Art in Progress

Faces are HARD

2012-01-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

I always struggled with drawing faces. And I've always looked for ways of avoiding them.

I think I always drew but I at some point when I was pretty tiny I started making comics. Because faces were so hard I made up a sort of creature that would be the characters that had very simple body shapes. The comics were usually about a cast of characters called things like the Reader (Leitora), the Vain (? Vaidosa), the Lucky (Sortudo, guy), Grandma, etc. The main character was the Leitora.. a girl. All vaguely cute and embarrassing.

They looked more or less like this. It was important to have some versality, ie be able to draw lots of different outfits.

A few years later I was more comfortable drawing bodies so I created the Formigas (ants). These guys had much more bendable bodies, more joints. These stories were mostly re-tellings of my own life. Like a day at the beach, or that time I went to Fatima. All of these were really centered on step by step descriptions. Like, put on clothes, eat breakfast, go in car, get some place, etc. I will dig up pictures of some of this at some point.

Years after that I discovered super hero comics and started drawing compulsively. Suddenly school became this awesome amount of time where I could fill all my notebooks with drawings. It was such a marked transition that I remember my History teacher telling me, "I understand that you have just discovered this and it's great. But it's going to stop. During class you gave to pay attention." This memory allows me to pinpoint this: it was in 4th grade. It didn't stop. It was mostly superheroes: flying, jumping, zapping things, very dramatic. Now they were human bodies but without heads. Heads were still hard, I didn't know how to do it, and drawing bodies was amazing. Like its own special power, there was so much to explore. I was so comfortable with this decision I would even draw empty neck sockets.

This was not at all drawn by me. It was drawn by Joe Madureira for a comic called Astonishing X-Men, back in the 90's. This was a drawing that so compelled me I drew it over and over. I'm fairly certain it was part of that catalytic moment when I started drawing all the time. I'm sure that remnants of Madureira's style are still part of how I draw.. especially hands and feet. Which are a favorite subject. Maybe because of him.

More years pass, already in college, trying to pass for an artist, I still didn't want to paint faces. I found all kinds of great reasons not to do it, much better articulated. I still like some of these reasons. Mostly that we are hardwired to pay a lot of attention to faces. A face in a painting is very distracting. Who is the person? Why are they in the piece? I like to find emotional expression in the body language instead of the face - the hands are the faces, the curve of the back is the face - I still really like that.

This is probably the best example. "That hand is the face" I would say, and sometimes still do.

(This is a panel from the painting The bud, the pot and the spider)

BUT. The paintings I've been working on now really need faces - worse yet, similar faces (the same person appears multiple times, to express multiple states of mind). So. I've been trying to deal with it:

Face from the new series... still looks kind of funny but I was happy with that nose. Check out that double highlight! Does not look like the model tho.

Another study, another step: this face is TALKING!

Making a new HeLa piece

2012-01-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

I made a giant HeLa piece, it's 70 x 70 in! This isn't a great shot of the whole thing but it's really hard to capture the whole thing...

Here's the making of the piece:

In each HeLa piece I feel that I'm exploring different ways of interpreting the cells. The lines are the skeleton of the cell. In this case I kept the lines separated by cell, instead of connecting the mass of cells together. The whole body of each cell either fades away of replicates the line pattern. I was interested in the result of an impression of rhythm throughout the whole painting, which gave it a nice sense of motion.

I am really happy with individual moments in the piece that are below, there is a lot of movement and.. a lot to look at.. at least for my eyes :)

Girls and apples becomes a sculpture! (maybe)

2012-01-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

The idea! making a sculpture:

Meninas e macas. Steel, about 1.8 m high.

I'm really excited about a project I'm working on right now: making a sculpture based on my Girls+Apples series. If you know my work, you've probably already been bombarded with this imagery :) In the series, I've played with the apple as the biblical symbol, a symbol of awareness, sexuality, maturity, etc. Most of these works were drawings or paintings of girls finding or being found by apples. In some cases, the girl is split in several aspects of herself, reflecting the multiplicity of states of mind. Recently, this series took a new direction where the girls went from receiving apples to being the source for apples - the girls became a tree.

I was challenged to create an outdoor sculpture that would be seen mostly straight-on or straight from the back - instead of from every angle. It was also was meant to fit in in a yard surrounded by trees. I thought about this for a long time and came to the idea of converting one of the "tree" drawings into a 2 D sculpture.

This is the drawing the sculpture was based on: Tree. Mixed media on paper. App 14 x 14 in. 2011.

I had been curious about laser cut metal sculpture. This is an industrial process where a laser cuts outlines or shapes out of sheet metal. The machine can read designs from a vector image in a digital file. So I converted one of my drawings to a vector drawing using Adobe

Illustrator.

