Since coming to college, I have all but abandoned drawing, painting, and various sorts of mixed media. It's not that I wasn't skilled at doing these things, but when I think of how much anger and frustration they caused me throughout my early scholastic and personal life, I feel repulsed. Ever since I was little and used to nibble on my sandwiches to create perfectly straight lines (a habit I sadly have not yet abandoned), I've been obsessed with perfection. My art is not apart from this fixation.
In order to assemble a portfolio for graduate school, I've been looking through my old work. After all, admissions committees want to see that I can hold a pen and use it to draw a straight line. The work that I once thought of as terrible and imperfect now appears well-executed and completely in line with my interest in architecture. Here are a few of my old paintings:
Looking back at my old work makes me think that it might be time to return to other medias in addition to photography. For the past few weeks, I've been craving to build something; to feel materials beneath the tips of my fingers (aside from photo paper, that is) and to work with and manipulate them. I love the way the mechanisms of my manual camera function and respond to my touch, but there's something to be said for creations made in a wood shop or on a dusty floor. Paintings like those shown above breathe and show evidence of craftsmanship. This chai table too is evidence of my ability to fashion something created entirely from myself:
I set out to photograph architecture in order to better understand it; I wanted to truly learn the principles instead of just reading about them in a textbook. For me, photography is a method of observation but also of interaction. I have a profound connection with each of the buildings I capture. I touch them, I walk around them, and if possible, I climb to their peaks. Taking a picture of them only aids in my understanding of their symmetry, functionality, and spatiality. I have been interacting with buildings in this fashion for 11 months now. At this point, I feel ready to attempt a new method to understanding buildings; I feel ready to create one.
Photographs shown below of architectural observations/interactions:
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