Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Charles Gershom Artist Analysis

Charles Gershom Artist Analysis Kalpana Vadnagara   As a student of Crafton Hills College, I got the opportunity to view a collection of still life paintings and drawings by the Los Angeles-based artist Gershom, which is on display at the Crafton Hills College Art Gallery from February 21 to March 10. An opening reception was held on February 21 at 1 p.m., followed by a lecture from Gershom, Precision and Soul: The Daily Practice of the Painting, at 2 p.m.  At the art gallery was a rare opportunity for student viewers to engage with this revered artist. The exhibition includes twenty-four different sized oil paintings on wood panel. It also includes the representation of his studio settings with some preliminary drawings, to show his art process, also some of the objects in a showcase, which has been used by the artist to draw, and a slide show of his emoji like drawings were moving on a computer. Gershom was born in the Netherlands and lived for many years in Amsterdam. Art has always been his passion, but he earned the degree in Psychology and Epidemiology at first and then moved to Los Angeles to study sculpture and painting. Currently, he teaches Neuropsychology of perception and imagination at different schools, and also teaches drawing studio and rendering in oil paint. To make paintings, he has been using classical techniques of layering and glazes. Most of his still life paintings are painted almost life size. During his lecture, he explains the process of his paintings, which sounds very interesting. After a lot of pencil drawings, he traces them on tracing paper and cuts them, which he uses to create a balanced composition with a grid method by following the rule of third. Gershom said that lines create drawings and shapes create paintings. He also discusses that how important the background of an artwork works. To generate a three dimensional illusion he uses differ ent values on two dimension surface. By creating the contrast, the objects automatically getting the attention and being a focal point of the whole picture.   Blue Bowl with Cherries, 2010oil on panel14 x 1617-1/2 x 19-1/2 framed From different paintings, I choose two different works to discuss about it. The first painting is titled Blue Bowl with Cherries was the heart of the show. Like all other work, this is also painted on panel with oil, size 17-1/2 x 19-1/2 framed. To make this work interesting, the artist uses white, greenish gray, blue, and red colors, and composed it with asymmetric balance. The missing shadow of the bowl and different forms like spheres, and cube create a mystery here. Soft, shallow curves recalls the curves of the human body and often have a pleasing, sensual quality and a softening effect on the composition. Most of the shapes are formed by lines and shifts in color and value. As we move from left to right the value changes into darker, this creates a sense of depth and dramatic contrasts emphasizing a strong light source from the left side of the artwork. The negative space of the work which is lighter greenish gray background enables the viewer to clearly distinguish the shapes, moreover the emptiness of the top part is creating the asymmetrical balance to the artwork. White Pot with Artichoke, 2005 oil on panel24 x 19 29-1/2 x 24-1/2 framed The second artwork I chose to discuss about is titled White Pot with Artichoke, which he created in 2005, five years ago than the first painting. The disproportionate amount of negative space accentuates the artwork vulnerability and isolation. The changing values of different shapes play a major role in establishing space relationships. The artist uses different values to create different textures. Somewhere it feels so soft with lighter value, at the same time, with more contrasting values, he creates a very harsh surface. Artists use color, line, and shading to imply textures in a two-dimensional work. The use of such lines, values, shapes, color and textures create the illusion of depth in space from the foreground through the middle ground to the background. As per my point of view the focal point of this painting is the green Artichoke textured shape on the right side, which emphasis the most that catches the viewers attention. Usually the artist will make one area stand out by contrasting it with other areas. The area could be different in size, color, texture, shape, etc. Compare to first painting, this one is more calm and soothing because of the muted colors. These kind of work is very thought-provoking and accommodating for art students to study and understand the elements of art. Bibliography Gershom. Precision and Soul: The Daily Practice of the Painting. Personal interview. 9 Mar. 2017. Gershom-art.com. WordPress.com, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2017. Gershom. Gershom. LORA SCHLESINGER GALLERY, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2017. .  