Above is an image from the work in progress. One of the figures in the original drawing was bugging me - it just didn't look right. The drawing was based on a photoshoot I did with my lovely, helpful friends (thanks guys!). While I loved the drawing, the same figures were not working in the sculpture. So I went back to the original photos and re-drew the figure (in blue) over the old design. Then this new figure was merged into the rest of the sculpture.

Final design.

Converting a drawing for this purpose was particularly interesting because the drawings are already a study in line and flat color fields of the body. For this translation, the lines and fields combine and it becomes a 2-color composition.

To figure out what to do I contacted a shop and they were very helpful in determining the best material and giving feedback on the design. I am really excited about the level of detail that is possible (check the toes and bellybuttons) and also how organic the outlines can look. Since the sculpture will be outdoors in a humid, salty environment (yay, coast!), it's planned to be made in a type of steel that will weather particularly well, becoming that dark, rusty metal we call "ferro forjado" that looks so beautiful.

Nothing is settled until the actual sculpture is put in the ground.. I've actually been holding on to this post for a few weeks. Today the ok was given to start CUTTING the metal!

Open Studio in December

2011-12-20T18:02:00.000-08:00

I had an open studio a week or so ago and it was GREAT. Thank you to everyone who made the trek in the middle of the first super-cold night of the year!

It was a great motivator to get a bunch of paintings I had been planning, here is a video panorama for you who couldn't come :)

Dunno.

2011-12-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

"Dunno," 36 x 36 in, 2011. In-progress.

In this one, I'm really breaking up the brushstrokes instead of smoothing them out.

I dunno and but I like it :)

What? UNDO.

2011-12-12T20:40:00.000-08:00

Continuing the "Multitudes" project... expanding the series started with Hum?Hum. and Secrets.

The piece is Look, 36 x 36 in, oil on canvas.

Closer to done!

After working with trios for a long time, I'm enjoying working with pairs. I stayed away from pairs for a long time because they tend to become opposites. Now they are becoming interesting as a way of subverting that notion.

I take a lot of snapshots during the painting. For many reasons. The main one is that there is no UNDO! And, in painting, you can really lose something you liked before. There's no getting it back. It's the opposite of life really. In life, if there is no proof you can always deny it!

It's also important to capture these snapshots because they give me an over-all effect - they give me some distance from the piece. Quite literally. I'm constantly surprised by the huge difference of seeing the same painting up close and far away. Snapshots and their analysis become a routine exercise for me. For example, these shots helped me realize the head on the right was HUGE! It is now fixed.. Also, they help me capture the more illusive notions of a "composition that works" or a "good rhythm." Sometimes a piece will pass through a good stage and then lose it, and I study these pictures desperately to try to understand why it looked so much better at that one point!

This one is What, also 36 x 36 in. What I learned from this shot: I really like the face on the right, it looks natural, sort of amused and very loose - I'm going to have to resist the temptation to play with it more; the head on the left is not working though, it looks a bit square. Also the shadows on the hands and rib cage from afar look a bit too dark and interrupt the natural modeling of the body.

Many new things

2011-12-01T16:24:00.001-08:00

I thought it might be fun to share some of the steps on a current piece. I would say they are a method, but ask me any other day and the answer will likely be very different.

I've been working on a series about HeLa cells. I explain here more about why they are fascinating. The focus of these works have been the study of the cytoskeleton, a structure each cells forms and destroys dynamically as they decide where to go. The cytoskeleton is made up (loosely) of small tubes that assemble into longer tubes, at the membrane they form a structure that allows them to grab onto the floor so they can drag themselves around.. towards food and whatever needs the cell has. This essentially is a window into the decision making of the cell.. how cool.

Here are some sketches of the latest piece...

Original sketch. The sketch is based on microscopic imagery I got from a lab at Carnegie Mellon. I've been studying the same set of photos for a while, looking at the lines created by the skeleton in different ways. As the structure and body of individual cells, as the connector between cells, or as the structure of the larger group of cells..

A few weeks in.

Detail.

A bit later in, I took a photo of the painting to draw digitally on in Photoshop. This let me play with different locations for the skeleton lines without causing irreversible damage. When o when, will there be an UNDO in painting?

Right now!

New drawing: combing hair

2011-11-15T18:14:00.001-08:00

Viewing the 9/11 Memorial

2011-11-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

Recently we got the chance to see the 9/11 memorial from one of the adjacent buildings, the Millenium Hilton. 9/11 has been so heavily documented and discussed, and the 10th anniversary coverage so intense that I was surprised to be moved when looking at the memorial. The memorial is very simple, very striking, very moving - it says everything. Maybe even more so from above, where we can see the clean cut holes and the surrounding forest of buildings. A beautiful choice, like a peaceful scar. Don't forget - learn and move on.

