Interview with Joanna Regiec

1. Mason Gross offers various majors. Why have you decided to pursue Graphic Design as your concentration?

Well, I think that graphic design makes the most sense as far as an art related career is concerned. I certainly enjoy drawing and painting, but I’m not sure I’d be able to make a career out of it. When you tell people that you go to an art school, usually you get the same response, and that’s probably because people associate art schools with the image of the “starving artist”. In my opinion, however, graphic design offers some sense of stability, but also at the same time gives you the opportunity to be creative and produce work.

2. Graphic designers usually have to follow certain specs when it comes to individual projects. Do you feel that your work is sometimes limited by these specifications?

Yeah, at times I do feel like my work can be somewhat limited, but on the other hand it comes with the territory. As a graphic designer you do have to follow specifications. It’s simply part of the job description. It’s not like you can just do whatever you want, especially since most of the time you’re working with or for a client. Maybe as students we’re given a little bit more freedom to express our ideas or be creative, especially as seniors when it’s important to create portfolios that showcase our best work, but I don’t necessarily think it’s going to be that way once we’re actually in the field as entry level designers. And having specifications isn’t always bad. It often keeps you from going off track.

3. You are a graphic designer, do you consider graphic design to be a type of "art"? Explain.

You know that whole graphic designer/artist thing is debatable. I definitely think that a graphic designer needs to possess some kind of artistic skills or abilities, for instance have knowledge about color and composition etc. , but I don’t necessarily think that a graphic designer is always an artist. Artists create work that is more personal, whereas most of the time designers create work for someone else. Most of the time, designers have to follow specifications, and although a finished piece might be beautiful, I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a work of art.

4. Do you notice any repeating themes or ideas in your work?

A few people have told to me that my work is often quite feminine. Maybe it’s just something that I do subconsciously. I’m not really sure. Sometimes I don’t even notice it unless it’s pointed out to me. And I certainly do find myself reusing or “repeating” certain ideas. Naturally people have a tendency to go back to things they feel comfortable with. I don’t particularly see anything wrong with reusing old ideas and perhaps, at times altering them to fit a specific project/design. If it works, then it works.

5. Besides graphic design, do you have any other art related interests such as painting or photography? Do you try to incorporate your other interests in your work as a designer?

I definitely enjoy photography and have recently begun incorporating it in some of my work. I just think that there is an interesting relationship between photography and design.

6. Have you seen anything yet that has inspired you toward your thesis project?

Over these past few years, I have definitely seen work that I found inspiring or interesting especially by artists like Inez Van Lamsweerde and Jerry Uelsmann. I’m also very much interested in certain aspects of beauty. I’m not exactly sure what my thesis is going to be just yet, but I do know that I would somehow like to combine photography and graphic design.

7. How does using a computer compare to other mediums that you have worked with? And why do you prefer it over other mediums?

I don’t think that I prefer using the computer to other mediums, but it over the past few years it definitely has become something that I’m perhaps more comfortable with. It’s different from using paint or charcoal, but it’s still a tool used primarily to create visual images. Computer manipulation and programs like Photoshop or Illustrator have become a medium with pretty much endless possibilities these days.

8. Do you have a favorite body of work that you created while attending Mason Gross? Describe it briefly.

Well, I took a class with LaToya Frazier last year, and I really enjoyed some of the assignments that we were given. One of the projects required us to create a set of composite photographs where we had to place ourselves in a setting three times. So basically we had photograph ourselves first, then go back and put everything together using Photoshop. I haven’t done anything like that before, so I though it was pretty cool. And I was happy with my end result.

9. What are your plans after you graduate?

Oh boy, well I’m definitely not planning on going to grad school that’s for sure. Ideally, I’d get a job somewhere in the city as a graphic designer. It’s a little scary to think about especially considering the economy and what not….but we’ll just wait and see…

Chap. 5 The Magazine

"Artforum is to art what Vogue is to fashion and Rolling Stone was to rock and roll."

"The one essential thing: it cannot follow the market. Nor should it try actively to influence the market. It has to have its own point of view. It has to be honest. After that, clarity of writing, purity of design." When asked what makes a good magazine.

"A critic is a detective. You look at all this and you just try to make it mean something... It's a matter of trying to create meaning in these things in the world around you and giving art a place where it can resonate."

