Emily Norris / St. Mary's Project / 2010

Though my themes have changed throughout the SMP year, Arthur Dove has remained a constant inspiration. Flipping through a retrospective for Dove, the painting Fog Horns (1929) instantly became a favorite. The degree to which Dove distorts and describes areas of landscape or place is fascinating. He has been credited as one of the first artists in the twentieth century to produce an abstract painting. But there is nothing abstract about his art to me. The sensation of space that Dove makes is both instantly gratifying as well as ambiguous. I believe in the space of Fog Horns. It is honestly illusive. The forms are alive – I can grasp them as well as resonate in and out of the cavities. Overlapping and transparency of planes make this space work.

Like Dove, I am always looking at and thinking about this in between stage of a space, full of tension and gravity. When I am choosing a frame to use from the models created with the animation software, I am always looking for a space that can both protrude forward and recede. In real space and my surroundings, I am always inspired by cropped or framed views naturally created by the environment. It could be geometric architecture against a wavering sky, or a walking pair of legs that pass by the waterfront. There needs to be multiple planes of contrasting texture and color that create depth. I need entrances and exits for the eye and mind. Forms both concretely remind me of a moment from the surrounding landscape and also feel as though the space is going to transform at any moment. This moving, vibrating, resonating experience influences my work.

There are also comparisons to the use of color that I can make with Dove. This same tension and harmony is in the use of color as with the movement and use of space. Areas of luminosity are accompanied by muted values and hues. I am always choosing color relationships in terms of relationships to the whole. There needs to be a sense of glowing, refracted light similar Dove’s painting choices. Colors are muted but the relationships and values of light and dark are not arbitrary. When working digitally in the modeling & animation software Maya, I create a singular light source or spotlight on constructed space, and also make the space have an overall incandescence. This is similar to the light experienced in reality, although exaggerated in Dove’s and my work - there is a diffuse or overall light that can change slightly in color depending on the place or time, but there is also the main source or sunlight that gives objects shadows and physicality.

In Dove’s, Silver Tanks and Moon (1930), there is also this same amount of visual and conceptual depth. The cylindrical forms delicately protrude from the surface, while the darker crevice acts both as matter in the distance and connects to these same cylinders or silver tanks. Sky and moon resonate with concentric forms – silvery gray-blues contrast and vibrate against the intensity of the yellow sphere.

Dove explains his process in a way that is similar to my own perception of space: “As I see from one point in space to another, from the top of the tree to the top of the sun, from right to left, or up, or down, these are drawn as any line around a thing - to weave the whole into a sequence of formations rather than to form an arrangement of facts.” (1)

This action - a fragmented kind of weaving through space connects to the way I perceive my surroundings. I think Dove and I are basically dissecting the space around us by separating planes of space and breaking them down to an essence so that they might ultimately question the concept of space. Dove wants to better understand the space around him. He takes in the forms of nature and structure, paints and rearranges this visual information into his own language. This causes an ultimate understanding and appreciation of the planes of light and the relationships of color.

This reworking of space and matter also takes place in Dove’s collages. A work like Goin Fishin’ (1925) may even align more with my process in the hand-painted digital prints. Dove rearranges found material to create a rhythmic composition. Rods of wood are placed so that they become both object and space in a place. Separated material is put back into harmony with the rest of space.

Reading Frank Stella’s “Working Space” lectures clarified what it was about a two dimensional work of art that was successful for me. Like Stella describes, I would like each of my works or art to basically be a “living theatre”. (2) Stella discusses his abstract paintings as succession to works like Caravaggio’s sixteenth century work The Madonna of the Rosary (1607). Though Stella’s work is not representational of figures and concrete narratives like Caravaggio’s, he explains that it should provoke similar responses and movement through space.

Stella says, “We feel that we want to leave the church immediately; we would like to locate the place and fix the moment where and when these paintings were made.” (3) It would be great if a viewer were to look and take in the experience of seeing and interpreting surroundings that I present, and want to actually find that experience for themselves outside of the gallery. Though I don’t believe the exact place is able to found, this act of looking and rearranging is what I would want from the viewers. Maybe only fragments of material relationships can be located in real space outside of the gallery. Personally, I am able to retrace my process and know the origins of most of the pieces of in the final constructed space.

I would like questions pertaining to descriptions rather than concrete nouns to arise in terms of this experience. Questions like: How close am I to it? It is enclosed? How fast am I moving? These questions may or may not be answered, and can definitely be in flux with changing experiences for each viewer. When I look at both two-dimensional works like Madonna of the Rosary or Stella’s Leblon II, I ask similar questions. When have I had this similar viewing experience? Is it the red curtain in front of or behind the figures? What direction will this hand turn after this captured moment in time?

Stella’s sculptures are similar to the models that I build in Maya. The views that I find and render with the virtual camera are like my sudden experience from my place. It cannot be meticulously imitated and placed on a flat surface – it must have the illusion of corners and planes and area of contrasting surfaces to be able revive an experience that came from my eyes and mind. It is space that we have seen before, unfolding and happening. As Stella states, the artificial and industrial quality of these sculptures turns out to be fresh and homemade. (4)

In Stella’s sculptural painting, textures and shapes are collaged together. There is enamel, paint lacquered, areas of reflectivity against painterly gestures. Space unfolds. A mechanical landscape is created – but it reminds us of the surfaces from an experience. Stella uses this language of construction to let surfaces speak for themselves.