I also took the following video of the whole site. It's interesting how small the holes look in relation to the size of the people around them, but we can see that the new tower (only at half the final size) has a very similar sized base.

(No sound.)

Another thing that moves me most is hearing stories of how each person learned about what was happening.

I was in Pittsburgh during 9/11, I had just moved to the States that August. I was living with family and barely knew anybody at school. I had gone into Carnegie Mellon that morning and passed a small clump of people hanging in front of a large TV in one of the big common buildings. I passed by a couple of times until I realized that they were not watching some action movie, but the news; the first two planes had hit. We still proceeded to class, what else were we to do? During class, a big lecture hall, someone came in and whispered something to the teacher, and they announced that we were to evacuate the school. The cell phones were already not working properly, overloaded. The feeling of confusion was such that I just went to work instead, at one of CMU's research facilities, until we got told to leave there as well. It was unclear why we were evacuating or why going home would be better. A rumor went around that Pittsburgh would be on a top 10 list of symbolic places to hit in the States because of its role in the steel industry or that CMU itself could be a target. I tried to go home except the buses had been diverted for the evacuation efforts (ironic) so I hung out on the street for hours with a growing number of strangers. It was strange and unreal but not necessarily very scary. The news about a plane falling in PA had made people outside of Pittsburgh more worried about us than we were. The rest of the day was spent in front of the computer trying to absorb all the news as if that would explain everything...

Where were you?

VCCA

2011-11-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

Some people have asked what VCCA looked like, and my descriptions of "beautiful", "really not like a city" and "there are all these animals" don't really do it justice. Here are some shots of this - I have to say - beautiful, cozy piece of heaven:

Pictures were taken in September - makes it even more special to look at in mid-November :)

Above is the residency hall, the whole building is about twice as long, and it includes the dining room where we have dinner, two large living rooms and the library. In the evenings, some of the writers would give readings, which were awesome. I like them so much I spent the rest of time bugging writers to do it more. It seems to have surprisingly little appeal to *them*! Terence Anthony was one of these, and he is writing an amazing play. I'm very glad he reluctantly agreed to treat us!! Plus I got to read a part which was so awesome. Such a great role too. Can't wait to read the whole thing. I don't know if it's a secret so I'm not writing details, but check out his page here: http://terenceanthony.com/

If you're on the path above and turned around 180 degrees you see this. Every day I walked past the gazebo to get to the studios. The gazebo saw many awesome hang outs...

The barn. This building is made up of several small houses that are all divided into writers, visual art and composer studios.

These guys are in a pasture right in front of the barn; we walk by them several times a day.

The pool!

After some heavy rains, millions of these popped up. No smurf sightings so far.

Animals! Ann, I was chatting with you on the phone when I was shouted "OMG Cows!" This was them, that's a cute baby cow on the left. They are in a field behind the barn.

Something like spanish moss covers trees,buildings and hills making the most fantastical landscape. To the right of the cows.

Turning right off one of these paths you find this is a fountain, although in this shot we don't see the water pouring from the top.

Giant hand!

To see what the studio looked like, see a short video panorama here >>

To make an interesting painting, you have to break a few... spines?

2011-10-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I became really interested in exploring the spine. I think we're pretty used to imagery of the organs inside the human body - as much as we can, we identify to some degree with this imagery. But it's much harder to connect to cells.. Cells are very small, harder to map to our body image or body functions and, individually, are much less consequential than whole organs.

The nervous system inhabits an interesting in-between existence,being a distributed system of lesser-known small organs and structures (except for the brain), it may feel as a bit abstract or less substantial tissue,... So the "rule of thumb" of the spine comes as a surprise. The spine is roughly the width of the thumb. My spine is roughly the size of my thumb. So is yours. That's pretty substantial. And manycells of your spine while still very small actually run the full length of your body.

This "Spine", is my spine.And if you’re my height, than it’s pretty similar to yours too.

55 x 16 in, oil on canvas, 2006.

After this piece, I continued to explore the many parts of the body. Recently I decided to revisit this theme as part of a series that was more "full bodied"- that represented more of a whole shadow of my body.

I did some research and collected a lot of anatomical references. I became particularly interested in including the gut brain. The gut brain is more literal than we may think: we have a network of neurons around our intestines that seem to influence our health and mood. Scientists are still puzzling out their role but one thing is certain, the expression "gut feeling" just got a whole lot more real. Check out this awesome article on the topic from Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gut-second-brain

Below is the beginning of the new piece. I took a photograph of me and blew it up onto the canvas. Part of the process then involved trying to place this body system in my own "shadow":

54 x 32 in, oil on canvas, 2011.

