My Work

My youtube channel contains videos I made in freshman year of high school through this past August. Over the years I have progressed in different ways and hope to advance my style even further for my thesis. Below is a link to my videos.

http://www.youtube.com/user/MAJESSTIC?feature=mhum

Jesse VandenBergh

Thesis

Welcome Back Show

            The Mason Gross Welcome Back show presented an array of diverse imagery through an assortment of media. Perhaps the centerpiece of it all was the late Lynda Craig’s exhibition entitled Intimate Observations, which showcased her works from 1997, just five years before her untimely death of a brain tumor. Craig’s work was comprised of oil painting of female nudes, mythology and landscapes. One of her pieces caught my attention over the rest due to the interesting backstory. After her tumor operation she lost her motor skills. To keep her mind sharp and her artistic creativity keen, her son would bring home golf balls for her to decorate. Craig covered them in wax and thread and presented them as little works of art. I am not easily intrigued by abstract art, but I found that understanding the piece was contingent on knowing how and why the decorated golf balls came to be.

            Another abstract piece was Timothy Warner’s More Than a Feeling/Don’t Look Back. It was a large projection of two white flames flickering. While there may have been a personal motivation or meaning behind this piece, I found it to be aesthetically simple, yet hard to interpret. Although abstraction is not my style, I find that the beauty of it lies in the endless amounts of interpretation that can be made. This piece did not evoke any sort of meaning for me.

            Alan Prazniak’s Dreamgirl is a three dimensional puzzle of an Egyptian Sphinx-like head covered in oil and decorated with large, garish earrings. I saw this as a commentary on the life-styles and aspirations of the generic little girl. The piece is entitled Dreamgirl. It is made primarily of a puzzle and earrings, which are two things that little girls with big dreams would possess. Little girls are known to play dress-up and wearing their mother’s clothes and earrings. It is an imaginative way for them to play with what they aspire to be/do when they grow up. Puzzles are another aspect of childhood and I remember my sister voraciously doing puzzle after puzzle. I do not know if this was the artist’s intention, but Dreamgirl was able to get me thinking about my own interpretations of it, and what it made me think of from my own childhood. I believe that is the purpose of an effective art piece.

            Tyson Washburn’s exhibit was entitled Centennial Towers, Four Floors and it was comprised of four photographs from the inside of a building being constructed. I found this piece to be very interesting. Engineering and architecture are often overlooked as art forms. Washburn’s art captures the process of a pending work of art within a finished work of art. At a quick glance, the work is seemingly simplistic but when thought about, there are many potential meanings.

*To view photos, copy and paste the URL*

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Jesse interviews Katherine

Jesse VandenBergh

Peer Interview

Thesis

Katherine Meyerink interviewed by Jesse VandenBergh

Go to this URL to hear the audio 

file:///Users/jvision/Desktop/Katherine%20Interview.mp3

I sat down with Katherine as we looked at an array of photos she had taken over the years.

JV: All these night shots are from freshman year?

KM: I guess sophomore year from Photo II. It’s from when I started to learn color processing, so I tried to test what it would be like on film. It’s a lot harder, I found, with color film because the color balance is off because you have the right film for certain types of lightings so the lighting is two different colors. You get the murky yellow that’s between florescent and incandescent. I definitely wouldn’t do color film for it again, but I tried it. Black and white is definitely my favorite because it creates such dead space. The blacks are so rich.

JV: You said that the first two photos were from 2007. Do you still work in the same medium?

KM: Yeah I’m pretty much re-exploring that now. I’m reading a book right now called The Poetics of Space which is about the significance of spaces, like the home (reference to her photograph) so I’m hoping that’ll help me a little more. It talks about how the home is a shelter. I ‘m trying to figure out what it is I love about the home and what space is, so I’m trying to take as many pictures as possible to see what I like whether it be getting to know a person through their stuff or… I don’t even know.

JV: What inspired you to start doing that? What do you think initiated your interest in space and furniture?

