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Breakthrough Contemporary Art

For my final piece, I painted a picture of Devereaux Hall. I thought this would be a good final piece to make, as I can take it home with me after graduation. It will remain as a symbol of my time here, and I am really happy with how it turned out.

The first lesson I incorporated was Art Povera. I used some small grass flowers from my lawn to create a real-life flower arrangement on my canvas. I used glue to hold them down and to bring a 3D aspect to my piece. Art Povera really inspired me because I find it fun to include things that aren't normally used as art materials.

The second lesson I incorporated was the Formal Elements lesson. I used complimentary colors like red and green to make the art pop. I think that the cool tones of the building, sky, and grass compliment the warm tones of the red vines very nicely. Overall, I am really happy with how this turned out!

NYC 1980s

Keegan, Meechi, and I created a graduation piece inspired by Keith Haring. As all of us are seniors, and with graduation right around the corner, we wanted to depict the themes of love, peace and harmony by depicting a graduation scene. We have a student walking up the steps and receiving a diploma from a professor. We strategically made the diploma the 2 different colors of the people to show that the diploma is uniting them in the moment. Off to the side, we have two family members of the graduate who are hugging and celebrating the achievement. We added some extra lines that Keith uses to make the piece more alive, and added "GRAD 2025" at the top.

#Spotify

Earth Art

For my symbol, I created the Yin and Yang symbol. I used sticks to create the outer circle and filled half of the symbol with pine leaves, and for the other half I used the ground as negative space.

The Yin and Yang symbol is said to have originated from around 206 BCE to 220 CE and likely developed during the Han dynasty in China. The symbol is rooted in Taoism (or Daoism), which is a Chinese religion and philosophy. One of the main aspects of Taoism, is living with "the Tao" which is often translated to "the way" or "the path". The Tao is a universal principle that guides the universe and everything within it.

Core elements of the Tao are harmony, balance, and unison. These elements are clearly demonstrated in the Yin and Yang symbol. Half of a typical Yin and Yang is white and the other half is black. Each half has a circle of the opposite color which depicts balance, and harmony as each color has some of the opposite color within it. The Yin side (black side) represents darkness, the moon, earth, water, and coldness. The Yang side (white side) represents light, the sun, heaven, fire, and warmth. All of these elements must coexist with one another and are governed by the Tao and the way of life.

Feminism

For the topic of feminism I found a Poise advertisement for pads and thought that I could turn it into artwork that speaks to feminism and the market for feminine products. I chose to split the ad into two halves with three girls of varying ages in between to show that they are victims of the market. Since 2019, the price for pads has increased by 41%. Women have no choice but to purchase these products, allowing to the company to charge what they please. For this reason, I chose to create the phrase "Pay to Play." I also included the word "Theft" as this market is an unfair consumer-producer relationship. This phrase demonstrates that for being a woman in our world, you need to spend extra money just to be able to "play" in society.

#Spotify

Minimalism

For my light piece I used a Star Wars light up sign that I have, as well as a strand of green lights that my house used for our Christmas tree. I placed the sign on a chair in front of the green lights to create a sharp contrast between the two colors, and to make the Star Wars sign stand out. The inspiration I took when capturing the piece was based on product photography. My goal was to act as if I was shooting photos of the sign for an advertisement and to make it pop and look clean. However, I also think the photos capture the essence of a college house because the background contains brackets from pong tournaments.

Arte Povera

For my canvas, I used an empty beef jerky bag from my favorite jerky company. To create my piece, I glued old cough drops, sticks of gum, leftover fluff balls from when I created my halloween costume, tape, and tinfoil to my background.

For my conceptual idea, I wanted to demonstrate the development and evolution of creating art. I did this by utilizing the cough drops, and showing how they progressively unwrap, until the full cough drop is shown. This demonstrates that creating a full piece only happens with the completion of little steps. Step-by-step, you can see art come together to its full concept. Similarly, I have 3 sticks of gum on my canvas--1 of which is snapped in half. This idea is supposed to represent the beauty of imperfection and the tape demonstrates the artists effort to strive for perfection and to repair each imperfection.

Pop Art HW

While flipping through my magazines, I noticed a significant amount of home improvement products. I cutout ads for products of custom garage doors, custom walkways, custom doors, blueprint layouts and real estate companies. I noticed the repetitive use of the words "better", "dream, and "home".

According to NerdWallet, Americans spent around $827 billion in total on home renovation projects within a 2 year period. Similarly, Yahoo Finance details that the average home renovation is $51,336. Obviously, home renovations revolve around a huge market that companies look to take advantage of.