While it was really wonderful to paint the nerves as a line pattern, the final result was too close to a standard illustration. So I "broke" it a bit:

This was more fun, but still very literal.. it needed to be "broken" again. The idea behind the piece was to explore the spine as a part of the human body, a determinant of individual identity. Who are we, from the perspective of the nervous system? How are we re-defined if all we know, including the sensory information that grounds us in the present, the memory of the past and what we project for the future exists in large part (some say completely) in the nervous system? If this nervous system both contains a very self-involved program (us, yay!) and many mechanisms that constantly check the outside world? Maybe this exploration should go fully beneath the skin and let the rest of body become part of the outside world.

So, this is the latest iteration:

In this iteration, the spine and nervous system are abstracted out of the body, with scratches, lines and paint strokes going both ways between it and the "other," the outside and the rest of the body.

This is the lombar (low back) part of the spine.

This is the base of the brain.

HeLa art: Immortal cells and the fate of biopsies

2011-10-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Samples of our bodies are taken routinely in medical offices everyday around the world, but their use goes way beyond what we may expect. Studies in universities and hospitals use these materials in on-going research. Human cells are notoriously hard to keep alive in the laboratory and this has always been a significant limitation in the development of pharmaceuticals. One of the features of our metabolism evolved to keep us alive and healthy is that most cells in the body have an expiration date after which they should be replaced by new healthy cells.

In the 1950’s, Henrietta Lacks came to a Baltimore hospital suffering from an advanced cancer. A sample of her cells (Henrietta Lacks) was taken like so many others but, unlike any others, it turned out to be immortal. Fifty years after the passing of Henrietta, there are more HeLa cells alive today than there ever were in her body. The pharmaceutical industry was transformed completely with this seemingly endless source of testing material. Other cell lineages are being manipulated in the lab to artificially design immortality using HeLa.

I highly recommend the amazing book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot that pairs an incredibly vivid telling of the life of Henrietta and her family with the history of HeLa.

I've been working on a series that explores the emerging independent and potentially immortal life of HeLa: who is HeLa? Is HeLa still human? Does HeLa want or fear? What does it mean if we can take our own cells and make them immortal?

Here is the latest piece, in progress:

Starting out, each panel is 36 x 36 in.

HeLa Cells - Searching IV

Near completion!

These pieces are based on imagery collected at a Carnegie Mellon University lab. In their procedure they were interested in imaging the focal adhesion, a mechanism the cells uses to move around. The lines seen in the piece are the cytoskeleton of each cell. The cytoskeleton is formed and dismantled dinamically and continuously as the cell decides where to move. I'm really interested in how it demonstrates the intention of the cells, how it connects a group of cells suggesting an emerging group decision making. The cytoskeleton lines are so strong and directional - what do these cells want?

Open Studios at VCCA: Renate Schuermeyer and peanuts!

2011-10-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

Renate Schuermeyer (web site in german) had her open studios today and revealed her awesome installations:

Renate has done a variety of different projects that she shared in a talk a few weeks ago, she showed us fantastic site-specific installations many having to do with German history. She didn't have anything specific planned for her time here at VCCA and had the added challenges of not being able to bring much with her from Germany and of trying to get materials here in Amherst.

She created different installations (or sculptures) using golden peanuts to explore the idea that peanuts means "little money" in German. The pieces are formally beautiful but also just really funny.

Each piece created lovely different surfaces. I really want to go draw peanuts now. I never noticed how beautiful they really are, the shapes are really entrancing when you start looking at them carefully.

Video panorama of studio 9/22

2011-09-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

So it was a bit ago :)

A day or so before the Open Studio...

Remember when it was all empty? >>

Sneak Peek at Hum? Hum.

2011-09-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

The true result of the residency I think is this project.. Continuing the same themes of multiplicity of the self, I'm calling it "I contain multitudes." The piece "Hum? Hum." was the most loved at the open studios I held here at VCCA. Thanks to everyone who came! What a way to wrap up the residency.

Unfortunately I don't yet have an awesome photo of the whole thing, but here are some sneak peeks at "(I contain multitudes) Hum? Hum."

Hum?

Hum.

My muse is found.

This one is part of the same series. A more finished picture up soon!

Open Studios at VCCA: toys, toys, toys

2011-09-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

Katharina Denziger had her open studio at VCCA and showed us her latest works, a series of sculptures made from parts of toys and really, objects that could only be made in America :) They feel like "object paintings".. painted with objects.

The objects are cut, painted and manipulated to create a 3 D piece.

Katharina spent a long time making abstract drawings like the one below. She explained that many of them have real elements that she studied repeatedly before creating the abstract composition around them. Many of her pieces are at the Drawing Center and at Pierogi Gallery.

