SMP Midterm Critiques

The SMP Projects that most interested me at this midterm critique were Jeannie's figurative sculptures and Ashley's collections.

Jeannie greatly shifted scale and texture this semester. Revised from life-size objects that hinted at human identity to smaller, 2'-3' female figures, she abandoned surface adornment for the innate texture of the materials she used, plaster coating wire superstructure and where the figures are 'wounded' we see that structure along with new materials appearing as insides bursting, oozing or gushing out. The pain of these figures is more immediate than last semester's sculptures, and movement is more evident in these new figures as well. Whereas last semester's sculptures offered the impression of evolution or rather devolution and disintegration over years, the new figures' struggles appear to culminate in action now, as we observe.

Ashley's collections are an intriguing diversion from last semester's embroidered portraits. She reworked the autobiographical content, from portraits of acquaintances using fabric from her mother's collection, she now presents portraits of collected items of her mother and father(spoons and oil cans respectively.) While her people portraits last semester increased greatly in size from one critique to the next, this new work presents the aspect of size in a new way that leads one to question its consideration. The spoons collection presents actual-size spoons. The oil can collection shows miniature portraits, and the button collection contains many individual buttons portrayed larger than life - 3"-4"(?) each contained in their own paper handmade shadowbox. The button collection brought to mind the fetishism behind the idea of collecting, and the careful attention people can ehibit with regards to these fetishes. I also got a small feeling of the artist fetishing her own labor, which may or may not be a layer of meaning behind the familial context of her collections of embroidered portraits.

After the considerable developmental advances these artists and the others have made over the school year I am intrigued to see the final exhibition.