"Dream" and "better" were two of the words which I encountered most. Personally, I think this is very interesting because it ties into the whole American Dream idea and the urge to always want more. By repeating the word "better" companies want to to trigger consumers into believing that their home needs work and can always be "better." This causes customers to spend money on their products and services. Always wanting a "better home" makes consumers believe that they are slowly approaching their dream home. By repeating the word "dream" in ads, these companies want consumers to believe that they need their products in order to achieve the look of their dream home.

Midterm

For my midterm, I made my abstract piece on sketch.io . Then, I used a combination of colored pencils, collage, and markers to recreate my piece on paper.

Personally, I felt more control creating my piece digitally. Having the ability to undo mistakes, or restart the entire piece with one click is a great advantage to creating digital art. I was able to make perfectly straight lines and perfect curves, unlike when I created the piece by hand. I also appreciate that digital art does not require any resources and requires less physical work. For example, shading in a large section by hand may get tiring and may require time to get a nice consistent color. Digitally, you can fill in a space with one click, leaving no white marks. However, when doing art by hand, I enjoy seeing the piece come together step by step. Since I am physically making the art, I feel more accomplished at the end and proud of what I have created.

Homework #3

My piece (top), was inspired by Cris's (left) and Alex's (right). I took inspiration from the content and the layout of the pieces. Aesthetically, both pieces have a central object: a lightbulb and a heart. For mine, I chose a margarita. I also took inspiration from their color scheme and used different warm tones to create the background. Alex used mountains and trees in her piece, so I decided to recreate that in an abstract way. I used cutouts of a sand dune for my mountains and placed some tree cutouts, as well. Instead of the dolphin, I placed a Lego cutout of a bandit on a motorcycle. To put my own spin on it, I added some strawberries, riding cookies, who are trying to defend the town from the Lego antagonist.

fionamcgovern

Viewing Art Assignment

For my artwork this week, I took inspiration from the album cover of the album "How to: Friend, Love, Freefall" by Rainbow Kitten Surprise. My favorite song off of this album is called Painkillers. I chose to take inspiration from this album cover because along with enjoying the album itself, the cover already has elements that reminding me of collaging, so I thought it would be perfect for this assignment.

I recreated it by including all of the same elements of the cover, which I cut out of my magazines. Like the cover, I included two chairs, a table with some items on it, and I included a chandelier as a source of light (couldn't find a good standing lamp to cut out). In the cover, there is a rip in the seemingly normal room which leads to what looks like space. I took inspiration from this, but instead of space, my rip in the middle of my art leads to a beautiful sunset over the water.

smorfin5

I am re-blogging Fiona's piece because I think she did a great job at recreating the album in her own way. I like that she chose an Earth background that is bleeding through, rather than the space background. Great job!

otravis1

One of my favorite songs from It Was Good Until It Wasn't by Kehlani is "Can I" because of its smooth, moody vibe with introspective lyrics. The song carries themes of longing, curiosity, and emotional distance, which inspired me to create this piece. I wanted to capture the other side of the album cover, of someone observing from a distance, much like the emotions in the song—being present but not fully engaged. The wall in my artwork represents emotional barriers, while the person looking over it symbolizes the desire to connect but feeling somewhat restrained.

To make this piece my own, I included a doghouse and a water bowl inspired by Kehlani’s album cover, where she wastes water while holding a hose. This detail reflects themes of carelessness, loss, or emotional neglect, reinforcing the song’s undertones of uncertainty and detachment. However, I changed it so the water bowl was half full or empty, depending on how you look at it. That is what I have been trying to change in my life. While the original cover has a dark and intimate atmosphere, I translated its message into a different scene that still carries a sense of isolation and contemplation but a different view of the wall.

smorfin5

I am re-blogging Olivia's piece because the perspective was very inspiring to me. I really admire how she put a unique spin on the album cover and looked at it in a whole different way.

Homework #2

I chose orange and blue for my complementary color background. As for my outfit, it comes complete with a mushroom hat, sunglasses, a blazer, jeans, and a fire-powered skateboard. The model is holding a beer in one hand, a steak in the other, has a LEGO tattoo and a belt made of french toast. The mayonnaise on the right side is being applied to the steak.