Guarino about contemporary art: "ninety-five percent of it cannot be taken seriously... I'm like the atheist priest who understands the salutary effect of religion"

"...If you start supporting artist who don't deserve it on in a manner that seems like overkill, you will drive your readers away and undermine your own credibility...There's some art that we jut don't touch..I have no idea why it sells or why people care"

Schjeldhal "To be a good [art] critic, you have to be able to make a new enemy every week and never run out of people to be your friend"

Andreas Kocks

Andreas Kocks
"Current Events"
@ the Winston Wachter Fine Arts

When I saw Kocks work I immediately thought splatter, and then Jackson Pollock but just in a different light. Here Kocks uses what look to be inky graphite splashes of a thick paper material (heavy water color paper) which spills down the wall and surrounds the viewer in a playful and enjoyable manner. These cut-out splashes seem like they were thrown from a distance and if you don't get close enough to them one really thinks that they are splashes of paint on the wall. Apparently, everyone that went into the gallery thought the same thing, as they would pose for their pictures as if they were throwing buckets of paint. The cut-outs create a feeling of energy engulfing the the work which spreads to the viewers. This work also has a very architectural feeling to it once you get over the splashing and get close enough to see the thickness of the paper and the manner on how it was cut. He cuts into the heavy paper and places multiple cut-outs next to each other to resemble a feeling of dripping and/or energy. What I loved about his work is that the entire gallery feels full of energy. He goes beyond the architectural boundaries and onto the wall as to become one. These aren't 3-dimensional objects but as the viewer moves the paper cut-out shine in different way and the cut-outs take their own individual form.

To Grad School, or not to grad school?

Programs I'm interested in (though money is short nowadays) are:

- UCLA
- School of the Art Institute in Chicago
- School of Visual Arts
- Yale

- School of Visual Arts - New York, NY

- New School - Parsons School of Design - New York, NY

- New York University - New York , NY

Anna Joelsdottir

Anna Joelsdottir
"Priest Chews velvet haddock"
A painting installation
@ the Stux Gallery

From what I read this is her second solo exhibition of installations, paintings and drawings, and I would have loved to see the fist one. Her new body of work, medium wise, is all over the place. She moves from using canvases as her main surface, to using other very interesting materials. She uses what seems to be large plastic strips painted over, or objects such as sticks and big three-dimensional installations,. In each medium however, the viewer can see how Anna always traces back to painting. This series seems, to me, to be very freeing and expressive, it lets the artist tear down or build up different colorful forms. At the same time, her meticulously painted sticks show her passion for paint and her love for organic and flexible movement on the very hard edges of the sticks. She always goes back to abstracted figures in all of her paintings no matter what the surface material is. The way the installations and paintings are placed is very successful, there is always something peaking around the corner that you can't wait to see. Each body of work relate to one another, no matter what material she used, the colors seem to be same, lots of yellow, reds and greens in a muddy field of curving black lines. She explains her relationship to space: “I am learning as I go… It is both thrilling and scary -- … I approach this problem as a painter, I try to see the space as a painting, try to imagine things in a space like they would fit into a painting.”. I find the tittle of the exhibition be very surrealist, “priest chews velvet haddock,” what does it mean?. Like many artist she is trying to let the viewer fill in the empty spaces. She leaves the viewers make their own meaning out of this exhibition. I find my meaning to be "genius". I really really, like her paintings. The burst of colors in the white canvas is just so eye catching. I have to say, this one of the best exhibitions I've ever been to.

Edward Del Rosario

Edward Del Rosario
"Bread and Circus" in the Nancy Margolis Gallery.
This was his first solo exhibitions in which he is showing eleven oil paintings.
His painting are very clean and meticulous most of them in a solid color background. The figures in the paintings are very small and curious looking, they seem to be doing a variety of things with each other or just by themselves. The process of these figures start as pencil drawings and then are later transferred to his canvas. These 3-dimensional figures sit, like I said before, in a flat space, they seem to be actors on a stage for the world to look, even tho some do seem to be hiding, or are turned. There is no single linear perspective, on the other hand there seems to be many. Some of the figures are set most of the time on what seems to be a blank room, but they are sometimes situated in cages or other exteriors but these are never really defined by the painter. The miniature figures are very interesting to look at, let's just say they carry a character of their own. Some of them are in formal suits and fancy dresses, but some other are like in this painting to the left, naked and turned away, though not all nudes in this painting are this shy, some of them are frontal with tattooed bodies. Some figures are dressed in costumes, from animals to native costumes form other countries, some of them have no heads! They have trees or animal heads growing from their bodies.
Del Rosario paints a multitude of people interacting with one another, most of these paintings are very puzzling and strange. You see the figures chasing one another, thought most of them, to me, seem very staged and frozen in time. On the other hand, these may also seem timeless, some of the characters may reveal a sense of real humanity, and the way people may act, perhaps how people view others, a caged lonely girl and a man opening her secured space may be a metaphor to other ideas.
I really the way the paintings were spaced out from each other. Some were like triptychs right next to each other, but they did not steal the spot light. Most of these paintings were of medium size and the 2 or 3 large ones had a wall to themselves. The lighting really helped bring out the colors in them, all very vivid colors against the solid background and the white wall; it was really a nice experience.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2009/03/23/photographer-collection-emilio-morenatti/

