Summer Finally Starts for Me.

I am so glad that summer is finally here. A week ago today, was my last day at school and I'm so happy that my 15 week semester critique is over. I always knew that I was picking painting as my senior thesis, but that fucking sculpture class is killing me. I have one more semester of it AND printmaking. I can't stand either of those two classes, but this will be the last semester starting in September so I can do it. I have to, right? Here's a bit of what I did since January. This is what everything looked like as a whole, I find it pretty cohesive but I'm not a fan of the numbers painting. Mainly because there's a lot more that could've been done to make it more complete. I still can work on it but I had to submit my final piece so it had to be presentable. It just so happened that each of the paintings are in order (first, second, and third) but turns out that they looked pretty sweet in that layout. For the last 3 years, I've been using nothing but oil paints, but as of last year and this year to come, I'm choosing to use only acrylic because I want to know/experiment different techniques using different materials. You can do a lot with both but I'm enjoying using acrylic more so than oil. I can really get creative with oil and some of my best work are done in oil but I'm having my fun. So this painting was the first of my series that turned out to be a self-portrait, but on accident because the assignment was to take inspirations from outsider art/art from any other part of the world that wasn't the traditional mid-western way of painting. So naturally I chose African/Spanish art because I've always been a fan of Picasso and George Condo so their work was the foundation for my painting. I made this one a bit personal because I'm wearing a mask that's implying that I have different sides of me that are hidden by other emotions or what life has to offer. I tackle my foul mouth, my continuous drinking habits, sexuality, gender role and my issues dealing with OCD and personal anxieties. I've managed to make this look similar to this piece I did a fews back (when I was experimenting with a semi-abstraction/dada-esque way of painting) This is actually one of my favorite pieces of work that I'm very proud of because I push what I already did a few years ago, I just think it's better. Some said at school that I'm just in it for the shock factor but I don't think that's true. I don't have to try and any feedback is positive feedback. That's why I make art. Art is meant to be viewed and liked, and disliked. It's how the creative mind absorbs and extracts future inspirations for continuous art making. So these are my sculptures and my favorite ones that turned out are the bananas and the fingers in the fruits and nuts bags. I casted a real banana and my fingers and made a play off my job at starbucks and how sometimes there is mistreatment in the work place, like most jobs. The banana also ties into my second painting that I did which was dealing with pop culture. In this piece I'm referring to what I think is popular now and how everyone is skyping and video chatting and it's a more advanced version of phone sex. So I used Lichtenstein as my main inspiration for this piece and made is very "comic book" as if it were ripped from the back of a dirty gay magazine that you find on 19th and 8th. I already mentioned that I used Lichtenstein as my source for this painting, but I also used Lady GaGa and Wynter Gordon as musical inspirations for this piece using their songs "Telephone" and "Dirty Talk". This is another favorite piece piece of mine because I did something that I've never done before; I added a sound piece. Now this is just a rough edit of the final project because the real one turned out to be 6 minutes long but I play it on low volume and have it attached to a 13' cord with headphones allowing the viewer to experience New York's confessions by tying them together to my confessions and question their own inner secret when it comes to sex.
This one got really good reviews so I'm happy with the turnout. This one I spent the longest amount of time doing so it should look good right?? So my last piece was numbers and letters and I titled this piece "Stop Counting" because like I mentioned in my first painting, I was trying to let people know that I have a thing for counting. Whether it's how many steps it takes to get from my house to the train, or how many times something is repeated, like grey sweaters or black framed glasses, I tend to count. Count anything and everything, some minor and some major. But I think this one is my least favorite because I could've pushed it a bit more. So all in all I had a really great semester and I can't believe that I have only one more year left, and I know I know everyone keeps asking me, "Oh what are you planning on doing once you've graduated?" and that's a good question, I'm still thinking about it, but trust me it's on my mind.

Instead I'm just tying to move into my new apartment, catch up on my much needed social life and enjoy the beautiful summer weather that New York is finally giving us. It's about fucking time.