A Portrait of Thought

Post your review of the MFA Thesis Exhibit (Museum of Fine Arts):


In showcasing the culmination of work by five WSU Master of Fine Arts graduate candidates, the 2009 Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition accentuated notion that every artist has a distinctive style and that unique meanings are to be derived from his/her art. Upon entering the gallery, I was exposed to what appeared to be an assortment of unconnected culminations of art. While the pieces of each artist were professionally situated around the room, they were chaotic and inconsistent in meaning, style, and form. The lack of conformity between each artist detracted from being able to derive a meaningful take home message. Relationships between each of five artist’s art were skin-deep at best, in that the only commonality appeared to be that they were all students at Washington State University.

As a student majoring in neuroscience, I have been taught, when locating an unknown structure in my neuro-anatomy lab, to begin by first identifying a familiar area of the brain. I believe the same concept applies to extracting meaning out of art. At the exhibition, the art of each artist appeared to drift into different realm of meaning and representation, making it fitting that each pool of work was isolated to one side of the gallery by empty wall space. In attempting to extract value from the exhibit, I started by identifying pieces of art that I could relate with.

Immediately, the work of Brad Dinsmore resonated with me. On his website he described that his work “creates a context where the mood or general feeling can be understood, but like a memory the more you focus on it or try to understand the specifics, the more elusive it becomes.” His pieces had a consistent theme revolving around the impact that thought and memory have on mood and the execution of emotion.

In Converging Thoughts (included above), Dinsmore uses a combination of scribbles and doodles to represent individual thoughts and memories. Consistent with modern day science which suggests that the creativity is predominated by the right side of the brain, I interpreted the colorful squiggles, above the man’s right hemisphere, to represent creative thought and unrestricted imagination. I perceived the black doodles, above the man’s left hemisphere, to represent comprehendible memories and analytical thought as the outlines of a hand and even a bird could be recognized. In the portrait, it is the confrontation of creative thought and rational memories that create knowledge and emotion. The man’s preponderance of knowledge and emotional content are the consequence of his converging ideas.

My interpretation is further supported in Dinsmore’s Problems of Knowledge, Letting Go, and Learning to See. In Problems of Knowledge, knowledge is again represented by the intertwining of black and colorful squiggles between the hands in the piece. What separates this piece from Converging Thoughts is that the colorful squiggles are only shades of green. I believe that Dinsmore uses specific colors to thoughts that evoke distinct emotions. Although there is no indication of the category of mood in Problems of Knowledge, the title suggests that green may induce a “problematic” emotional state of disorientation and confusion.

The portrait Letting Go, the man has yellow, green, and black forms hovering over his head. He appears to be in a pondering state of confusion and confliction as to how to let go of the knowledge lurking above him. Interestingly, the man appears to be comfortable with his mood, which is suggestive that yellow stimulates a level of satisfaction and content. The piece is consistent with Problems of Knowledge, where I interpreted green to represent an emotional state of confusion. I’d imagine that red would convey an angry emotional state and blue a sad mood if similar paintings of Dinsmore were accessible.

While I did not derive a meaningful take home message from the exhibit as a whole due to its incoherent and distractive nature, I did find the work of Brad Dinsmore to be evocative and significant. Dinsmore’s collection illustrated the physical representation of a manifestation of thoughts. With squiggles, scribbles, and doodles, Dinsmore played with the philosophy that thought is real and that only its physical form is an illusion. Often we as a society fail to recognize the value and shear existence of thoughts in nature because we cannot see them nor are we exposed to the hidden fantasies of others. Dinsmore sheds a beautiful light on thought and its influence on mood, making the viewer more aware that he/she is the one ultimately in control of emotional state in which he/she lives.

Image Above:
Brad Dinsmore
Converging Ideas (2009)
Charcoal and Crayon on paper

Freudian Analysis of Madonna

Which of the following artists/fictional protagonists (a. Spiderman, b. Jackson Pollock, c. Madonna) lends him/herself to a Freudian/Foucaultian analysis and why? Choose one for a brief Foucaultian/Freudian analysis.

