Art Walk: Birth of a New Consciousness $28,000!!

My friend and I also talked about this one. He said that the painting is about duality and how having a conscious is good and bad. He believes that the left side represents malevolence while the right side represents benevolence. I slightly agree, but believe it is more complex than that. The malevolence isn’t really malevolence per se, but a more logical mechanical process. It is neutral. It sometimes leads to malevolence, sometimes it does not. This is why the person is being sprayed with light. The other side represents growth and love. It is also neither good nor bad, but neutral. Growth and love isn’t always good because one can grow to become something sinister and love can turn into obsession, which isn’t good either. This is why the light coming from the right side seems to darker and painful.

My friend didn’t know what the masked meant or why there was a hole in his chest. I thought the mask represented the consciousness itself. People do not have to follow their consciousness regardless of what it says. It is like a mask you put on. As for the hole, having consciousness is a burden and the hole can represent that burden. My friend ended up agreeing with me.

The subtly of the duality in this portrait is interesting because it is not a regular duality being displayed. It is a duality of Ying and Yang, but the opposites found in the opposing colors are more than tiny dots. It is neither graceful nor elegant, but a fierce painful growth. If it wasn’t for the lighting on the human body, the complexity of the right and left side would go unnoticed. It would also fit more with my friend’s initial interpretation.

I'm not sure if there are any general criteria here, but In terms of taste-set I doubt this painting will sell for $28,000. My friends and I liked it, but not enough to pay $28,000. Maybe if it were around 100 or so. We both understood that this was a form of modern art, but we had no idea if it was a piece that was redone or a first of its kind. We also don't understand why it is worth $28,000. I guess that mystery will remain unsolved.

Art Walk: Skulls

These are the Skulls from the dA Gallery that reminded me of day of the dead. They were all in a glass towards the back of the room.

Art Walk

Art Walk the first encounter

From everything I’ve seen, I noticed the New Traditionalist was the most populated. So I’m going to assume that this was the hottest gallery based on the number of people. I’m not sure if it was the room that drew people or the art. However, this gallery did have the most expensive art going into the thousands. All the other galleries seemed empty and hard to find. There were two that were underground and these galleries were not as populated. However, the food put out was missing. This might indicate several people stopped by before I arrived, but it can also mean one person sat around and ate all the food.

In terms of identifying what makes what what, I would imagine the New Traditionalist is a composite of three things. It is a composite of something new, something traditional and something that mixes the two. The skull case reminds me of day of the dead, which is a relatively old tradition. The new portraits such as the ones done by Yolanda Gonzales are the “new things.” Finally, a mixture of the two could be Birth of a Consciousness.

In terms of taste sets, I noticed there was a lot of Native American/Hispanic looking art. To me, this might mean that new “hot” art revolves around Native American/Hispanic culture. A lot of the art was religious and other parts of the art involved death. Natives Americans/Hispanics tended to be religious and they do have festivals involving the day of the dead. I also know that Hispanic culture tends to shy away from their Indians roots and favor their Spanish roots. This could be a way of reconciliation between the two.

I’m not sure if there were any portraits that were alike that could be compared for general criteria. A lot of the drawings were radically different and I suppose an intensive look could discern some, but I wasn’t there long enough to find any. However, there was one set of portraits (Sotto Voce Series 1-6) that were of the same thing, but from different perspectives. So, I imagine that an individual could spend time talking about which angle brought out the picture the most. Some people said it was an eagle, but I thought it could also be a griffon. I imagine if they were photographs, it would have to be different aspects of an eagle in flight.

I wasn’t able to interview any artist because every artist seemed to always be talking to someone else. However, I was able to talk to one woman about portraits in the Main Street Gallery. These portraits were individually done by Tom Oliver. They were basically picture of hotels that had outrageous names: DragonSlayer, The Mummy, The Conqueror, Dr. Cyclops, The Y and Poltergeist. The portraits were not that interesting, but the names on the portraits were. The woman I encountered revealed to me that Oliver names all his paintings in the same fashion. However, she didn’t know why he gave them outlandish names. This conversation didn’t help with understanding the art or the artist, but after I figured out why Oliver named this pieces the way he does, I was able to understand his art and his hotels more.

To follow up
To Getty project

Pictures that didn't make it into the essay
Indian
The Secret