Monday, January 20, 2020

Lasik Eye Surgery Essay -- Eyesight Vision Corrective Surgery

Putting a Close Eye on LASIK Laser-Assisted In situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) is a surgical operation intended to allow an individual to live independent of glasses or contacts. Since 1995, when the Food and Drug Administration approved the type of laser used in corrective eye surgery, optometrists have developed a number of different procedures to clear up foggy or blurry vision in one's eye. In 1998, the Lasik surgery became the most common type of surgery, and remains the number one refractive eye surgery today. The surgery itself lasts no longer than 15 minutes per eye, and begins with the doctor placing a number of eye numbing drops into the patient's eyes to eliminate any possibilities of pain during the procedure. The first step in the procedure involves the cutting of a flap in the cornea by a computer programmed device called a microkeratome. By cutting the flap, the surgeon is able to use tiny tweezers-like instruments to unpeel the sliced flap. With the flap peeled back from the cornea the laser is used to remove small pieces of the inner part of the cornea, but the laser has only a specified wavelength which does not allow it to pass through the cornea to any other portion of the eye. The flap is then repositioned without stitches and is secure after seconds of drying ("Lasik Eye Surgery"). Doctors claim that the surgery is so popular because the patient's vision is restored rapidly and there is little to no post- surgery pain. But while the number of patients receiving the procedure rises, so do the number of complications and patient complaints. Patients whose vision was successfully restored cite that the success of the operation is dependent on the experience and skill of the surgeon, but many cases can be ... ...ped to assist with this problem, but currently over fifty percent of patients will experience poor night vision in the first month following their surgery, and of those, half will experience permanent night vision problems. http://archives.thedaily.washington.edu/2001/010901/N5.Lasereyesu.html http://www.kathygriffin.net/lasik.php Works Cited Elliott, Louise. " Laser eye surgery may damage night-vision long term." The Canadian Press. 17 July 2000. Canoe Network. 1 Nov. 2005. . "Lasik Surgery." Wake Forest University Eye Center. 23 August 2005. Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. 1 Nov. 2005. http://www1.wfubmc.edu/lasik/LASIK+Eye+Surgery/. "Lasik Eye Surgery." Center for Devices and Radiological Health. 9 March 2005. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 1 Nov. 2005. http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/LASIK/risks.htm.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

