final painting - fall 2011

my final painting after these ones. i showed all three at my final critique with Jinny Yu.
'tarpaulin cliffs'
2011
42"x42" oil on canvas

i also made some alterations to this one since my last post
'chicken oasis'
2011
42"x42" oil on canvas

good critique

42"x42" oil on canvas (WIP)

48"x48" oil on canvas (WIP)

the critique for these was generally positive. i felt slightly 'high' after. the terms 'hilarious', 'unapologetic' and 'mildly psychedelic' were used. i gave a convoluted statement about several 'over-arching themes' which might have been my content/concept. this probably sounded 'insane' to everyone present. my prof told me that it needed to be 'closer to me' and less about trying to tackle grand, general themes.

November studio update

still working on 'why' i paint what i paint re my last critique. i postponed starting this second one for a long time due to that problem.

seems like 'theoreticism.' a term from a reading my prof (jinny yu) gave my class called 'Resisting Blackmail' by Yve-Alain Bois. the obligation to be theoretical, to the point where it becomes almost more important than practice. in the reading he references Roland Barthes, saying that "one does not 'apply' a theory; that concepts must be forged from the objects of one's inquiry or imported according to that object's specific exigency; and that the main theoretical act is to define this object, not the other way around." (Bois, Yve-Alain. Painting as Model. MIT Press, 1990. pg xii)

experimental portrait

scenery

Scenery
Oil on Canvas
16"x20"


i feel good about this one. someone in my class said that the figures looked alienated or detached from the landscape. I like that idea i think. I tried to merge abstraction and representation into the same space, to create something new or break down their binary nature and cause a conflation between the two. i'm not sure if i was successful, but i like that the outcome reflects that missed connection.

also, i have a tumblr now http://sarahtuefee.tumblr.com/

messy

Pilgrimage (WIP?)
24"x30"
Oil on Canvas


jesus.

final summer studio update

Here are the nearly finished, small fort pieces. I ran out of time in the studio so I'll have to wait until school starts to finish them.


4'x5' Oil on Canvas (also not finished)


Detail of above


..I'll take better pictures later.

Fort Paintings (WIP)

Here are two more work in progress 'fort' paintings to go with the one in previous post. They are hopefully going to go in a group show I will be doing in the fall.

Big Painting Work in Progress

Starting a big painting with a week left of summer studio...


I'm posing like a presenter on a game show. It seemed cute at the time.

delayed studio post

I haven't posted in about two weeks. I feel bad about this even though probably no one cares except me and maybe two other people.

I drank coffee out of a novelty sized 'Asterix et Obelix' mug. It holds about three times a normal mug.

I felt 'insane' and tired after drinking it.

There is about a week left of summer studio time before fourth year starts.

I feel like I only just started to take it 'seriously'.

I feel worried often about the inconsistencies between my desire to be productive and my lack of self motivation.

I think I like people more who work really hard and make stuff, and I want to be more like that so people will like me.

I feel like my life up until now has been extremely static and will change drastically in the next year. I imagine it as a squirrel staying very still and alert, pretending not to see me approaching, holding my hand out like I have food for it even though I clearly do not. It observes me warily, shivers slightly, flinches, then bolts up a tree.

I feel like I have had too much caffeine today.

Profound Elephant

i had a dream about an elephant once

the elephant swayed from side to side and rotated in place slowly

it seemed content

i thought, "that elephant is profound"

right now i feel shitty

i have lost the will to do anything

i feel like a zombie sitting at its computer looking at pictures of people it wishes it talked to more in high school

i was at a science fair

my science project seemed misguided and poorly constructed

i was nervous about this, i felt like this was not my fault

outside i saw an elephant with a big, red "15" on it's side

it moved without purpose

i was mesmerized by its movement

i lay on my bed with wide open eyes trying to think of something good

i cannot form a thought

i need to snap out of it/ not be like this

when I snapped out of it, my project was broken

it had fallen over due to its own poor construction

i pointed at it and said "it's looking for a better life"

my teacher gave me a D+

i need to get ready for a thing with friends soon

i don't feel like seeing people right now or moving or putting pants on

but i also don't want to let people down or make them feel like i don't want to see them or make them worry that i'm not ok

so i'll go

i looked outside again

the elephant was lying on the ground

the kids from my class were kicking it

it seemed content

Things are happening

Woke up in my bed.

Thought about painting eight paintings in eight hours.

Thought about writing a novel.

Thought about writing and directing a short film.

Thought seriously about just not getting up.

Got up, ate cereal, took my time.

Watched one and a half episodes of Arrested Development.

Thought about Micheal Cera.

Checked the weather. 29 degrees, feels like 36.

Thought about not wanting to get dressed or go outside.

Finished watching the second episode of Arrested Development.

Got dressed.

Talked on the phone with my friend about our plans for tomorrow.

Read an email from the girl who runs The Fashion Press about featuring my art on her blog.

Went to studio.

Felt better.

Paintings and a story I thought of while hungover in an uncomfortably warm room.

