Art 413: Contemporary Art Spring 2021

            Shaun Leonardo, a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, discusses societal expectations of manhood, particularly around minority groups, in his work. In his virtual presentation to the students of Sacramento State, San Diego University, and SJSU, he opens up about a program at the core of his practice: Assembly--a diversion program for court-involved youth. In this space, Leonardo became, “invested in the possibilities of storytelling that are embodied rather than told.” The artist believes that when stories are channelled and translated through the body, it offers “a different kind of truth.”  Shaun Leonardo’s “frozen silent gesture” Leonardo demonstrates this belief by starting off his presentation with a “frozen silent gesture.” He asks the audience to study his pose without “leak[ing] into interpretation of the image.” The audience should only describe what they saw. He ends this exercise by saying that the ways that we see are nev...

  Brian Canfield: An Unstoppable Force in the Stained-Glass World                “Know your limits and don’t wear yourself down. I got shingles at 39!” said Brian Canfield, in the first ten minutes of one of the most motivational talks I have been to in a long time. His talk, hosted by California State Fullerton, was hosted on zoom on February 18 th this year. The zoom chat was bursting with so many compliments that it was hard to keep up. But just who is Brian Canfield? Well, he is a stained-glass artist that is constantly breaking the mold of your stereotypical “starving artist.”             In addition to being an artist, Canfield is a draftsman, a business owner, a professor, a veteran, and a caring husband. He runs the highly successful Bera Stained Glass Studios down in San Marcos, California, known for their beautiful productions of stained and faceted glass. Calming of the...

      On March 11, 2021, CSU Dominguez Hills hosted an Artist Talk Webinar featuring a conversation between curator and art historian Valerie Cassel Oliver and artist Howardena Pindell. Cassel Oliver asked questions about Pindell’s life and work. She became interested in the arts through her third-grade teacher, who encouraged her to continue drawing, and her parents, who helped her try out different styles. Growing up, Pindell had many encounters with racism. Not only was she the only person of color in her MFA program (Cassel Oliver mentioned that Pindell appears to be the first black woman to graduate from Yale University), but she also faced discrimination from peers and parents of friends. Indeed, she recalled that some of the students’ parents attempted to bribe the University to remove her from being a professor. These experiences inform the purpose and intentions behind her creations. In her artworks, we see lengthy metaphors of destruction and reconstruction...

OMG. It’s pretty isn’t it? – but focusing only on the visual aesthetics is a click in the wrong direction. User Experience Designer, Blanca Navarro, shares her journey working as a graphic designer for Vans while still in college, and promotes the information she wishes she had known at the start of her art career. In an online zoom event at her alma mater CSUF, Navarro remarks the importance of dipping your toes into all fields of graphic design early on. These include: Visual Design, User Interface (UI) Design, and User Experience (UX) Design. They look strikingly similar, but the tactics and strategies used to tackle each of their creative problems is what sets them apart. Visual Designers are what most people are familiar with and typically learn about this specialization in school: they handle layout, typography, hierarchy, and color. Navarro notes that companies are now seeking people knowledgeable in both Visual Design and UX Design . Navarro unknowingly stepped into UX Design w...

  James Turrell: The Art of Lighting by Tucker Ransom               Artist James Turrell spent his life exploring the depth and beauty of light and our perception of light from in and out of our world. In “Spirituality” an episode from the series Art in the Twenty-First Century, we see Turrell use light to convey otherworldly feelings to help us transcend the reality of our world and look deeper into ourselves.   Turrell designing Roden Crater's dome Turrell was a pilot for years and used this experience to complement his art. On his website, Jamesturrell.com, he states that “the sky is his studio, material and canvas”. In the documentary, we see how Turrell used his ability as a pilot to search the optimal spot for his skylight viewing, the  Roden Crater.  Turrell worked for years in this site to build a sort of observatory, where the viewer can enter and see starlight and the sky without horizon. When...

  Conceptual Art: Origins and Ontology   By Thomas Zepeda

After sitting in on a zoom call by Latoya Ruby Frazier, who explained how she’s an artist that combines activism to create a powerful piece that is directed towards the community she lives in, I learned that she breaks the boundary between people and their culture. She is a Chicago based artist who devotes her time to projects that focus on her community and its people. She is an activist who is trying to strip the facade of a picture perfect society and show the injustices these people have to face everyday. Frazier captures the anguish and devastation seen throughout different communities, showcasing a diverse group of people of all races and ages. As a female Black artist, Frazier’s mission is to open the eyes of her fellow Americans, bringing to light the hardships and economic toll put onto the working class. She shows the obstacles as much as the beauty (the culture of the community and its people) within the cracks of the people’s struggles and the buildings around them.  Wh...