John Grade - Capacitor

I was given an amazing opportunity at my internship a couple weeks ago. I was able to work with John Grade on his newest piece Capacitor. 

Capacitor is based on the single-cell algae, called cocolithophore. Coccolithophores are one-celled marine plants that live in large numbers throughout the upper layers of the ocean. Unlike any other plant in the ocean, coccolithophores surround themselves with a microscopic plating made of limestone (calcite). These scales, known as coccoliths, are shaped like hubcaps and are only three one-thousandths of a millimeter in diameter. So although they are really, really small; they also congregate in HUGE groups. They stay alive for a few weeks and then their white calcium shells float to the bottom of the sea. If you're wondering how many group at once, take a look at this picture:

That is a picture from space. Those milky turquoise parts of the water are the cocolithophore. Those cocolithophores can be seen from space. Think about that for a minute. Nature is awesome.

We started the sculpture with a wooden skeleton type thing. I took pictures most of the days I was there, so you can see how the sculpture takes shape. Each piece of wood is unique, because the sculpture starts smallish and gets gradually larger and curling, like a nautilus shell.  

After the bones of the sculpture were put together in their pods of four, we put sleeves made of tyvek (flashspun high-density polyethylene fibers) over the nose of the cone. With in the cone, there is a light bulb and that's where the sculpture starts getting crazy! Outside of the building there are sensors, when the temperature deviates from the norm, the lights get brighter and dimmer. AND when the windspeed deviates from the norm, the sculpture will actually move, blossoming with the abnormal speeds of the wind. 

After the cones were given their socks, the sculpture was ready to be put together.  I was not actually there for this part of the process, but from what I gathered it was full of problem solving and frustration. Eventually, the sculpture was assembled!

After a lot of work, Capacitor is ready to go! There's an opening tomorrow (Friday) from 5-8, so come and check it out! It's amazing and beautiful.

Also here is a fun shot of me putting one of the cones together!

It was a really great experience working on this installation and John Grade was really nice.

Artist Spotlight - Alison Moritsugu

As I was going through boxes at my internship, I found a gallery handout for Alison Moritsugu and I instantly wanted to do a post on her. This was the installation that had me so enamored:

I nearly exploded with excitement! My friend Sam and I have had several conversations about landscape painting. You can be a great artist and a skilled painter or drawer, but landscapes often run the risk of being repetitive and boring. Alison Mortisugu has totally rocked the landscape here. What makes this landscape so much more than a lighthouse or barn? 

The fragmented "canvas" (by the way, doing this on tree cookies? love, love, love) is awesome. This fragmentation of the picture allows the viewer to "fill in the blanks" creating a more visually stimulating experience. I love that the tree branches twist and turn through the piece. 

I don't know if you can tell, but the pieces of wood extend out to different lengths, creating more of a space for those who are seeing this in real life. 

Doesn't this picture just make you want to walk around the installation, looking at it from every angle? (That's how it makes me feel!)

This picture above is part of her log series, a sort of extension from her landscape series. This is what she has to say about it: “There is also a kitschy tradition of painting on log slices, which I like, I think that these works subvert painting and turn it into something else.” She had previously been painting on wood panels and had been looking for a way to make her paintings more of an object. She saw a wood pile and a lightbulb lit up! Something else that I enjoy about her landscape and her log series is that although they are a beautiful piece of art collectively, they are also small pieces of art individually. 

Wai Hookahe, 2007

Mixed media, 38" x 46½" x 46½" deep

If you're wondering a little bit about her... Alison Moritsugu was born and raised in Hawaii and left the islands after high school. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, she earned a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York. On return visits to Hawaii, she noticed the drastic changes to the local landscape. She not only has done the fragmented lanscapes but she created amazing wallpaper that features flowers and plants native to Hawaii. 

If you look within the design of the wallpaper, you can see the silhouettes of plants and animals. But she employs imagery as social commentary, picturing plant life that has driven out native forms in vivid colors, while the extinct and endangered plants and birds are seen as white contours. Here is a detail of that: 

In 1999, she created a piece for the John Michael Kohler Arts Center. I was 9 then and I remember it, but barely. I wish I could see her again, I guess I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for her next show near me! 

Artist Spotlight - Rob Mulholland - Vestige

Deep in the forest of Aberfoyle, Trossachs (Scotland) there is an installation by Rob Mulholland. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces of installation art. It combines the beauty of nature with a voice of ecological responsibility. Throw in some really cool mirrors and BAM! Art! 

Scottish sculptor Rob Mulholland creates these eerie mirrored sculptures out of Perspex, a kind of acrylic glass. The pieces blend into their surroundings, at times appearing almost completely camouflaged and then they become visible as your perspective changes. The mirrors reflect the forest and distort the reflection, making the human (or animal, like below) outline barely visible. 

Rob Mulholland with one of his mirror sculptures

From Mulholland's website: His work explores the human relationship with the wider environment. His approach is not judgmental, more reflective and questioning about the ever-changing world around us. The human desire to leave a trace of ones-self for future generations has always intrigued him. It's a driving force to create and leave a semblance of our-selves as individuals and as a society. The reflective figures ask us to look again and consider the symbiotic relationship we have with our natural and man-made environment.

I find this dialogue that Mulholland creates between man, our made environments and our natural environments extremely fascinating, as well as vital to our future. This installation says to me: "You reflect your environment, you are your surroundings." 

Here is one question from an interview with Mulholland: In what way do you think your installations, ‘Vestige’ being a good example, teach us about the world, and why is ancestry so important to you?

I have always been interested in history and how the past shapes our present and future world. ‘Vestige’ gave me the opportunity to express some of my own feelings regarding ancestry. I wanted the visitors who came across the installation at the forest trail in Aberfoyle to reflect on how much has changed in a relatively short time and to consider and ponder the lives of those who lived and worked on these hillsides in the recent past. On reflection ‘ Vestige’ could be adopted in many locations throughout the world. It’s a common theme of lost communities and displacement.

As someone pointed out - before you see them, you see you.