can have a common theme that many people may overlook.

Selecting the theme came naturally because every person, whether consciously or sub-consciously, has an idea of what "Landscape of the Mind" may mean to them. Finding how many different works from different artists tie together was the most difficult part of this whole process.

We found that the job of being a curator may be more exciting if we were showing our own personal works in our exhibition. However we all came to the conclusion that being a curator would be a culturally enhancing experiencing.

We discovered that while every artist came from a different background, they all had a common theme of what "Landscape of the Mind" meant to them. We also discovered that even a clearly defined theme has no boundaries.