Danny Gartner

I am a lamp.  Most of my time is spend in the corner, dark and cool.  When I am lit up, I become very hot.  The heat can often be a lot for me and sometimes I have to take a rest.  I emit a warm glow, not overly bright or irritating.  I can read papers that are often placed under me, and I learn the knowledge they contain.

Peter Doig

Peter Doig is a contemporary artist from Scotland.  He is a representational painter, and most of his work features landscapes with figures within them.  His type of art includes abstraction and "magical realism", a style of art that combines realism with supernatural or spiritual visuals.  He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1959, and spent his childhood moving around, with his family eventually moving from Scotland to Canada.  He attended the Wimbledon School of Art and received his M.A. from the Chelsea College of Art and Design in 1990.  He is widely considered one of the most important and influential painters working today.

For my bricolage project, I am going to create an object out of an assortment of items I found in the goodwill bins and a few other places.  Most of these objects have a shiny silver color which gives them a homogenous visual appearance.  The base of my object is a large candle lantern that I put a battery-powered light inside of.  I also put a (very)old iPod against the glass of the lantern.  I found this iPod in my dorm room in a box and I had completely forgotten about it.  I think both the light and the iPod contrast against the candle lantern because they represent modern technology against the old candle lantern.  The light and iPod also makes the candle lantern "operational" in a sense, because obviously, the lantern wouldn't have had a purpose with no candle.  I also found a thin swirled metal strip that I put at the top of the lantern.  This item fit perfectly on top and I thought it complimented the rest of the object.  I had an additional metal object that was a thin, curved, and rounded that I placed at the very top of the item because it was magnetic.  Overall I think my object that I have created represents, in a way, the way that modern technology has come to dominate our world.

Installation Project- Tree Web

For our group's installation project we created large paper chains, some of them over 15 feet in length, and then proceeded to hang them from a spot we selected in the woods. Our project was simple in concept and was meant to show the repetition of many different pieces of paper and to have a large scale to it. We wanted our installation to represent the way in which nature is being exploited and destroyed by humans. There is a sense of irony to paper being used amongst trees, demonstrating how humans are destroying forests and other natural ecosystems. The position of the paper chains feels both manufactured and natural, there is a sense of chaos to it however there is enough structure to the format to show that this was made by man. Even though we can't capture it in images, there was also a lot of movement to the paper chains from the wind. This gives the project a kinetic sense of movement and adds to the juxaposition of man-made items against nature, as both the paperchains and the trees they were on swayed in the wind. Overall, we created a simple project that demonstrated how the natural environment is being destroyed.

Installation Project Booklet