Party Story

As Lana sat in the room, she somewhat consciously rated the people in the conversation out of 10, based on her perception of their level of intellectualism. 9, who unintentionally made her feel extremely inferior, was listening intently to 3's story about his problems with his landlord. The two 4's both had good hair and shared a private joke. They tried to suppress their laughter unsuccessfully and they knocked heads, in a slapstick fashion, messing up their hair in a way that made them look better. Lana felt mildly jealous of the exclusivity of their joke, which quickly switched to a feeling of paranoia that the joke was about her. She went back to rating people to distract herself from this unnerving thought. There were two people sitting slightly off to the side of the main group, a guy and a girl. They were not a couple. The guy was a 6 and the girl seemed like a 7 or 8, though Lana did not know her too well. 6 seemed to be entirely uninterested in the other people there, but managed a slight smile or nod when spoken to by 7 or 8. He would probably have rated himself higher if he had done this himself. After doing this for an unknown amount of time, Lana realized she was being addressed by 3. Something about her opinion on the landlord situation. 9 was also awaiting her response intently. Not wanting to appear dumb in front of 9, she tried, slightly panicked, to think of something insightful to say that would not reveal the fact that she was not listening. To her relief, a noise near the front door distracted everyone including 9. Two people whom Lana had never seen before walked in and greeted the host, who was a 7.5 and whom Lana quite liked. She assigned them both 5's as placeholders. As she ran out of people to rate and started thinking of what to rate herself, she realized she was being an asshole. Even though no one knew what she was doing, she was still being an asshole; a secret asshole. 7.5 approached Lana with the two tentative 5's and introduced Lana as "kind of quiet". Lana wanted to yell "I'm an asshole!" and storm out, but instead she said "yeah.." and meekly waved at them.




Just thought I'd try writing something.
-sarah xoxo

Summer Studio!

I've rented the school's shared studio space for the summer and I've gotten off to a slow start. Mainly because I was lazy in May and barely came in at all. But I'm finally starting to get going and I have 3 small studies on the go.




This summer I need to get work done for two shows that i will hopefully be participating in next school year in the student gallery. That, and I need to work out what direction I will be going in for the grad show next year... my style has been a little scattered lately.

So basically I have a lot to do and very little self discipline to do it. Wish me luck.

sarah xoxo

3rd Year Painting Final: Damsels in Ambivalence

So I'm at the end of my third year (only one year to go! I'm freaking out a little!) and I have a bunch of stuff to post in the next few weeks, including some stuff from last semester that I never got around to posting..

I chose the title "Damsels in Ambivalence" partially because I had to name the files on my computer in order to easily find them in the future, and partially because I am somewhat ambivalent towards these paintings at the moment. I like the way they turned out formally (I've been experimenting with Liquin and Galkyd mediums and i loooove them!) but I have mixed feelings about how I treated the subject matter. I was aiming for something that looked almost tacky in its overly saturated ornamentation and patterning; a kind of self-orientalist spectacle. But my class critique left me with the feeling that they don't read that way without knowing the context of my intent. I want my paintings to speak for themselves, but I think these ones are sending mixed messages.

I guess my main concern for next year is dealing with figurative content in my paintings, whether it's being less illustrative, using less loaded symbols, or just less figuration overall..


Sarah Tue-Fee
"Damsels in Ambivalence"
Three 19"x36" panels, oil on canvas, 2011


1st panel detail


also 1st panel detail

sarah xoxo

In the mood

Here's my first project from this semester's painting class "Narrative and Series" with Martin Golland. We were to emulate another artist's style and study their technique to further our own. I chose contemporary Romanian painter Adrian Ghenie.

It's rather small due to a crazy one week deadline..


Mood for Love, 18"x 24", Oil on Canvas, 2011

sarah xoxo

Clockwork Diptych

This was my final project for my "Painting and Source: Questions of Representation" course with Christine Major. The work in progress of which can be seen here. It's a continuation of the style emulation studies in the previous post. I had to use the formal strategies from different artists in a way that related to my choice of subject matter/concept.

Clockwork Diptych, 36"x36", Oil on canvas, 2010


the artist statement that the prof required I write for context:

"My choice of images for this final project was a single scene from A Clockwork Orange, in which the boys are sitting in the Korova Milk Bar behind a table made from two female mannequins. In this opening scene of the film, we see one continuous shot, starting as a close up of the main character’s face, zooming out to reveal his surroundings as he remains still and unblinking. This scene inspired my final project in the both the subject matter (male dominated dystopia, the female form as literal object in service of men), and in the visual symmetry and stillness; qualities that are, to me, reminiscent of painting more so than film.

This choice evolved from my original list, as I had listed film images and time/nostalgia themes as some of my inspirations. As a cult-classic Stanley Kubrick film, the image stands alone as an icon of cult movies. But when repeated in different painterly treatments, the image stands away from its original context, as a question on the consumption and representation of images, especially of the female nude in new media and contemporary painting practices.

My aesthetic choice was a combination of Richter, Polke, and Tuymans’ techniques. I wanted to utilize Richter’s neutral representation of images in one of them and Tuymans’ ideas of formal “failure” and “incomplete” mediation of cultural images in the other. Both mixed with Polke-like, playfully iconoclastic, milky white stains and smears. These add both to the degradation of the image and to the content, as milk in this context can be seen as a visual euphemism both in the context of the film and in it's application to the painted surface. The chaotic and abject application of these stains could then be read as violent; a war between the sexes."

Kubrick Studies

A few studies I did for my "Painting & Source" class. Three 16"x20" acrylic paintings based on the techniques of Gerhard Richter, Luc Tuymans, And Sigmar Polke respectively. Source images coming from the Stanley Kubrick films: A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Dr. Strangelove.

WIP

some works in progress in the studio (they're based on the opening scene of a clockwork orange).

Patternscape

First project for my painting studio, "Painting and Source 1: Questions of Representation", taught by Christine Major.


Untitled Patternscape, Oil on Canvas, 24"x48"