Lccarosello's Blog

HELLO…

I am Louis Carosello and welcome to a presentation of my Mid Point Review

I have chosen to talk about my progress in the Masters of Digital Arts course by presenting two pieces of my art that have recently (as recently as yesterday) been in exhibitions and contextualizing them in an art historical movement.

Exhibiting is one of the methodologies I have chosen to expand my artistic experiences and knowledge. And I feel I have been more thoughtful in the work I have been submitting for exhibitions as a result of the work I am doing in this course. It has forced me to examine my own practice.

And while researching digital art techniques—with an eye to the development of tools, inventions, and technology—I see parallels to the influence these things have had on the development of art movements throughout history. In this course, I am focusing on American Pop Art because this movement was omnipresent during my earliest artistic training. And, as a result, it has had a lasting impact on my own development as an artist.

Now I’d like to take a brief look at some of the artists that have influenced my artistic practices………

Robert Rauschenberg:

Rauschenberg picked up trash and found objects that interested him on the streets of New York City and brought these things back to his studio where they were integrated into his work. Rauschenberg wanted his art to be something other than what he could just make. By using what he found, he played with the idea of “surprise” and “serendipity”. His work is marked by it’s a sense of collectiveness and the generosity of the streets. Rauschenberg allowed the object to be changed by its context and to therefore become something new.

Andy Warhol:

Warhol’s early jobs were doing drawings for Glamour, and for various magazines, book jackets, and holiday greeting cards. At one point he was one of the highest paid graphic designers working in New York City.

But in 1960, Warhol began to make his first paintings. based on comic strips and Coca-Cola bottles. In 1962, Warhol made paintings of dollar bills and Campbell soup cans and this work was included in an important exhibition of pop art—The New Realists. In 1964 he began the operation of The Factory, which became his main studio. At The Factory, contemporary forms of printing technology and commercial art methods were explored and embraced. And a spirit of collectiveness prevailed.

Roy Lichtenstein:

After being denied tenure at an Ohio university (where he worked and taught in an Abstract Expressionist style), Lichtenstein moved to the East Coast and by 1961 he had created the type of image for which he became famous. This body of work included advertisement illustrations—common objects such as string, golf balls, kitchen curtains, slices of pie, or a hot dog. Lichtenstein was best known for his paintings based on comic strips, with their themes of passion, romance, science fiction, violence, and war. In these paintings, Lichtenstein uses commercial art methods: projectors to magnify, spray-gun stencils to create dots that make the pictures look like a newspaper cartoons.

These three artists are bound together by their approach to art which freely embraces contemporary technologies, looks to found objects and images for source material, and plays with the idea of “high” and “low” culture.

I have embraced these influences openly with my current efforts.
BODONNA 2

Ink jet print on canvas combined with an assembledge of found objects to create an image of the perfect woman and a shrine to womanhood.   Back story: Bodonna was first conceived in 2007 as a print and later as an assemblage/sculpture which was displayed at the RiartEco Exhibit in 2008.

The sculpture was lost in Florence during 2009.

Bodonna 2 is an effort to refine the original concept of the perfect woman and introduce more relevant found objects and to create a more literal shrine environment.

An assemblage of found objects combined with a graphic skull, reflecting the dangers of TOXIC WASTE, while reveling in its iconic images.

Technologies influence on creative ideas:

Technology is a tool and, although computer technology is the first tool to expand the mental capacity of man, it is still a tool. All tools/inventions, prior to computing, dealt with extending man’s physical capabilities. They all have a goal of improved performance.

And current computer /Internet technology is no different—it’s just broader in its reach and scope, as reflected by the depth and diversity of my classmates proposals of digital art.

Development of new printing technology effected what and how creative ideas were presented and produced, in the 60’s there was a proliferation of printing tech available to artists: photo sensitive silkscreen, larger sized formats and new colors and inks. Today (as in the last decade) the computer, software, and the Internet have assisted and expanded the creative choices and venues an artist has.

Take scale as an example—with advances in digital imaging and printing it is now possible to present on an almost unlimited scale. Scaffolding art/ advertising is common place. Posters are wrapped around twenty story buildings.

Pop artist Claes Oldenberg used scale in his drawings and sculptures as an impact point. By taking an object like a spoon and making it 100 feet long, he made the usual…. unusual and allowed the viewer to see the aesthetic beauty magnified by scale

My fascination with the ordinary has been lifelong. At an early age I created drawing studies of telephone poles. My entire life I have collected found objects—and enjoyed storing, assembling and sorting them—it all just came naturally to me.

By seeing the aesthetic value in the mundane I felt I was always surrounded by treasures. My goal is to express this in my art. To communicate the concept of rediscovering the neglected or banal and give it value the viewer can relate to.