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Hollow Myth
Josh Green • May 18, 2021
My thesis exhibition Hollow Myth.
Hollow Myth, which showed in the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery on May 1 – 4, 2021, was the end of a long but wonderful journey. The Alfred-Dusseldorf Painting MFA program was everything I hoped it would be. I was allowed to play endlessly for two years, and I went deep into myself and my art practice. I had time to reflect on everything: how I painted, why I painted, what my core beliefs are, where I want to go, who I want to be in the art world, &c. The program and I managed to stay the course despite everything that happened in 2020. There was an international pandemic, deportation from Germany, the fear of in person study amongst rising covid cases, social unrest and revolution. But Alfred became an oasis from the world, and it's isolation allowed all of the students here to continue with some normalcy. I managed to learn and grow in all the ways I hoped I would. Through this exhibition, I feel that I have laid a foundation to build my art practice on.
I had the privilege of exhibiting along side the incredible ceramist Shauna Fahley and her thesis show "Sunder". After a grueling 13 hour install of her work, I appreciated being a painter. My good friend and ceramic grad Noah Greene and I hung from the back of a fork lift to counter-balance the 600 lbs. ceramic horses as we placed them onto the gallery floor, and may I note, with out a scratch.
Due to covid restrictions, very few people were able to attend the show in person. With the help of Caitlin Brown, the head of Social Media, I was able to stream my opening around the globe attended the Zoom. It was a great success with many people in attendance. That is one of the positives of the pandemic, platforms like Zoom have made art exhibitions accessible to anyone with internet.
It took a few weeks for to decide on the lay out for the show. Sharon McConnell, the director of the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery, lent me a small foam model of the gallery to experiment with. I made tiny to-scale models of all of my paintings, along with wood blocks for Shauna's sculptures which can be seen in the video bellow.
It was a great privilege to design the show with Sharon and Shauna. I learned so much from both of them. For example, balancing the visual weight of the room, guiding the viewer through the gallery, dynamic placement, etc. Also, to have the luxury of such a large gallery was a dream, and how it dignified my art. I had only seen my painting hung tightly together in my messy studio. I was always paniced thinking there is no way I had enough work to fill the gallery space, but once we began installing, I edited out 5 paintings. They are small but they held the floor. Once again I would like to thank everyone who helped me set up the show, Shauna Fahley, Noah Greene, Sharon McConnell, and Caitlin Brown!
I am proud to introduce my friend Kathi Schultz. She is a German artist expanding the field of painting through AI. Kathi share with us the importance of AI, and her hopes for the future of Human/AI relations.
I am proud to introduce my friend Jhnae' a.k.a S.mple Str.ngs. I invited Jhnae' to be interviewed because she has transcended the societal norms that once stunted her through her art. She tells us about her journey with key ideas for everyone's art practice. - Regina Baker, Multimedia Specialist Mvthas Kitchen LLC www.mvthaskitchen.com There was also a featured photo on the website shown on power point. - Lena Ibrahim lenibrahim@gmail.com Information for whom has engineered my music that is currently streaming on most available platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and more. - Efayeme Astralnaut Productions • astralnautproductions@gmail.com My social media is @s.mplestr.ngs for Instagram. My website is currently in production for Notabouti, LLC. People may contact me at s.mplestr.ngs@gmail.com to receive email updates, simply to connect, or subscribe.
Today, I went to the Matthew Wong exhibition "Foot Prints in the Wind" at Cheim and Read Gallery in Chelsea, NY. This is an exhibition of his early work consisting ink washes on rice paper. Wong is taking an contemporary approach to an ancient Chinese tradition.
I would like to introduce my friend Michael Flora who is a recent graduate from the renown Alfred University Electronic Integrated Arts MFA. I chose to interview Michael because of his unique stance on creativity. Michael is applying Post-Humanist philosophies to his studio practice. He collaborates with his materials, in this case code, to create his art work. Michael discusses how these techniques helped him to create his thesis exhibition Pedesis. Instagram: @masarufloraNew Paragraph
I interviewed my long time friend and artist Kenny Jordan. What I find fascinating about Kenny is that he has developed his own way of thinking from the ground up. Kenny relates the personalities of the people around him to colors. He thinks of artistic concepts as a separate space with in a 2-d space. In the interview we discussed his work, making art in a small town, and being an artist in the South. Instagram: @pablo_el_painter Website: www.kennthhjordanii.com
It is my honor to introduce my dear friend, the vibrant Anastasiya Serdyukova. Anastasiya studied both the French and Russian Academic drawing and painting methods before pursuing art restoration. Anastasiya currently lives and works in Gothenburg, Sweden. On the show, Anastasiya shares her life, her art restoration practice, and her essential tips to help artists make art that lasts. Anastasiya also introduces her art business, Amornament, an Etsy shop that sells her ornamental patterns.
Over the past few months, I have being working on a holy image generator. I am using a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), an image generating artificial intelligence, to find patterns common between all religious and spiritual imagery. To make the holy image generator, I first needed to compile a dataset of example images. This required me for a few hours each day to get on to Google Images and downloaded religious imagery from all time periods and all religions. I tried to get a diverse dataset, which is usually a bad idea because the imagery will be highly abstract, but in my case that is what I was hoping for. There is then a training period where the AI examines the images and seeks patterns common to all images. After the training period it is ready to generate original imagery.
My Written Thesis The American fine art thesis is supplementary to the show. The thesis exhibition is the final thesis. The goal of the written thesis is to provide a conceptual context for the work, and to explain artistic processes. Instead of coming to literal conclusions, I wrote loosely setting a mood in which to consider my work. This absolutely bewildered my editor when I handed her my paper. She asked me, "Where is the rest of it? What the hell is this?" I had a good laugh and realized how long I had been submerged in the art world. I had forgotten this type of writing isn't standard. Hopefully, this will provide the correct context in which to read the thesis.
In the next week, I will be packing my show Hollow Myth to be shipped to Dusseldorf for a show this October. Alfred University is renting the space that was the Anna Klingermann Gallery in the heart of the Altstadt for the exhibition. It is a prime location right next to the Kunstakademie. With vaccinations rolling out now in Europe, the art season should be in full swing in the month of October. It is an incredible opportunity for me to make connections in the vivacious art scene there. Exact dates of the show have not been set. I am planning on doing a virtual opening for the show, so that no one misses out.