My Visual Art Studio by Marina Gurevich

Sketching SKills

Illustration SKills

ART ANALYSIS SKILLS

The process of gathering, storing, and organizing is human nature and essential to human survival. People’s material possessions were always associated with status, power, stability, and wealth. In the modern world, values have shifted, and although many people do collect things, most people believe that rare collections belong to the galleries. In our homes, we collect items for various reasons, often not being conscious of them. When we are children, our possessions are limited to toys, and as we get older and with time, our values continuously get reassessed, and we realize that some belongings no longer serve us a purpose. When the items are no longer valuable to us, we sell them, donate them, or discard them.

Not until after the industrial revolution did people start to pursue the idea of minimalism, which rejected the idea of hoarding things in our homes. I happen to be a minimalist myself. My extensive experience with moving and packing has taught me the importance of reducing, reusing, and recycling. I try to store things I need and discard or donate things I don’t need. I equally enjoy doing both, but the most excitement comes from the experience of finding a new use for an old item. Then once again, that item comes to life by being transformed into a new possession. The things that do score a chance to be refurbished are usually constructed of quality materials, whether it is paper, textile material, wood, or metal. High-quality items always ask for a second chance and an extension of their lifetime. That is why I have a closet full of art supplies. Together with the purchased supplies, I collect interesting used items that I might reuse by reinventing their purpose. I like to collect appealing tags from new clothes and packages and nice-looking containers that I hope to repurpose again. Inspired by the artwork of American Installation artist Mark Dion, I created a personal collection or box of curiosities by using some of those saved items.

ABOUT MARK DION

The artist that inspired my project is Mark Dion, a conceptual artist. I recently discovered that my art skills are not limited to drawing; I enjoy creating all types of conceptual art using various materials. I am drawn to conceptual art because it pushes me to think outside the box to solve problems.

Mark Dion is an American installation artist, born in 1961 in Bedford, Massachusetts. He is part of the Conceptual Art Movement that developed between the mid-1960s and mid-’70s. Conceptual art stresses the idea behind the art piece rather than aesthetics, expression, and skill. As a child, Mark Dion had a hobby collecting sea-shells, his hobby had later transformed into a passion, and he began to collect various items to assemble them into conceptual art projects. His ideas of organizing elements in his installations challenge the audience’s prior knowledge of the taxonomy of things.

THE ANALYSIS OF MARK DION'S ARTWORK

We ultimately have our own sense of organization, which is mainly seen around our homes. Sometimes, that organization can be an art in itself. However, what is unique about Mark Dion's installations is that the items are classified according to art concepts, such as form, shape, color, and texture, rather than their traditional taxonomy according to natural sciences and the origin of things. The artist uses various excavated objects to create a variety of colors, patterns, shapes, textures, and forms. There is a compositional unity in Dion's installations. The use of closets is a perfect way to organize the contents and create the negative space around the objects while emphasizing their form and color. His installations carry the duality of both representational and abstract art because they display simple objects in the most unusual way. All Dion's installations have a great sense of expression, maintaining attention to the variety, scale, symmetry, balance, and proportions. For example, in his artwork Cabinet of Marine Debris, created in 2014, the artist organizes the found objects according to their form and texture while also adhering to the balance of color when using the split-complementary hues of the twelve-color wheel. His techniques bring unity to the assemblage. The concept behind each of his installations is to carry a powerful message. For example, the Cabinet of Marine Debris, a collection of littered containers collected from the shores around the world, is an outcry to stop the pollution of our environment.

About My Work Process

When working on my art piece, I decided to borrow some of Dion’s ideas while trying to maintain my style as well. Whenever possible, I wanted to classify my collected items according to their form and texture. I used various packaging materials such as box inserts for shipping glass bottles, shoebox cover cut into the frame, small round glass vases, matches, bamboo sticks, a small round mirror, an aluminum container, aluminum wires, a fancy wooden bottle cap, a stainless steel scrubbing pad, cedar-wood mothballs, various strings, hangtags, a bead necklace, shopping bags, and gift wrap. Once I noticed the unique form of the packaging material in which I could compartmentalize my collection, I decided to modify the box to take the form of a tic-tac-toe game. To stress the intersecting lines that resemble the Xs, I used red gouache to paint along the edges of the surface. I used the white paper handles from the gift bags to form the Os encircling the edge surface of the round vases. To fill the space around the Xs, I utilized some of the collected items in a few compartments. Then, I used the red objects such as string, small scissors, and art pliers with red handles to create a dominance of red hue in each compartment while bringing the overall unity of color to the whole assemblage. I wanted to create a balance and variety in my composition. Therefore, I tried to deviate from following the same pattern of lines slightly. For example, I painted the lines thicker on the surface of one X and a broken line on the surface of another X. I used the hot glue gun to attach the contents to each box compartment.

Inspired by Japanese art, which emphasizes the presentations and small details, I added some features. For example, I attached the printed paper to the box's frame to cover the original shoe box label. I drew a koi fish using organic decorative shapes with a black fine-line marker on a couple of craft sticks. The project was a meticulous process and took patience, but I also felt inspired and involved. More importantly, it motivated me to analyze my organizational theory and style; whether it's an interior design project or a product design, small details can play a huge role.

OBJET TROUVÉ - ANOTHER ASSEMBLAGE ART PROJECT