Shadows and edges make a bright landscape that is as Stella describes as, “inevitable as the mountains rising behind Santa Anita on a sudden smogless morning.” (5) I think a successful key word here that I never thought of before reading Stella – is sudden. I can relate to this action within my own work. One moment you are clear headed and comfortable, relaxed – the next second you witness space transforming – planes are broken apart- edges are perceived instead of identifiable objects.

I came across contemporary photographer Laurie Simmons when I was first working with these constructed spaces and rooms. Simmons is interested in the nostalgia that surrounds her childhood in post-world war II America – commenting on the way this period of time was portrayed in the media, using dolls and miniature domestic rooms and architecture that have this sanitized and deceptive tone. (6) The limits of scale are pushed – some figurines and furniture look a bit too plastic to be life size, but lighting and depth in the photograph could be mistaken for life size places.

Simmons’ process is similar to my own. She is constructing models, though hers are actually miniature and tactile. We both find and discover views within this model that have relevancy to interactive space we have been before. Simmons’ final photographs are captivating, with planes and figurines that pull the viewer in and around this domestic space.

In Simmons’ photographs Kaleidoscope House (2000) series, I feel like I am a part of this space, but details make this place into a pristine museum. The viewer is a tourist in a showroom house or a hotel room. There is no evidence of human use. (7) The white beam in Kaleidoscope House #11 blocks and reveals, creating an obstacle and interactive depth. The consistency of physical and two-dimensional material is altered. The lighting especially in this Kaleidoscope House series wavers between artificial and physical. Color of light is saturated, like a kaleidoscope, and varies in hue. It falls upon objects and surfaces realistically, though theatrical and dramatic like lighting in a film or on stage.

In the photograph Study for Long House (Red Suitcase) (2003), Simmons’ uses the same model, but also places female figures into the domestic space. The two figures look like they have been cut out of a magazine. They are not three- dimensional and do not pick up the color of light like the other objects in the room. Simmons however weaves these components into this domestic space as to comment on both their difference in construction and the narrative formed by miniature models. The figures are in proportion to the space in the photograph. In my digital work, I was also reducing figures to constructed items. For Simmons, this comments on women’s roles in the domestic space. Figures are another item or accessory to the room, but roles are also reversed when there are dramatic expressions and strange moments rather than picture perfect vignettes.

This illusion that Simmons makes is what I really aim to make in my prints. My process includes creating an organized space, that could be considered picture perfect, but the difference is that I take this organization and then search for a view that may be confusing and reduced to only the corner or edge of the conceptual room or space. Final compositions do not read as a whole room or area. I like to concentrate on close up areas with fewer plans and lower resolution.

Images and experience are twice, maybe three times removed – whether through a camera, drawing, or digital software. I am able reflect on my presence in space and the ephemeral construction of every place that I have ever lived. Images and sketches from the outdoors are broken down into planes and pasted onto a more basic structure. A room, a space, or a cube in which familiar images are explained in a new and refreshing way.

I have never experienced Jessica Stockholder’s installation work in a gallery setting. Through photographs and writing I identify with her themes concerning space and parts of her process. In a conversation with Lynne Tillman, Stockholder’s work is described as an “impossible living room”.(8) Compared to my work, it is also a collage of space that brings familiar materials and objects into reflection and curiosity. We recognize some of the items that Stockholder entwines into her sculptural installations, but materials are installed so that singular objects lose their individuality and functionality to form a space based around color and texture. Desk lamps, a banister, concrete embedded with plastic resin-coated cookies, cables, are interwoven with traditional medium of paint, canvas, and wooden supports. The materials and sources that are imbedded into my digital models and final hand-painted prints also read like a grocery list. Photographs from Google maps, digital snapshots, scanned shells, watercolor paintings, and sketches are all used to create my impossible spaces. This creates a work that capable of responding to the idea of place – a space made up of variety matter and items that surround a person. There are always elements of organization paired with chaos and or coincidence.

In terms of color, I can relate to Stockholder’s pairings of intense vibrant colors with the neutral tones. This has to do with pairing organic matter with artificial or digital material. Frances Colpitt poetically describes this relationship in Sam Ran Over Sand or Sand Ran Over Sam, “glimpsed through gaps and beneath the floating architectural element, the color of space beckoned.” (9)

The viewer has had this experience before. Whether it was the first time they walked around a corner and discovered a color of the sky never seen before.

In an article “Jessica Stockholder: Merging of Mediums”, Frances Colpitt describes Stockholder’s Sam Ran Over Sand or Sand Ran Over Sam, “the experience unfolded in time and was impossible to singularly hold in mind.”(10) It is difficult to think about a specific place as a whole unit – where does it end and begin? Are there any real borders? I don’t think Stockholder is commenting or responding to a specific place, but she is constructing space that is similar to how she personally experiences seeing and being. I think Stockholder and my experience includes fragmented thoughts or images, which may not allow a moment for rest.