George and Martha’s Essay

The very title of Edward Albee’s ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? ‘ has immediate connotations as to the relationship between the two main characters of the play, George and Martha. The well known nursery rhyme in fact goes, ‘Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? ‘ As we find out in further reading of the play, the ‘big bad wolf’ is obviously supposed to be seen as Martha, and the victim is George, her long suffering husband. However, in hindsight, both characters suffer just as much as each other. The title of Act one is ‘Fun and Games. ‘ This proves to be slightly ironic as the games Martha and George play, mind and verbal matches, do not seem at all fun, but appear as more of a power struggle. Apparent simple requests from Martha become games for both her and Martha to play. Martha says, ‘Why don’t you want to kiss me? ‘ whereupon George replies, ‘Well, dear, if I kissed you I’d get all excited†¦ ‘ As one critic of the play wrote, ‘They (George and Martha) club each other on the head with gleeful scorn and leave huge patches of scorched earth. ‘ Emotions from both George and Martha become integrated into an ongoing power struggle, and Martha dwells in George’s anger as she likes to see the stirred up effect she has on him. As the night wears on, more alcohol is consumed and the clearer it becomes that it is not blood running through Martha and Georges’ veins, but booze, spite, nicotine and fear. When Martha first rants about a Bette Davis film that she quotes from, ‘Hey, where’s that from? ‘What a dump,† it seems that George almost ignores her. Marthat ahs already appeared as the stronger character in the play, but in retrospect, she relies an George for a great many things, such as the name of the film that Bette Davis was in, and the name of the professor coming to have drinks. Both characters appear to totally confront one another. Martha, according to George, ‘brays,’ and George shows a passive display of apathy. However, this is not merely strength versus weakness due to Martha’s obvious reliance on George. In Martha and George’s relationship, Martha firstly behaves like a mother towards George, saying, ‘ C’mon over here and give Mommy a big sloppy kiss. ‘ She then acts more childlike, with (imitating a child), ‘I’m firsty. ‘ It is as though Martha cannot decide as to whether she is the controlling mother or the child who needs protecting in their relationship. The action of this Act takes place in George and Martha’s cosy yet cluttered home. In an outline, Martha is furious that George, an academic, hasn’t advanced at the college where her father is President, that is, George hasn’t become President himself. The fact that George didn’t even fight during the War, but stayed in the History Department at the college, makes George and Martha doubt his manhood all the more. In a sense, George almost feels below Martha’s father. Understandably so, as Martha calls him a ‘flop’ and continues to praise her father. George and Nicks (the slightly self contained younger guest) chosen departments in the college are again an example of total contrast in the play. George appears to be bogged down in his department and not going anywhere academically or in his career. He is almost a relic of the past himself. Nick, however, is at the forefront of new discoveries and is also young, handsome and extremely successful. This is the type of man whom Martha initially wanted to marry, yet the type of man to whom George could not fit the bill. George is therefore understandable threatened by Nick and his young, ‘liberal’ way of thinking. George pretends to shoot Martha in another of their ‘games’, but this is almost the opposite to the restrained George we are used to seeing. Laughter and arguments between the characters of Martha and George demonstrate to us the dialectic of love and hate in Act one. When Martha demands a kiss from George, a display of affection to his own wife, George knocks it back and rejects her. The fluctuation in their relationship demonstrates that hating each other hasn’t precluded form simultaneously loving and needing one another. Illusion appears to be a very important part of the play. George and Martha both had an illusion of what life would be like when they got married; they saw George becoming president of the college and living a happy married life under its roof. Clearly this did not happen, and both feel somewhat bitter for it. Honey and Nick also appear almost as an illusion of a happy marriage, so it seems. They seem to slip into the background in that they both pretend not to notice George and Martha’s arguments and laugh at things that they don’t particularly find funny. Another example of an illusion is that of Martha’s and George’s apparent son. Martha is always very keen to talk of him whereas George is not so, almost closing down the subject. We never actually see the son in Act One and there is even confusion between the two as to when his birthday is. The supposed perfection of the boy, blonde hair and blue eyes, and the fact that George refers states, ‘Don’t bring up the bit about the boy,’ depersonalises and deludes his actual existence. This is obviously a particularly sore point of conversation between George and Martha, as it results in a number of heated arguments. Martha and George constantly hurl abusive and hurtful words at each other, as though throwing knives. In striking out at those closest to them, that is each other, they represent the typical dysfunctional couple. However, in doing so the romantic notion of love keeps their relationship almost together. Both saw each other as the way to a new, ‘perfect’ way of life yet the fantasy was not fulfilled, and in verbally abusing each other, they take the blame from themselves and place it on each other. Albee has captured perfectly the way two completely different people can come together and the dramatic consequences it can have on each other, not always in bringing out the negative.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

William Shakespeare s Romeo And Juliet - 925 Words

The fourteen line I chose to annotate and perform is a monologue made by Romeo. This happens right after Romeo gets to Juliet’s grave, then meets Paris, fights Paris, and kills Paris.[a]Right before Paris dies, he says â€Å"Oh, I am slain! If thou be merciful, Open the tomb. Lay me with Juliet† (Shakespeare 5.3.72-73). Paris is brave and proud enough to tell Romeo, the person that kills him, to put him in the grave next to Juliet, who he was going to marry. Romeo’s true love for Juliet caused all of this in the first place. In the play, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare persuades the audience to see what can arise when love is at its pinnacle, that the true power of love can change the life of a person in an instant.[b] Romeo has mixed feelings standing next to Juliet at her grave, and he expresses them in weird ways. Romeo becomes confused after he gets a better look at the person who he had killed, he then only finds that it was Paris. In th at hurry, Romeo is again confused, he thought that Balthasar had told him Paris was going to marry Juliet, then he says â€Å"Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?† (Shakespeare 5.3.79). Romeo is not sure of what he remembers. This whole event has been a lot on Romeo, and it is caused a slight mental breakdown. I wonder if Shakespeare is showing what love and tragedy can cause to a person, or what happens when you decide to die next to the person you loved and married. Romeo’s use of visual delivery[c] gives the reader aShow MoreRelatedWilliam Shakespeare s Romeo And Juliet1287 Words   |  6 PagesLizzy Baginski English Composition 2 Mr. Spera March 10, 2015 Romeo and Juliet Research Paper The movie Romeo and Juliet is a modern classic film that took place in 1996. Overall this is a timeless story that everyone should go and watch. 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