Homework #1

I chose the album "I Told Them..." by Burna Boy. I chose to use magazine clippings, colored pencils, and markers. The inspiration I took was from the general layout of the album cover. I have the human subject in the middle, and then I also took inspiration from the text style. I put a "bread" spin on the album, replacing "I Told Them" with "I Made Bread". The subject of my piece is also wielding a bread knife, and a slide of bread can be seen with a sad face to his right. I enjoy cooking and I love food, so I felt that this was an appropriate and funny way to make the album cover my own.

My favorite song from the album is:

#SoundCloud

My name is Sean Morfin, I am from Tucson, Arizona, and I am a senior. I played soccer here at SBU, and am a psych major minoring in Spanish. Outside of soccer and school, I enjoy cooking, skateboarding, traveling, photography, and chess. In the future, I intend to pursue a career as a clinical psychologist. I took Art History 101 last semester and forgot how much I enjoy taking art classes. I look forward to another great semester and am excited to continue creating art!

#Spotify

Final Piece #2

Materials: The title of my piece is "The Game". For materials, I used my sketchbook, and magazine clippings from a Sports Illustrated magazine. I also used 3 sports trading cards and some colored pencils.

Colors: For complementary colors I used blue and orange. This is seen in the cutouts themselves (the athletes, the text and the mountain), as well as the light colored pencil shading on the outside.

Inspiration: I took inspiration from Bianca's piece, specifically from the text in the center of her piece. She cutout a sentence that serves as the message that she wanted the viewer to internalize. In the same way, I added a sentence in my piece that I want the viewers of my art take in: "Help Kids Return to The Game."

Visual Goal: For my visual goal, I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and create a piece that is predominately collage. Usually, I like to have the main part of my art be hand-drawn, and to supplement it with collage. Here, I wanted to fill most of the white space with collage and cutouts, but left some space in the middle so the viewer's eye is brought to the message of the art.

Conceptual Goal: The concept of this art was inspired by the old Play 60 campaign for promoting physical activity among children. I included cutouts and trading cards of pro athletes, and also cutouts of children, in an effort to capture the process of children following their dreams. Above one of the trading cards, the woman is pointing up at the word "Dreams" to further highlight this. The concept here was to inspire children to play sports and that if they dedicate time and effort, they can achieve their wildest dreams and can become like one of their athlete role models. The sentence in the middle "Help Kids Return to The Game" is the focal idea of this piece.

Final Piece #1

Materials: As stated at the top of my piece, the title is "Invest." The materials I used for the piece were my sketchbook, colored pencils, magazine clippings (from a food magazine), and little gray pieces of fluff leftover from my halloween costume (these represent steam).

Colors: The complementary colors I used were red and green. This is seen in the various fruits and vegetables falling into the pot, as well as the pattern in the background.

Inspiration: I took inspiration from Ally for the concept of my art. In her piece, the main aspect of the art is the skull and it has flowers protruding from it. In my piece, I have the main aspect as the pot and the fruits and vegetables are splayed out in the same fashion as the flowers in Ally's piece.

Visual Goal: I wanted to make a piece that has one focal point, but that still has intricate detail in the background and that uses complementary colors to catch the viewer's eye.

Conceptual Goal: The title of my piece is "Invest." At first glance, many associate investing with finance, however, the point of my piece is to inspire others to invest in themselves and their own bodies. Specifically, this piece tackles the topic of healthy eating and why people should invest in keeping their bodies healthy. This is demonstrated by the fruits and vegetables falling into the pot, which is a representation of our choice to eat what we want. I even included a cutout of a healthy recipe at the bottom of my piece. The background of red and green lines is demonstrating how well foods can blend together to make healthy meals, in the same way that complementary colors blend with each other.

Fun facts (click the underlined word for citation)

Nose (facial feature): The human nose, over the course of day, will inhale 5,283 gallons of air (https://adventknows.com/blog/9-things-you-didnt-know-about-your-nose).

Sunglasses: Every 14 minutes, in America, someone breaks or loses their sun glasses.

Walnut: Walnuts were the earliest tree food that humans discovered they could eat. The first walnuts to be eaten by humans are estimated to have been consumed around 7,000 BC.

Apple: A single, average-sized apple has almost double the amount of fiber than one serving of a typical fiber supplement.

Fork: The niece of a Byzantine emperor used a golden fork at her wedding feast. After dying from the plague years later, forks were declared as "evil."

Spoon: It is believed that the first spoons were developed around 1000 BC.

Olive oil: In order to make 1 liter of extra virgin olive oil, it takes roughly 11 pounds of olives.

Shoe (1): The Sketchers company started in 1992, in Manhattan Beach, California.

Shoe (2): According to this website, 1 out of every 8 people own about 100 pairs of shoes.

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