But I can't not mention Katharina's amazing work as an illustrator in the 60's with Harper's Bazaar. Here is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen:

Katharina designed this shoe for Herbert Levine in 1965, it is now part of the costume collection at the Costume Institute part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Other Self

2011-09-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

A human body is made up of 10:1 non-human cells to human cells. Non-human cells include many types of bacteria, different animals like arachnids (!), these mainly live on our skin, digestive track, eyes, ears, the respiratory and the uro-genital systems. This is referred to as the human microbiome. What does it mean that there is so much non-human in us? There is evidence of how these populations affect our health and emotional well-being, and how these populations appear to be genetically unique, like a fingerprint. My microbiome is different from yours and they're both different from everybody else.

This piece is part of a series of three other selves. While painting I stand in front of them and they match me as a shadow, as I place the internal organs, the eyes, look for the cranny of the knee.

(I contain mutitudes) A Secret

2011-09-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 in.

Detail.

Back to Basics - update

2011-09-15T17:08:00.000-07:00

App. 22 x 28 in

See earlier >>

Combing hair - update

2011-09-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

About 28 x 22 in

See earlier >>

Progress updates

2011-09-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

Very happy about the contrast, and trying to play with outlines vs fully fleshed out painting.

I describe this piece as "the one without the apples," and a fellow here at VCCA immediately pointed out that the girls were the apples. I just can't get away!

Anything good that happens is only because Renate Schurmeyer gave me LUCK.

Back to basics

2011-09-11T21:16:00.001-07:00

I might still have some apples to "process"...

2011-09-09T20:27:00.001-07:00

This time with feeling...

Yesterday.

Today.

I really love painting.

New works started...

2011-09-09T11:20:00.001-07:00

Getting started.

2011-09-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

yay.

New Drawings: Ink & Acrylic on rag paper

2011-08-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

(detail)

"Untitled (combing hair)," app. 10 x 12 in, 2011

In progress...

2011-07-02T11:03:00.001-07:00

Details from what's on the easel

2011-06-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

(note the influence of the tiny brush)

(also, here are earlier pictures of the same pieces)

Tiny new brush

2011-06-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

Chikin explains development (rough cut)

2011-05-09T15:43:00.000-07:00

From upcoming movie "How We Grow," planned for release by Fall 2011!

http://youtu.be/9O7YvYUZs2U?hd=1

See preliminary work in this post >>

Pick from Armory 2011

2011-03-06T16:09:00.001-08:00

More girls on beds with apples

2011-02-28T10:34:00.001-08:00

More paintings on the easel. The first is closer to what is fast becoming a "traditonal" Eve painting, and the second is a girl-as-tree theme. I'm really interested right now in the play between real settings and real moments and symbolic spaces or iconic figures..

top panel: 24 x 30 in, lower panel 24 x 8in.

36 x 24 in

The body according to Chikin

2011-02-21T18:49:00.000-08:00

Stem cells form three layers: endo (inside), meso (middle) and ecto (outer) cells.

From upcoming movie "How We Grow," due out July 2011.

This movie is being produced by Dr. John A. Pollock, with the project Partnership in Education, a Science Education Partnership Award from the National Institutes of Health. I've worked with John for over five years!... The movie is being made by Green-Eye Visualization, a company started by Laura Lynn Gonzalez, who has been the third pole of our magical alliance. GEV is now live, check us out at greeneyevisualization.com!

Building art in Lisbon

2011-01-12T19:33:00.000-08:00

The pictures look fuzzy but it's because they're taken from inside a car and it was raining. It was raining the whole three weeks I was there. This was actually a series of three buildings painted like this and they were all amazing.

New book "Even Gods..."

2010-12-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

I have been working on a concept for a kids' book, and I'm going to publish here it's development. Please let me know what you think!

The story is about getting to know some Greek gods as kids. Poseidon is feeling pretty bummed out about himself. He is growing up a little and suddenly doesn't like anything about being the God of the Oceans. He goes on to visit some of his friends including Diana, Athena and Hades and finds out that a lot of people sometimes feel that way...

Even Gods Sometimes Think They're Lame (tentative title), part 1

Poseidon was the God of the Sea. He held dominion over all the oceans, seas and the weather. But more and more, he just wasn’t very happy with his lot. Making a storm just wasn’t very exciting. He was bored of all the fish talk. Even the lighting bolts had lost their tickle.

Essentially, he felt kind of lame.

Poseidon decided to go visit some of his cool friends, to try to feel better.

(Poseidon's first visit is coming soon!)

FEEDBACK: Let me know what you think! But, please note that if you do send me ideas it is with the understanding that 1) I might find it awesome but not be able to take it, and 2) if I do take it, you are giving it to me, no strings attached. If this sounds unfair, please know that it would be impossibly hard for me to keep track of legalities otherwise. I hope you enjoy either way :)

What's in progress..

