Surrealism

Artist Statement

The main idea of “Do We dare Disturb This Universe” was to ask just that. When I found that quote in a magazine I was cutting up, I knew that I wanted it to be central to this piece of work. My collage was centered around this idea of showing the weird, wonderful, beautiful world for exactly what it is. This is why I included the Jellyfish piece because I wanted the shape of it to be bold and weird and intriguing. I hoped that people would be drawn in by it, long enough that they would stop and look at some of the quotes on the page. The other quotes are: “Should we worry about the loss of species?” “Each species, however inconspicuous and humble it may seem to us at the moment, is a masterpiece of biology and well worth saving.” “Continue to exist.” As I cut up a nature magazine, these jumped out at me. This message of our planet and its complexities continues to show up in my work, and I want this to continue my message even further. Whereas in the past I have focused on the way we are destroying the earth, this time I pose a question. The “do we dare” part of the question stands out because it is not an accusation or a plea, instead it simply asks without a negative or a positive ties to it. This is a question, that once answered, will lead us on our path forward to continuing to live in the beautiful, weird, and wild place that is our home.

For the collage, I used magazine clippings. These are from various magazines that I had found lying around my house. The painting was made using acrylic paint on paper canvas. I did not use stretch canvas for this project, because I found that the paper canvas worked better with the smaller-sized piece that I was making. I used a wide variety of brushes to get the textures and details that I wanted. I also used a gel pen to write the words that are on the piece.

The first step in the process of creating this piece was to make the collage. As I looked through magazines and found images that I wanted, I developed a theme for the piece. Once the collage was made I started to paint. This took multiple tries, and I used two canvases in the process of making the piece. I did the background, then mid-ground, and then foreground with a little mishap, except for two spots where I had to start over because I had messed up the order in which the piece needed to be painted. After the painting, I began writing in my quotes. This was very difficult. I wrote them in at first using a ballpoint pen and a marker, but it did not turn out quite how I wanted so I started over with the quotes. I repainted white onto those areas and then took a photograph, hoping to put the text on digitally. When this failed, I added some more white, let that dry, and re-wrote the quotes. The outcome was still slightly messy, but it was good because I did not want it to have a machine look. I really wanted it to be hand-drawn because it would fit into the overall theme of the work. My main revision would be to photograph for a longer period of time until I found exactly the right picture. Also, the middle tree in the three trees, I would want to redo. Overall this piece was quite satisfying to make because it was interesting to see how it compared to the collage.