First Blog Post- My Art Practice

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Currently at the University of Florida I am both a fine arts and biology major and I study the overlap between the two areas of study. In the area of fine art I have not decided if my concentration will be in sculpture or drawing. No matter what direction I end up going in, I hope to put both my knowledge in art and science towards becoming a biomedical illustrator  or working with prosthesis. The piece that is posted blow is my final sculpture project from the fall 2016 semester that was created using one 2 x 4. The piece combines both my passion for drawing and sculpture; it requires the viewer to use the large magnifying glass to decipher between the illustrated beetle and the actual specimen. The piece encourages the viewer to look more closely at their surroundings as well as act as an extension of the eyes.

From this course, Digital Imaging, I hope to gain a better understanding about the workings of Photoshop and Illustrator. I am looking forward to learning how to draw and paint in photoshop in hopes of applying this skill to my scientific art practice. Today, many of the illustrators work in both digital and traditional media and I hope to be well versed in the inner workings of the digital practice as well.

 

project4_taylorbrett

 

Artist Statement; Political Global Artist Statement

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This digital project revolves around the environmental processes of climate change and global warming. For this project I intended to utilize comedy to approach these serious topics regarding the environment and put the issue in the perspective of the every day. Through comparing the serious issue of climate change with the everyday mishap of spilling water it introduces this environmental issue in more understandable terms. I also utilized direct questions to add to the comedy to the piece and address the viewer directly, who’s going to clean this up? This is evident on the back of the created T-shirt and contradicts the purpose of the career of maintenance crew that is listed on the sleeve. This question of cleaning is also addressed in the main symbol on the shirt that presents an iceberg with several cleaning utensils that the viewer can relate to. By reducing the issue to an everyday problem I intended to utilize the perspective of the public by showing that we are not acknowledging this problem that is around us on a daily basis. This is evident in the scale of the objects in comparison to the iceberg; the mop, bucket, and slip risk sign dwarf the iceberg similar to how many people in and out of politics belittle this environmental crisis. The t-shirt and the poster interact as they involve the components of spills that the audience can relate to. The piece also utilizes a color scheme address the contrast between warm and cool colors that mimics the increase in atmospheric temperature due to carbon admissions and the melting of the polar ice caps that can lead to rising sea levels which ties into the cool portion of the color scheme. Overall, the piece presents a global issue on a scale that is relatable and utilizes commentary to introduce and important issue, global warming, in a new light.

Artists working with Global Warming

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The following link directs you to a Huffington post article that presents several artists and images of their work that use principles of global warming and conservation in their  practice. On of my favorite works was Naziha Mestaoui’s Virtual Forest, the contrast created between the digital trees and nature scape and the rigid hard building creates an interesting dynamic work. I also think that the interactive portion of the work that the trees grow based on the viewers heart beat connects the viewer to the environment and the threat that humans pose.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/15/environmental-art_n_5585288.html

Artists and Climate Change

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Why Artists Need to Know About Global Warming’s “Six Americas” and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

The link above leads you to a website on Artists and Climate Change. The article speaks about several statistics that reference climate change and visuals that incorporate statistics as well as has questions and answers on why it is important for artists to know about climate change  and how artists can get involved.

Comedy and Advertisement

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https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/feb/11/science-comedy-academics-social

Though the article does not directly discuss comedy and art I found the article to be very informative to using comedy as a way to get the message about global warming across. Near the end of the article there is a quote that “lots of Comedy has a topical political significance”. Also the article highlights different advertising strategies in the past including heath, environmental, and political issues.