Tiffany Geiger posts

"Pt I:  Tiffany Geiger's Manifesto Drawing"

Tiffany Geiger

Untitled

2010

Contemporary art encompasses a need to explore and invent a visual language from a personal standpoint of the artist.  My artwork is an intuitive exploration of my subconscious mind and the energy that comes from space, shape, form, and line.  The aesthetic quality of the imagery is very important to bring the viewer in to inquire more. Being conscious of how shapes relate and converse with one another help the aesthetics in the end, but not to the point where the freedom of hand and mind fluidity perishes. I am interested in abstract, dream-like or fantastical imagery.  It gives the viewer permission to escape from a rigid static state of reality and let’s their eyes and mind take flight to a different dimension or visual world. Contemporary art is very much about the experience the viewer has while viewing a given piece of art.  The great thing about working in this way is that there are no cultural boundaries as to who can or can’t understand the artwork.  Contemporary art is very social in nature and the more people that can relate and experience the pieces the better.  All cultures can understand shape, line, space, and form.

 

“Pt: II:  Tiffany Geiger Selects”

Zhou Fan

Untitled

China

2007-2010

“Visual effect” is one of the priorities of any artist, according to Zhou.  Zhou Fan has been very inspired by his childhood. While the artist has always had a strong fascination for Jellyfish, Zhou’s “Love of Jellyfish” series of paintings is based on dreams that he had as a young boy of many jellyfish floating in the sky, some of which fell to the ground on parachutes and became mushrooms. These dreams had a strong impact on the artist, and he remembers them vividly. The artist explains, “Somehow I feel that it is easier to focus on dreams than reality”. According to psychologists, our daily fantasies and dreams are actually extensions and expansion of our reality. Zhou Fan has several paintings of women wearing hats composed of a wide variety of living things, which seem to be unrelated, such as ladybugs, plants, flowers, fish and jellyfish. At first glance, it seems to be surprising that these things have been placed together. Yet after looking at the works and pondering them for a while, these things are painted together so harmoniously that they seem to fit together, like pieces in a fantasy puzzle. Zhou’s variety of combined beings also reflects life in China, with so many different influences, historical, modern, Eastern and Western.

 

Nasser Lubay

Rebirth

Philippines

2009

Within the painting there is an agony of a man whose life is been at war for his very existence, though conflicts are growing with immense fear he has to purge a new life form and seek for a better world with dreams. Rebirth for a new life, world, and dreams.  His works depicts on an emotion and/or life story of an individual or society which is drawn out from their varying synchronous minds. Life for him is a psychedelia of abstract and fantasy.  He too is intrigued by the fantastical and dream-like state of the subconscious mind.  It can seem to be truer than what we see around us in our every day lives.  His images are almost collage like but still visually relate and speak to one another in a fluid and undulating manner.  When one views this painting it takes them to another world, a world with pink floating eyeballs amidst tentacle creatures who may or may not be in an underwater landscape.  Anything goes.  There are no rules of perspective, reality, or logic in this world and you, the viewer, are allowed to be its guest.  You are allowed to think freely and to let your mind wander without judgment. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQHuhZZ3fiA&feature=player_embedded

Vollis Simpson

Whirligigs

North Carolina

2010

The “junkyard poet” is Vollis Simpson, an accidental artist who at 91 is still making extraordinary sculptures from fan blades, propellers, and other scrap metal.  Originally a farm equipment repairman, Simpson began making things from scrap as a hobby, but has lived to see his work become highly regarded in the art world.  Lots of joyful things spin like Ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, and tops. When it’s experienced, there’s something about the movement that triggers an unconscious sense of freedom.  As we watch there is a part of our brains that feels it is spinning too.  The wind adds another layer, another unseen force to the mix that makes pinwheels and whirligigs feel delightful. As humans we are used to power being emitted by things we can see, a hand or a motor, but the fluctuations of an invisible wind make things seem to be moving by themselves. Depending on the other elements of the design and its context, this can be spooky or it can feel magical and joyful.