Gallery Show 11/13/09

Overall, the gallery show was quite a disappointment for me. Most of the pieces, I thought, were 'alright', some looked unfinished for my taste. I thought the use of space was no well thought out, I don't think it helped some of the pieces, specially the two walls in the middle of the gallery with such small painting attached to them... I kind of did not like that.. just because I rather be surprised by the large work in the back of the gallery instead of a large almost blank wall.
However, there were some pieces I did like for example, the fist set of photographs by the entrance (right wall). I do not know who took them, they have no mane, but they are interesting to look at. I want to know what the artist thought and was trying to convey when taking the photos. Like the cherry pie image, this can boarder line between a stereotype or homosexuality. Then there were what i call the movement and still photos. two portraits of the same woman, one in action splashing paint all over (reminds me of Pollock) and the other image of stillness (remind me of a statue, more like a gargoyle). Then there was a set of images of the same woman with a cigarette neckless around her neck. Probably an anti-smoking propaganda? At any rate, these I thought were well thought out and entertaining.



I also liked the park at night and house view paintings. To me these looked very realistic and showed that the artist took much effort to compose them. Specially the night painting, thought I was not love at first sight, I learned to appreciate it once I stepped back to enjoy the entire painting. If you focused in the painting it really made you feel like you were at the park, the use of color to convey the street light are so crisp and realistic. I really liked it. The same could be said for the house painting.

Images and photographers that inspire me

Steve McCurry

I really cannot post of only one Steve McCurry photo because I love them all. McCurry has such a passion, I feel, express through his photographs, and the most amazing thing is that he photographs all over the world and the human aspect through each one of his series is always so intense and real. He always has vibrant colors and so much motion. This is something I would like to imitate. "What is important to my work is the individual picture. I photograph stories on assignment, and of course they have to be put together coherently. But what matters most is that each picture stands on its own, with its own place and feeling."

Rober Capa’s PAR29752

Rober Capa, the combat photographer. Like many photographer of his time he wanted to explore war. He was very courageous and yet reckless. “If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough." Like his photo, he shares one fast emotion of his subjects, he suffers with them he shows the world a firsthand insight to wrecked life.

MARTIN PARR

Martin Parr is more of a contemporary figure in the photography world of Social photo and art photography. His work mostly deals with the world we more or less know; close to home. I really like the fact that he does not have to travel to unknown places of the world to produce beautiful images. I’ve been watching his work and I have learn from it.

Francisco Goya 3rd of May

Francisco Goya, the Spanish Royal family court painter. He was one of the first painters to paint real life happenings, not posed. Here in his 3^rd of May, though no present for the execution of these men, he imagined what it was like for them after he found their bodies the next morning. His vision to portray what really happened that night is admirable because it looks so conveying. Sometimes I also like to put things together in order to convey a scene that happened, the emotions, the light everything has to be there like this painting.

Kevin Carter’s Child vs Vulture

At first I could not prosses what was going on in this image. It took me a few seconds to realize that this scene could generate in you the most unpleasant feelings. I believe that this photograph shows the photographers passion for his work. Carter inspires me to, even in the face of famine, keep my calm and remain a photographer. Even if at the end you may kill yourself.

Cornell Capa’s NYC19539

Cornell Capa, the concerned photographer. "One thing that Life and I agreed right from the start was that one war photographer was enough for my family; I was to be a photographer of peace." I enjoy being in the action, the tornado’s eye, but I also like to be comfortable with my subjects, I like to get to know them and from then on I like to uncover the truth through my camera. I like to investigate people’s stories, photograph their emotions their daily life.