Amber ODonnell- K.Banister 'evolving'

I think Kim Banister's exhibition is a profound and intimate narrative of a woman. The pieces all flow and fit together very nicely, I especially liked that all of the pieces are quite similar in texture and in color, at first I thought that they all looked the same, but that was not the case as I walked through. Each woman portrays a different emotion, and viewing them, each one produced a different feeling in me. With that said, I do think there is an underlying vulnerability in all of the works which comes across (at least to me) very strongly. Some works are framed and some aren't; I think that the pieces could have been in any order and the exhibit as a whole would have still been comprehensive and would not have lost any meaning. I think for those reasons the show altogether works.

The image I chose is the woman standing, and there may or may not be a person/image behind her. The medium seems to be an outline of a woman drawn in pencil on paper, and water colors dripping and smudged in the background as well as on the shape of the woman. The lines are long and clear, at some points they are curvy and others the lines are barely visible. The lines and curves of the woman are sparse but somehow detailed; there isn't much drawn but much is portrayed. It is simply a life-sized piece of paper without a frame hanging upon the wall. The colors in this piece are earthy tones and hues, mostly shades of a muted red, orange and pink.

I really liked all of her paintings, as stated above I think they portray a sense of vulnerability that is almost tangible. For me, this particular piece is interesting because it isn't as specific as the others. The lines are smudged and disappearing at points making the woman fade into the background, which makes it harder to decipher what it is she is doing. At first I thought there was someone behind her, but at closer look it is just her, alone, standing naked. I like this one because she isn't perfect, she doesn't have perfectly defined hips and abs, and her legs look steady. She looks like a real woman, well an abstraction of a real woman. I also like the dripping of the water colors that run down her body, its as if she is crying but the tears are not touching her face. Also, this one is life-sized and the blurring of the lines make it look like there is motion in her arms and legs. I think the distortion of the body is on purpose to make it look more like a real woman, and to counter society's view of the female body.

Julie Farnan- Assignment #1

The current exhibit in the Haas Center is entitled 'Evolving', by artist Kim Banister. Her pieces were each very emotionally captivating as well as thought provoking. Her use of color and technique captured my attention instantly. Most pieces are large and unframed, but there are a few she framed and were slightly downsized. All but few pieces were composed out of charcoal, pastels and linseed oil. Each work was a different study of the human body, telling its own story or screaming its own emotion. I felt the layout of the exhibition created a narrative as the viewer moved though the showroom.

This piece was my favorite out of all of them. I felt it expressed the most emotion and I could really connect with the artist when I looked at this piece. The colors she used were all very mute browns, blacks, and reds. She used a smudging approach for effects in the hair, and a dripping effect off the body. She used simple shapes and formed them together into a flawless looking body. I feel the colors used in this piece compliment the body language of the figure perfectly.

When I look at this particular piece, I sense a strong sense of passion as well as humor. I feel as if the figure is learning to open up, as if she's been locked away from the world as Rapunzel was to her land. This piece tells me she has come to the point where the figure is tired of taking things seriously and is ready to face the world light heartedly. The figure appears to be rolling to me, and that is showing that she is having fun, and no longer caring for serious matter.

Josh: Assignment 1 (evolving)

evolving by Kim Banister

jan 11- feb 5, 2010

Haas gallery

Today I visited the Kim Banister exhibit at the Haas gallery. The pieces felt kinda pressed by the small gallery, however the scale of some of the pieces ( yeah Venus that's you!) helped to add to the crowded effect. Overall the exhibit was stylistically cohesive and even with a muted palette she is able to use colour to help convey the emotions in her work. The aspect that I liked the most were the drips, to me they represented the pieces melting away, like the emotions melting away to some day be another emotion, or how the images will soon drip out of my memory after I leave the gallery.

I chose the pieces shown to the right because it seemed to be the darkest, not only in palate but also theme. The pieces is simply put a gesture sketch of a woman and the color red.

The figures position helps to create a sense of movement as your eyes swirl around it, the downward gaze leads into the arms and red drips going down the chest to the legs that appear tucked behind the figure leading you to explore the tonal texture of the background.

I chose this piece because the dark tone of it and the figures position intrigued me. Is she sad? mournful? Why are her hands red? Then it hit me this woman has blood on her hands and she has been running for a long time, she is exhausted from trying to hide. She collapses she cant go any further, she weeps... No just kidding I don't know what this one is trying to say it looks like just one of those prints that you might find at Michaels... generic. But that's just my opinion.

Assignment 1: Sarah Popple

    Evolving is a collectively powerful exhibit created by Kim Banister. The colors, style, and emotion are consistent and alluring in each piece of art. Looking at the exhibit from beginning to end is interesting because the images have the potential to tell a powerful story, special to each viewer. To me it was a mix of love, attachment, secrets, passion, and individual insecurities. Similar drawings were grouped together, such as drawings 1 and 2, and 10 and 11. Each of these consisted of a man and a woman, implying to me that the collection starts with love and ends with love, even in times of despair and loneliness.

