Emancipation

Abstract

Throughout the project, I was primarily interested in formal issues; profound content or suggested narratives are for the most part accidental in these works. I took this cue (only somewhat consciously) from the Italian Baroque sculptures I had greatly admired, their religious and symbolic pretexts added almost as afterthoughts to justify the artists' studies of wonderful and dynamic nude figures. Accordingly, many of my first works for the project took off directly where my art courses had left off, with my friends modeling for me in semi-academic poses, on sheets and chairs. Unsure of what else to aim for, I tried hard to make the first two drawings (Napping and Julia Sits) as accurate and complete as I coud, using the reddish conte crayon I had become comfortable with in my figure drawing class. Even when I began trying different media and compositions, as with my shadowy, "baroque" self-portrait and the ink-washed Back View, my relatively strict observation remained a constraint. Although I would soon depart from this type of exact transcription, I am glad to have done the drawings this way, and I cannot help but feel as though they served as a legitimizing stepping stone as I started to create freer works