Throughout my college career, I have always been drawn to impossible spaces. In drawing class, I was interested in taking an amalgam of source material from a memory and then render an impossible environment. Photographs of Stockholder’s installations and sculptural paintings have this same sort of impossible reality. I do not know exactly what these objects are, but the viewer wants to absorb the space nonetheless.

I identify with creative processes that are considered improvisational and automatic. It is important for me to make artwork that combines chance with innovation, while at the same time having interactive and palpable space. I plan an image but leave room for changes and intuitive decisions that could arise while working. I think this is how I live and perform activities. I would call myself an artist as much as an athlete. Though the two areas are rarely discussed in the same sentence, my process and way of doing is similar.

In a game there is a winner and a loser – the result is unknown. We cannot predict the exact future, and that’s why we play the game. We can only pay attention to events of the past, to gut feelings and determination. I have played field hockey or lacrosse competitively for almost fourteen years of my life. My job is familiar - put the ball in the back of the net. But my method of attack varies. I am constantly improvising, freelancing off of a set play, cutting back and forth across space. This action deceives and catching the defense off guard.

When the ball leaves my possession and ripples the back of the net, time is felt. Space flies past you in a million fragments. You are enveloped by activity. Every piece of matter is heightened and layered on top of one another. The feeling is both natural and strange. I have been to this place before, but the space and activity surrounding me is rearranged and exaggerated. Everything around me including the grass, the net, the voices in the crowd are fused to my head as if by a string, being pulled and dragged along my way.

I go through a similar experience when making and looking at my artwork; improvising and deceiving, using chance, skill, and determination. Inside of a habitual structure, I work with disorder. In both art and sport, I describe both spaces and experiences as hyperreal. Historically, hyperrealism is described as the photorealistic rendering of people, landscapes and scenes. I am not interested in rendering a scene from reality as a direct representation, but rather as a balanced collage of interpretation.

Hyperrealism has its roots in the philosophy of Jean Baudrillard. He explains it as ”the simulation of something which never really existed.” (11) Hyperrealists create a convincing illusion; one based on exaggerating reality. The digital photograph is able to seamlessly deceive. Questions about the truth and fidelity of the image arise. My experience in class last semester with the digital animation software Maya became important in making work that becomes hyperreal. Maya is a program that is used to make video games and digital animation – to create a virtual reality, a dream world. There are three dimensions – x, y, and z. Using Maya gave me a way to really experiment with multi-media and translate my imagination to a tangible image.

In 3d class, one of the first exercises was when were taught how to make fruit bowl on top of table with salt and pepper shakers. After the first rendered image, when the apple had a perfect shine to its skin, reflections occurred in on the curves of the fruit bowl, light refracted off of the facets of the salt and pepper shapes, I was hooked. This place was hyper- real and completely controllable, while allowing for chance and surprising occurrences in reflections and shadows.

After projects of our own design, I began making these conceptual rooms and structures. Reducing a room to three walls and cut out figures to reflective planar surfaces played with this constructed or virtual aesthetic. I collected photographs from a specific trip I went on and worked with the idea of feeling like tourist. Structures were turned into doll-house like models and figures were turned into severed parts from paper dolls. The structures became as destructible as figures and objects. A spotlight was placed outside of this house model, which only illuminated angles in the different room and increased the reflectivity of the objects inside. Images and photos that I was familiar with reacted upon each other. This created a striking and connected space was made out of this artificial model. Using Maya as a filter that separated familiar relationships and embodied this unusual and complete experience.

This fusion and connection of a variety of source material that makes up this hyperreal experience is related to a collage aesthetic. We live in mash-up or cut and paste society. Instead of starting with a completely blank slate, this digital and new media world allows us to give and take. This allows for a more fluid process for me, that is able to make an artwork that is both uncertain and inviting. The creative product results in an object that has been bent and scratched, picking up debris as it rolls across life.

In a game, the clock runs out. The game is officially over. But sometimes, like in art-making, I cannot completely walk away from this activity that I have stopped playing. A finished game or work of art can constantly be critiqued, retraced, and analyzed. It is an object we can spend time with and that can be used as raw material for the next project.

1. Debra Bricker Balken, Arthur Dove: A Retrospective (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Association with the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., 1997), 144.

2. Frank Stella, Working Space, “The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures; 1983-84” (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1986), 33.

6. Laurie Simmons, Laurie Simmons: Color Coordinated Interiors 1983, “10 Questions James Welling asked Laurie Simmons”, (New York: Skarstedt Fine Art, 2007), http://www.lauriesimmons.net/index.php?mode=objectlist&section_id=164., 4.

8. Jessica Stockholder/Lynne Tillman, Pressplay: Contemporary Artists in Conversation, (London: Phaidon Press, 2005), 594-95.

9. Frances Colpitt, “Jessica Stockholder: A Merging of Mediums”, Art in America vol. 93 no2 (February 2005), 97.

11. Jean Baudrillard, "Simulacra and Simulation", (Ann Arbor Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1981)