    The drawing that personally caught my attention was number 5 titled "Venus". It cascaded from the ceiling all the way down to the floor and was positioned on the wall directly facing the doorway. It involved brighter colors than most of the other drawings, replacing shades of brown with a more feminine pink. The artist used charcoal and pastels to create the boarders in this piece but incorporated linseed oil and airbrushing techniques to make it more unique.

    This drawing proclaimed confidence and security, a trait I didn't see in any of the other pieces, which made it my favorite. Venus is said to be a woman of exceptional beauty. In Roman Mythology she is the goddess of beauty and love. Certainly this drawing was meant to stand out and make a point. From it's size and positioning this particular drawing depicts power. It was the only drawing with a woman standing up and gave the entire exhibit a positive message and hopefulness.

Carol Evans - Assignment #1

Kim Banister's exhibition, Revolver, was very eye catching in how the works were set up in relation to each other. This was because they were all of people who seemed to be displaying different sorts of emotions so it draws your attention in and makes you wonder what the story behind them is. It is a cohesive exhibition and it works because you can feel what the figures are going through because of the positions of their bodies, the colors used, and the whole general mood of the exhibition. Some had one figure, some had two, and some were just a body part and they all had the same kind of colors and style used. It was set up well, all of the works go together and doesn't need anything to make it work better.
The piece I chose to describe is titled Figure in Green. The colors used in this image were pastel pink with some red details on the girl's body. There's dark purple and black used in some of the shading and behind her pale green and beige were used. The technique she used was by drawing the lines with charcoal then using linseed oil to get the dripping effect and dissolve some of the charcoal. The color was added by blowing powdered pigment onto the surface which moves down on it's own. After the linseed oil dries and ages the colors darken. There aren't any sharp edges in this work or very bright colors so it has a soft feel to it.

The meaning I've interpreted behind this work of art is that it seems like it's about a girl who is upset about something and is feeling alone. The way she's sitting makes it seem like she's been crying because her head is down. Her arms are around her legs which she is holding close to her like she is trying to comfort herself because no one else is there. The look on her face seems like she is dissapointed or troubled about something in her life. The dark purple and green around her adds to that feeling.

Cachete Hird-Assignment #1

The Kim Banister gallery was definitely an interesting and curious. The exhibit was called "Evolving", I tried to make sense of this as I noticed the different paintings. They are set up as if showing the different states of a woman. I was curious to the colors used in each because they seem to display emotions.
The artist also set up similar drawings next to each other and that was interesting because although they were similar they each told a different story.
The drawing I picked was #6, Figure in Green. I chose it because of my curiosity in the painting. The woman looks like she is lost, frighten, sad. She looks like a lot of emotion that I definitely could understand. The drawing was done with a mixed media and linseed oil. I'm not an Art major but I can see how interesting the materials used to bring color to the drawing really bring out details.
The artist called the series, Motherhood and the exhibit is called Evolving. I wonder if it's because the artist decided to take a different turn and introduce color? She address this in her lecture as well as the use of layers in the drawing. She also said the that its about the Evolution with Age and perhaps in my opinion each drawing resembles a milestone with each woman's time of her life? In general the effects and outlines of the drawing really bring out some interesting details that help narrative the drawing in a more realistic sense.

Olivia DeFranco- Assignment #1

Kim Banister's exhibition was full of passion. I thought that her work as a whole was incredible and done with much intelligence. Her pieces made me think that I understood what she was getting at and that I actually felt the emotions of the people in the pictures. As Kim was speaking she told the group that although she started her career out by creating narratives, she came to conclusion that she liked to express moment more. I believe she accomplished just that in this exhibition. Each piece was done with much thought and they all seemed to come alive. I also think that each piece went together nicely but could very well stand alone if she would chose to do so. Her exhibition worked because of the similarities in each piece. The one of a kind technique she used allowed for enough variation to make them different but to stay in the same range as well. There was no actual frames around the larger pieces of her work, but I feel like the white walls worked as frames behind the pictures. I would think that if she would have put legitimate frames on her pieces it would have been distracting and might have drawn the eye to the frame rather than the gorgeous middle. Either way, I think her exhibition came together cohesively.

The piece I chose to blog about is "Red Series #2" (top left corner). The colors of this piece are very neutral and it appealed to me because of the content of the piece- it holds a lot of emotion. This piece, like the others, was done after a lot of processes. Kim Banister's work consists of steps. She first line draws then paper is then drenched in linseed oil- this is was makes the drips and alsocauses the charcoal to dissolve. She then adds more lines and then she blows colored power on the picture. As time goes by the piece ages and the colors darken.

I'm not exactly sure of the meaning behind this particular piece, however Kim Banister expressed how she has been inspired by Jim Dine for most of her career. She is also interested in the human body, which you can see in her work. The way she creates human bodies really appeals to me, because of the normality behind them. They are not super thin or incredibly overweight, they are just regular- I love that about her work. In her talk, Kim Banister was talking about expressing moments (as I said before). To me, this picture expresses a moment of comfort. It looks as if the man is protecting the woman and keeping her safe. I think she also looks very comfortable with his arms around her. I love the romance behind this piece too. They look like they are two puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly. I chose this piece for that reason. Overall, I loved Kim Banister'sexhibition and thought she did outstanding pieces that consisted of a lot of emotions.

would this work for the extra credit??my blog