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.