Nora Slovak

In the early states of creating my portfolio I began to realize that I enjoyed creating art that allowed me to express my emotions clearly and relieve stress. As I continued to create more pieces I discovered that the pieces that depicted nature and images close to my heart were the ones where I felt most artistically free and began to draw my main themes of nature, freedom and serenity. These themes began to develop more clearly as I started to experiment with mediums such as ink, watercolor and acrylic paint. I wanted to be able to create an escape from school work and any outside stress and was able to exhibit that through my different mediums and brushstrokes. I explored how ink would be able to emphasize my release of tension and also expression of freedom and serenity. My experiences of being a high school student, travelling and spending extended periods of time have all contributed to the work presented in my portfolio and the themes that I aim to display in my work.

The works that are presented in my show feature various scales, brush strokes and palettes to help portray my themes and the experience of creating the portfolio as an artist. The techniques that I use have all developed over time and help me create a connection between the artwork and the viewer. The use of various scales helps create a deeper connection to the piece and in some of the art the place. For example my three flowers on a small square palette, are at such a small scale to create an intimate reaction when viewing the piece. Flowers in nature are something that is very calming for me to experience and I enjoyed the repetitive routine of sketching the flowers and then painting them. My use of various brushstrokes which I did through using different sized brushes was to help show the detail of nature and the meaning that it has to me. This can be specifically in my ink pieces where I have included small details to represent soil and branches. In my portfolio I have worked mostly with warm tones as I felt it better represented my themes. As I began to solidify my body of work and the themes I wanted to focus on, I found a new interest in using repetition as one of my main techniques. I liked that I was able to emphasize the meditative process of repeating a symbol over and over. Repetition quickly became an important feature in many of my pieces. I looked at the work of artist Rene Magritte and his piece Golconda where he repeats the nearly identical figure of a man in various places on the canvas. I was drawn to the randomness of the placing of the figures and how the repeated act of painting the figures allowed for him to express his own personal theme of how reality is defined by one's looks.

For my exhibition I have arranged my work so that the pieces I feel most vividly capture my themes are the first one the viewer sees. They are arranged along a wall all at similar heights and distances apart. My pieces are organized in this order to help emphasize the emotion that each piece provokes. My second piece that is noticed when looking at my art is the one where I focused most on how in the making of the piece the use of repetition and pattern of drawing different stars in different sizes and mediums was a very meditative process.