2010-12-21T08:37:00.000-08:00

Santorini's vulcano

2010-12-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

These are pictures of the volcano Nea Kameni in Santorini, Greece.

Pictures can be purchased at jiricou.imagekind.com

Actually art in progress

2010-11-20T20:05:00.000-08:00

More girls and apples...

And there's more :) ...

Awesome stuff I see on the street

2010-11-20T19:55:00.000-08:00

This wonderful thing is on the top of a building on Meserole St in Bushwick, near my studio.

Hand

2010-07-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ink on paper
2010

Hand

2010-07-07T19:21:00.001-07:00

Ink on paper

Ink on paper

Girls and Apples 2

2010-07-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

App. 8.5 x 10 in
Ink on paper
2010

Girl + Apple series I

2010-06-09T15:20:00.001-07:00

Ink on paper 2010

Girl+Apple series II

2010-06-09T15:12:00.001-07:00

Ink on paper
2010

Girl+Apple series II

2010-06-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

Ink on paper, 2010

Neuron - in progress

2010-03-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

Oil on canvas
40 x 20 in

I'm interested in how the neuron is such a complex cell, much more than the on-off switch understanding that sometimes we use as a short cut. Its environment is biochemically rich with signals incoming from thousands or millions of synapses, but the interior of the cell is much more complex.

Still in progress

2010-03-13T15:26:00.000-08:00

Girl putting on make-up
Oil on canvas
20 x 20 in

Costume Design

2009-03-07T12:24:00.001-08:00

From a Murder Mystery play that I helped direct, and did the costume design for. (At Carnegie Mellon University, 2004)

Graphic Novel spreads

2009-03-07T11:59:00.001-08:00

From an older graphic novel project, which started with a dream sequence. Script by Pedro Vieira.

Broken fairy

2009-03-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

An old drawing..

2008-10-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Justice as Human Creation
36 in x 36 in
oil on canvas/mixed media
(in progress)

New study

2008-10-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

I've always been amused by the fact that I have a terrible memory for faces. I like to tell people that I notice colors and patterns more than features, but the truth is I don't pay a lot of attention. Sometimes I wish I did.

Redwoods

2008-09-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

I visited the Redwoods near San Francisco recently. Breathtaking.

Limerick #2

2008-03-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

PURE R U B B I S H

Queen Mary gave birth

To all mice and no mirth

And dropped her sweet head

On the bulldozers girth

So it happened to pass

When the boy got the lash

The clouds uttered nonsense

Of god’s holy wrath

It stirred me awake

And I called from my bed

As a shelf full of piggy banks

Fell ‘pon by head

And the little girl’s prayer

Pickled with lace

No breakfast for me

No sausage no eggs

It’s tepid tap water

And soggy cornflakes

(Poetry D. Commisso)

Limerick #1

2008-03-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

Let me take you down
To the lonely field
Where silence has replaced despair
With little black-lace underwear
And all of love is built on dreams,
And found in magazines

(poetry D. Commisso)

Girls+Scales+...= Justice

2008-01-30T21:28:00.000-08:00

In the course of every part of my life these days, I end up at Wikipedia sooner or later. It has become in fact an integral part of any exploration, if only a great starting point. So, while thinking of "Justice, "A search on Wikipedia about Justice yielded a very inspiring page, where a helpful disambiguation led to the study below. The titles or labels are direct quotes.

"Justice as mutual agreement."

"Justice as human creation."

"Justice as natural law."

"Justice as authoritative command."

"Justice as a subordinate value."

"Justice as trickery."

2007-08-10T08:21:00.001-07:00

"Inadvertent Charity", inspired by the Portuguese legend of Saint Isabel, the Pious.

"Girl" (tentative title)

2007-07-13T17:13:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: see final piece here

"This Girl" (in progress)
48 in x 30 in
ink and oil on canvas
Several interesting developments in the studio, after much drawings of Eve and Pandora, Lilith has finally shown up! I will be uploading some new images very soon. Lilith appears confident and in control of "her" apple.. In some instances, she seems slightly concerned over the other aspects. With some of the new drawings I've been experimenting with colored backgrounds and introducing a flat surface of gold leaf.
This has lead also to a new painting, I am trying to bring the strong lines and extreme contrasts of the line drawings onto a canvas. I am interested in the texture the oil naturally creates as a "flat" backdrop. The three aspects appear, invoking the same girl, different aspect, different time. I really have no idea where this piece will go.

"Girl (s?) + Apple (s?)" Performance

2007-07-05T10:30:00.001-07:00

In a counterpoint to more quiet paintings, a series of cute drawings emerged in the studio, exploring the same theme of encounters between a girl and an apple, in everyday settings.. (all of the drawings are here if you'd like to see them..)