For the purposes of this assignment, I believe Madonna lends herself to a Freudian analysis. In the “Revelation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming,” Freud explained his perception of the relationship between art and the human unconscious process. He focused on how a poet’s art was a reflection of his/her day-dreams and unconscious processes. As a professional singer,
Madonna’s songs represent a form of poetry, making her a prime candidate for Freudian theory.

Freudian theory conveyed that the poet is a day-dreamer and that his/her art is the equivalent of a day-dream. He believed, through the assessment of art, one could construe the artist’s unconscious thoughts and suppressed day-dreams.

Madonna’s most popular song, arguably, is “Like a Virgin.” The main chorus of the song is as follows: (for complete lyrics visit http://www.madonnalyrics.org/like_a_virgin.html)

“Like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
When your heart beats
Next to mine”

On the surface, Madonna’s song “Like a Virgin,” appears to be about a girl who is confused about love after enduring a number of unsuccessful relationships. She is vulnerable and depressed in her bewildered search for love. She then meets a man who then sweeps her off her feet and for the first time, like a virgin engaging in sexual intercourse, she feels unrestricted love.

Using Freudian analysis, one could interpret that “Like a Virgin” clandestinely represents Madonna’s unconscious longing to be protected and cared for by a male figure. The song was her way of unconsciously crying out for someone to protect her with a shield of love. At the time of the song’s conception, it could be interpreted that she was uncertain if love would find her in her fruitless journey and that her day-dreams were engulfed with worrisome feelings. By repressing her day-dreams, Madonna, at a surface level, was able to disconnect her personal day-dreams from the song. Freudian analysis would claim that the song exposed her unconscious instead of concealing her feelings.

Image From: http://media.marketwire.com/attachments/200603/MOD-253305_MadonnaTourPic.jpg

"The Heidi Chronicles"

Discuss “The Heidi Chronicles” from whichever angle you please. You may consider the art/gender issue we have discusses which Heidi is concerned with, e.g. in connection with the above two artworks. Briefly put: does gender determine art? Any notes on the WSU performance?

The two mentioned art works depict a segment from the deuterocanical Book of Judith in which Judith beheads Holofernes. From a historical standpoint, Judith was a Jewish widow of noble rank in Bethulia, a town besieged by the army of the Assyrian general Holofernes. To defeat her captor, Judith seduced Holofernes with her beauty and successfully got him drunk. After Holofernes fell asleep, Judith and her maid Abra beheaded Holofernes with his sword. Judith brought the head back to Bethulia which sent the leaderless Assyrians in fleet. The event marked the Hebrew’s victory.

The paintings are significant to “The Heidi Chronicles” because they illustrate a female heroine who was ultimately rewarded for passionately acting on her beliefs. The paintings glorify Heidi’s lifestyle in which she made sacrifices to advance the interest of the women’s movement. Heidi was a female heroine in that she passionately acted on her values, instead of the expectations of women imposed by society. She forfeited the traditional duties of a wife by never marrying, she advocated for equitable representation of women in the art world, and she empowered her sex by conveying that women are not obligated to conform to social expectations. She expressed that women should aim for their 10 and in fighting to ensure women could without restraint; she lost sight of what her 10 represented. In the end Heidi won as she realized that her efforts had opened doors for women and that her daughter would learn from the mistakes of her mother.

Does gender determine art?

In answering the question I could only wonder if “The Heidi Chronicles” would be any less meaningful if a man had written it. I believe that the play would be less meaningful; hence, while gender does not determine art, it greatly influences it. Until men and women are equal in every aspect there will be a difference, even if it is slight, between art produced by a woman and art produced by a man.

The WSU performance?

I was impressed by the WSU performance. It was a great opportunity to see an entirely different perspective and interpretation on “The Chronicles of Heidi.” When I initially read the play I interpreted the ending as a sorrowful moment in which Heidi seemingly gave up on the pursuit of her happiness and was dissatisfied with Scoop. The WSU performance sold me on their jovial interpretation of the ending in which Heidi appeared satisfied and content with her current position in life.


Image Above:
Judith Beheading Holofernes (1598-1599)
Michelangelo Caravaggio