Art

Mitchell Dembowski, "Manifestations from the Unconscious"

I would say that most of my work is considered abstract and deals with the relationship between the “individual” and “reality”, or the dichotomy between “self” and “other.” I typically pull from the influences and experiences of jungian depth psychology, various religions, and philosophy. I also pull from my own subjective experiences and try my best to dramatize them. I am naturally a very “heady” or inward person. (Some times a little too much…) So, I make art in response to that. For me, the act of creative expression is very therapeutic and in a sense meditative. I create because if I didn’t, I don’t think I would be very healthy. In a way it allows me to step out of my own skin, be pulled out of my head, and into the present. Whether this is done by flinging paint, automatic drawing, playing with sculpture, reacting to marks, accepting mistakes, contemplation, or engaging emotion I find that I naturally fall into this place and it is very meaningful. In a sense, when I am making art, I am not there, it becomes playful and the lines between subject and object seem to dissipate.

Shannon Gleespan, "With or Without You"

The natural world, as an object and something we are actively a part of, has always captivated me. My intended focus is on landscapes, not just visually, but being able to capture the essence of one's experience with nature. This stems from my personal connection and infatuation with the outside world and the idea that it is not only what we have come from, but also what our bodies will, one day,return to. I started thinking about what is truly important to me and found that this fascination is at the root of what I am. My goal is to convey through the tactile subjective environment I create, a habitat that the viewer is an active part of. I hope that with this body of work I will be able to instill in the viewer a subjective sense of peace that surpasses just a visual representation.

The purpose is to bring the atmosphere from the outside world, into the tangible so that people can experience their own sense of tranquility and tap back into the now. The rest of my process centers around creating a physicality and sense of energy that can only be found with paint. I start with creating an uneven surface with gesso and sanding it and repeating until I reach the desired texture. I tone the canvas or wood panel then create line and shape using a subtractive method then adding in darks into the underpainting. I then glaze over parts that have a certain vibrant color in places, such as the sky in order to create an optical sense of space with layers of paint.

Mrinal Joshi, "With or Without You"

My lifelong fascination with popular culture and fame is the basis for my current artistic practice. It is the marriage of the classical western art and the contemporary pop cultural practices, the old and the new, the high culture and low culture. In a way, my work is also a reflection of the meme culture and the image culture as they exist in the digital age with blurred lines of originality and ownership. The works of art I have chosen from the western canon of art history serve as departure points in order to create a sense of familiarity and time gone by while being veiled with lightheartedness and satire. Underneath, however, is a ground to ponder the ephemerality of it all, which might not be as funny or amusing as what is seen on the surface. I have additionally instilled in my work a sense of longing for the past and wanting to preserve the present while understanding that nothing ever lasts forever.