Artifact 8: A Piece of Art
Goal: Examine contemporary and historical cross-cultural examples of art.
The piece of art that I choose for this project was Pick an Apple, Any Apple by Jay Blackstand. It was a very interesting piece because it was separated into 3 panels that composed the painting as a whole. In the fist panel it had a horse coming out of what appeared to be a motorcycle. This i though could be a play on horse power or something along that line. The second panel had a woman’s leg on a table. This panel had me confused because it had just a woman’s leg on it. The final panel had a box or a crate with a bunch of fish in it. It also had an outline of a man who was filled with pictures of older Asian like drawings. I though that this might be symbolizing the mixing of cultures and how they are connected together by a common thing like fish.
Not the painting I saw but one of Jay Blackstrand's paintings
Jay Blackstand has been painting for over 50 years, his paintings are supposed to be narratives. He likes mixing the old with the new to show the contrast between them. He uses things like the panels in the painting that I viewed to have the viewer move in and out between the panels. He likes to use geometric shapes such as dots and grids to help the flow of his paintings. He also chooses to use sharp and saturated colors. Now that I know this about Jay Blackstand I can kind of understand his painting better the horse was there to contrast the old way of travel with the new. The leg on the table was dressed up with a modern flare in contrast to the pictures of a traditionally clad Asian person. I defiantly see more of a tale or message now that I understand what he does as an artist.
Response
I found that this was a good piece of art to choose for this objective. Jay Blackstand seems to exemplify this idea of mixing the old with the new. He likes to use old Asian drawings to contrast the new geometric designs. What this unit showed me though was how much your opinion of a painting can differ so much form what the artist intends it to be. I though that it was going to be something very abstract when I was looking at it. It turns out it was more about contrasting the new with the old. This taught me that what the artist tries to get across doesn’t always come across in the way that they want. What you take away from a painting is your own thing and it may not always agree with the artists.
