Teaching

I work with students aged 14-24. My focus is on Painting, Digital Media, Art Theory and Media Philosophy. Below is a selection of student work and collaborative projects.

Vital Painting: Experimental and Performative Processes in Painting

This course focused on the idea of painting processes that are both experimental and performative. Students were exposed to various painting processes used throughout history. Artists discussed were Jackson Pollack, Carolee Schneeman, Yves Klein, Duchamp, Helena Almeida, to name a few. They then devised their own process to execute a painting project.

Hybrid Painting: Digital/Analog

The different principles of analog and digital processes were discussed in addition to how these processes overlap in our contemporary hybrid climate. Students started by photographing sections of completed paintings around the studio, and then created individual abstract digital works from their photos, conflating the digital/analog binary. Students then printed and painted and collaged on top of their digital image to further complicate and confound these processes.

Stochastic Painting: Systems of Chance

Students created this painting using a Stochastic process whereby the placement, color and application tools were selected at random prior to execution on the canvas. Completed February 2020.

Stochastic processes are associated with the concepts of uncertainty or chance. Chance destroys the soothing notion of cause following effect and admits anarchy into art making, foregrounding process. The central component of chance is taking one thing out of context and placing it into another context, demonstrating how meaning is fixed to a site and how meaning is unfixed when location is changed. The introduction of chance was a way for Dadaists to challenge artistic norms and to question the role of the artist in the artistic process.

Material Interventions I

The first in a series of material interventions, this ongoing project began when I brought in a large tree branch that had been trimmed from the trees outside the studio. I offered the branch to the students with a selection of materials: paint, clay, fabric, thread, beads, etc. The students began to modify the tree with these materials. Over the course of several weeks, students would continue to work on the branch until finally it was sewed to a canvas and painted. The entire project lasted a month, with students of all ages 7-24, as well as fellow staff, Teaching Artists and Interns collaborating in the process.

Emergent Systems Banner

Students learned the principles of emergent systems. Students then created individual collages on 20” x 30” paper and combined them using duct tape to create a single large work. Students then altered the large work using spray paint and charcoal. As an emergent system, the final piece contained properties that the individual parts did not have on their own. Completed October 2019.

Assemblage Line Collage Workshop

In this workshop, students used printed copies of previous student works as well as found images, paint and tape to execute a series of 10 collages. Students rotated the collages on an “assemblage” line so each collage is a result of many different individuals. Completed April 2019.

Photography 101: Self Portraits

This course taught the principles of manual photography and adjusting shutter speed for special effects. Students were to create self-portraits using these skills. Image Credit: Rianna Green, 15 years old. Completed February 2019.

Sculpture & Installation: 3-D

Examining the history of sculpture and installation, students were exposed to working in three dimensional space. Using found materials such as a branch, pink bungee cord, and plastic sheeting, students created this sculpture for their final exhibition. They were awarded Best in Show!

Digital Painting, Intensive Workshop

Using photoshop and illustrator, students created individual digital paintings. Image Credit: Karina Flores, 15 years old. Completed May 2018.