In May at the Warhol, I had the opportunity to create a frame that would be placed in the catwalk of a fashion show of local boutiques and designers, to re-inforce both fashion as art by "framing" the models as they posed in front of them, and to add that the models too were observers, and the crowd and its fashion were part of the show.. (see more info about the show "Artwalk" here)

The only material allowed was two sheets of white corrugated plastic.. I chose to continue to work on the same theme of girls and apples, but instead of creating the pose, I would create the setting, create the intrusion of apples into the model's space and allow them to have their own moments..

Tree

2007-05-21T12:33:00.000-07:00

thinking on the convergence of science and feminism, this image came to me...

Girl + Apple -- New!

2007-05-14T19:13:00.000-07:00

"Eve"!

2007-05-13T22:08:00.000-07:00

New piece "Eve", oil on canvas, 2007.
See new works here!

Feminism and Science

2007-02-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

Someone much more articulate than me has addressed the strange connection brewing from Feminism/Science:
http://scienceblogs.com/thusspakezuska/2007/01/whats_a_feminist_theory_of_sci.php

Guan Yin

2007-01-25T12:48:00.000-08:00

In Boston, this weekend, I visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum where i saw a beautiful sculpture named "Guanyin." The sculpture really spoke to me, it's beautiful form, laid back posture, the same buddhist enigmatic smile but a more inviting sensual vibe. Boddishatvas as I understand them are enlightened individuals that purposefully do not attain Nirvana to stay behind and help others reach enlightenment too. But this sculpture was so enigmatically engaging and young (?). According to wikipedia, it turns out that Guan Yin, although originally male, is usually portrayed as a female or as an androgynous being and is related to the Chinese Goddess of Compassion, and many other legends..

There is something terribly powerful of such an image of a gatekeeper that is at once mischievious and hopeful to me.

The image is borrowed from the museum's web site.

Science and Society

2007-01-24T21:12:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, I had the fortune of attending the conference "Science and Society" in Boston. In this conference, many wonderful speakers spoke about the importance of science education, of the involvement of scientists in education (and activism!), of all the projects already in development trying to "close the gap." I will not attempt to explain what these great speakers talked about like Al Gore (who I had never heard speak before), Shirley Jackson, Lawrence Krauss, Rita Colwell, because I will not do them justice. But so much was stirred in my mind that I would like to leave here for future unraveling..

Something is happening in the world of Science. Science and knowledge is increasing rapidly which is not new, knowledge is getting more specialized and the public at large less aware, which is also not new, the consequence of science development grows, which is not new, but something new is happening..

The science community continues to close in on itself, and some ideas are being reinforced - that science is held by a (self-)select(ed) few, distributed top-down. Not only that, but scientists are also accruing a reputation for being untrustworthy (re: avoiding ethical debates of scientific research) and potentially dangerous (Re stem cell debate).. "Top-down", "clique-ish", "untrustworthy few", vaguely similar to how many would characterize polititians, no? How did that happen, when Science was born out of the most democratic of human desires, the desire to explore? In Lawrence Krauss' words, with a very clear "ethos: HONESTY, FULL DISCLOSURE and ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN". These are fantastic ideals for the age of no ideals!
How has this happened? Or if it didn't happen, why are so many people convinced of this? (And I don't think that capitalism is the solely to blame for this..)

A correlation came to me that in the conflict of science and religion, religion accuses science (among other things) of robbing the world of its magic, the potential for something more. As if by unraveling the inner workings of the body, going to the deep dark roots of how the world works, we would be stripping away its heart and soul. Here I see one the oldest conflicts of human understanding: religion - knowledge from above/pure/untouchable versus knowledge from below/intent to spoil/earthy/impure/science. Prior to this instance, this conflict could be found between patriarchal vs matriarchal religious systems - where anthropological texts argue that the victory of the patriarchal system led to the creation of our western civilization and the modern politicking (which is not modern at all). Could the arrival of a soul and heart for Science be connected to a re-emmergence of the female principle?

The Feminists in the past century waged a war. As a girl-woman today, I am inspired by the daring of imagining a better world and fighting for it and use this inspiration as I try to use all opportunities before me. But, looking around me, I don't see much of this feminism today. First let me state that there are powerful women today, who are feminists, on the net and out in the world, making a huge difference. But something seems lost.. Several new groups have popped up, ecofemminism (as finally there is a possibility again of regaining pride in our body), neo femminism, the third wave,.. It seems as if the word "feminism", "feminist" has lost power, has lost pride. Not many girls I know would identify themselves as feminists, in fact some are visibly a bit unconfortable with the label, and to a degree and to my own shame, so was I. When did that happen? When did the word become so laden with a negative connotation, that girls are more shy now to take it and run?

