ladybird

Cecilia Salama

artist's studio


cast concrete, black resin, nylon, sand 2009


welded steel, fabric, pva 2007

She took the bus to Pawtucket in search of dog fur — “There are no groomers in Providence,” she claimed — and pounded the pavement collecting the sweepings from Thayer Street hair salons. Then she stuffed the hair — big, tangled clods of it — into nylon stockings, creating pendular sculptures that swing gently from the ceiling and the walls.

Salama’s show is the culmination of an independent study project on art inspired by the body. She worked with Paul Myoda, assistant professor of visual art, who helped her find artistic precedents to respond to, like the messy, organic works of Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith and Eva Hesse.

After many weeks of research and planning, Salama made the works all at once so there could be “a strong dialogue between them all.”

“Mostly, I just like experimenting, playing around with different things, different forms,” Salama said.

“You can plan all you like, but you never know how it’s going to turn out,” she continued.

For Salama, the show’s dominant aesthetic is the contrast between “clean and dirty.” She said she used resin to give the homely works a kind of sheen, making them more visually complex.

http://ps1.org/studio-visit/artist

Ray Johnson - collages, postal art and bunnyheads

Walking Man, 1958–59
Collage on cardboard panel

38 x 33.5 cm

http://www.ravenrow.org/galleries/moticosgifts/

Wind from the Sea
1948
Tempera

Andrew Wyeth's painting is a scene from a room on the top floor of his friend’s house in coastal Maine and captures a moment on a hot summer day, when the tattered and transparent curtains are blown into the room by wind coming from the sea. The window almost serves as a frame and places the viewer inside the room.

Andrew Wyeth had said that ‘its all in how you arrange the thing… the careful balance of design is motion.’ In terms of color, this painting is not very adventurous. The hues used are mainly white, yellow-orange, green and some black. Though only warm colours have been used, the sense of motion in the painting and the black used for the trees in the distance gives the painting some cool spots. The colours are analogous with a basic analogous scheme of yellow and yellow-orange.

Office in a Small City is a 1953 painting by the American realist painter Edward Hopper. It depicts a man sitting in a corner office surveying the landscape outdoors. The style is reminiscent of many of Hopper's works in that it depicts loneliness and beauty in a uniquely stark yet pleasing fashion. It is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City