In an interesting twist of faith, with pressures of women's health issues (justified by science) a new interest and involvement seems to be growing.. Maybe a new clear need? A clearer objective? Fight for women's health (and choice?..). As the health issues are naturally studied and exposed by science a clear connection between the players emmerges. A coincidence? Or a fatality of how the human mind is wired?
A friend, Laura, pointed out that already this connection is taking shape, manifested with in the relationships forming between science and feminism blogs. A field is set, with many players, religion, the "Man", science, feminism.. But maybe not for a war ("let's avoid the invader-defender paradigm" - thank you Laura).. for a more complex view..

I am not sure of the conclusions but some are immediate, more communication. This can take many forms, school programs, web sites, active involvement of scientists in their communities, TV...

In terms of science, one of the most delicious things said in Boston was "Don't mistake yourself {scientist person}, science is dull, hard, and unrelated to everyday people's lives" (pardon for the paraphrase, Lawrence Krauss, I am going by my notes). This simple fact is at the basis of so much misunderstanding today, the belief that not only science is hard/dull/etc but that SCIENTISTS are too, and neither being accessible you might as well give up.. But scientists are, for the most part, some of the most passionate people you can meet! But their heart's song is expressed in arguably unattractive forms..

So the re-newed communication must cover a lot of ground, a lot of bringing social gaps, knowledge gaps, creating mechanisms of feedback, .. and somewhere in there plant some seeds of new ideas (or very old ones)..

Eve and Pandora series

2007-01-05T07:18:00.000-08:00

In the two initial pieces, I tried to "wear" the ideas/identities of Eve and Pandora and capture them in a quiet, mundane, present day, real life moment. Focusing on body and posture to communicate something stronger and more universal than a face. But I was dissatisfied with the tension between the personal experience (my body in a private space) and the universal idea (faceless-ness), as if neither one nor the other were coming through strongly enough.

Later a stream of sketches of friends of mine with boxes or apples, led me to where I never thought i would go: portraits.. A kind of portrait.. just the girl and the apple, to capture more of the personal, focusing on specific individuals I already know and involving them directly with each piece.

I've started with Danielle. I made several sketches one night, long before, of Danielle's aspect of Pandora and Eve. Both ideas were very horizontal languid images, with contrasting color temperatures to maybe not too subtly indicate different moods.. Danielle has a very graceful figure of curves and angles, that to me speaks of silhouetted shapes and landscapes of muscle and flesh..
In the studio I spread out kilos of apples and chatted with Danielle for a while of what Eve and Pandora meant to me, what the apples symbolize, and let her play with the apples and the poses I had in mind. From the photo shoot at least three paintings seem to be emerging. (One is at the bottom of the page with the text "it's her apple"). One Pandora figure appeared with an apple instead of a box.. I can't wait for the response "but she had a box!"...

This is the initial stages of a "Pandora." I am interested in the shape the body is drawing on the canvas, a very open almost exposed posture that is also confident and more about looking at itself than about the viewer looking at it.. The background is still undefined, somewhere between a "real" setting and just abstracted space which was originally intended but doesn't seem to be working out yet. The size of the canvas is working against me, as it seems a lot bigger than what i would want..

Art in Progress.. The Eve series

2006-12-04T22:01:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a series of pieces about the female identity, in the course of this, for the past year or so, I found myself writing down a lot of my thoughts and passing them around to friends (mostly girls..) for their thoughts and reactions. Then I came out from under my rock and found THE BLOG!

From the beginning of this particular endeavor, I've been really interested in exploring the female archetypes (under heavy influence of C.G. Jung and Joseph Campbell - searching in a way for their other half as well) and their role in making up our idea of who a "girl" (or a "woman") is. This is not a new subject by any means, but it is one with which I'm daily confronted and intrigued by..

I tried to start at the beginning... Where is the beginning of life? Without getting into the biological details of when the heart starts beating or when the organism starts to register pain, when does the self emerge? I decided (for now..) that the beginning is at "minus 1": at birth, when the body awakens, that is little more than a bundle of flesh and screaming instinct.

In attempting to capture this moment, to understand its facets, baggage, consequence and potential, two paintings developed to talk about a quiet and private awakening of the body. They were named after Eve and Pandora who both stand for the creation of Difference, the idea through which mankind understood its passage from a non-Time, non-change, no-season space to the "dark", the unknown where they actually live, grow, procreate and change. Or birth. But they also represent the awakening of sexual consciousness and have a very ambiguous role in contemporary conception of the female body and sexuality, where Eve stands for the passive/instinctual awakening of the sexual body, Pandora, sinister or silly, is an active/willful decision maker.

These paintings came from trying to find this moment, birth of primal intention, today, in the life and surroundings of a girl.