KM: When I first started taking photographs I would go to Asbury Park and take pictures of all the decaying buildings.

JV: That’s a cool place to do that.

KM: Yeah, but now it’s getting nice so I don’t like it as much anymore. And then the whole furniture thing – the lighting was gorgeous. It was a used furniture store and I just like “this is beautiful.” There was something I liked but I wasn’t sure what it was and what I could do with it. Now I’m realizing that I could potentially have an idea here and I want to explore it.

JV: Do you have any photographers/artists in general who you like to emulate?

KM: Two years ago I found this woman Gail Albert Halaban. She was showing in New York and she did a whole series out of windows in NY. Like looking into people’s houses. She did individual portraits inside the house and then she did ‘looking out of a window’. It’s very voyeuristic and that inspired me.

JV: It’s almost like Rear Window-esque. I don’t know if you’ve seen that movie.

KM: Yeah, that’s part of her inspiration too; Hitchcock and stuff.

JV: So where do you see yourself for thesis and even beyond? What do you hope to do with taking pictures like this?

KM: I guess investigating memory and the significance of things in our lives. Another thing that I was doing is I cut holes into pictures. I wanted to cut essential things out of the photograph that were necessary to put it together to signify memory, and how you can edit facts, and re-edit them. That’s something I’d want to play with and it works the spaces I’m taking. I haven’t done it on big photos because I don’t want to ruin them, but I feel like I’m going to end up experimenting with that a little. I feel like I’m just trying to organize my thoughts right now. I have a bunch of ideas but they need to be solid and I feel like that’s what’s going to happen this year. I’m going to explore that and concentrate on it enough until I’ve come up with the perfect idea.

JV – When or why did you get into this particular vein of art dealing with memory and space, and is there a specific point in time if your childhood or any point in your life that you remember being the moment that got you into this?

KM: I wouldn’t that anything from my childhood really. Originally when I came to school I was going to double major in psychology, which really interests me. I took social psychology. It talked about memory and the way people learn about things. I think that sparked me on that whole idea. And then just trying to figure out what my work is about. Because I feel like I have a hard time with that. I can take a picture, but what is that picture about?

JV – And you also always find that when people look at your work they come up with new meaning that you never even…

KM – …Thought of, exactly. Which helps too. I just like space, I don’t know why (laughs).

Water Show pieces

            I would arrange these pieces in one room because they each represent water through different media. Hans Haacke’s Condensation Cube is a sculpture that is constantly active on its own. The water from the bottom of the cube evaporates, becomes condensation on the top of the cube, and then trickles back down to the bottom. Maya Lin’s Dew Point is also a sculpture, but serves a different purpose to that of Haacke’s. Dew Point is a large representation of water beads. Her representation plays tricks on the eye by appearing to be large drops of water when they are actually different sized pieces of blown glass. I would also install the large video projection from the point of view from the front of a speedboat. In the bottom center is an image of the wake of the boat. While some of the pieces in the Water Show are similar to others, This piece is completely unique. It also depicts water as a vessel for traveling. Next to the video projection I would put one of Hughie Lee Smith’s Women in the Waves paintings. If presented next to the grand projection of a boat’s perspective, the small painting of a woman in waves would further accentuate the theme of women being historically depicted as fragile and nude, and men as conquerors of the sea.

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Water Show

Jesse VandenBergh

BFA Thesis Water Show

Gerry Beegan

            The Water Show at the Zimmerli Art museum takes a subject that is present and necessary in our every day lives and addresses the various roles it plays in culture and history. The exhibition is presented in four rooms, each with a different aquatic theme. Rather than being displayed on a traditional white wall, the walls were painted teal and light shades of blue, further emphasizing the overall theme of water.

            The first room contained pieces such as Hans Haacke’s Condensation Cube, Lynn Davis’ Iceberg photos, and Maya Lin’s Dew Point sculptures. The main theme of this first room seemed to be primarily that of the water cycle. Condensation Cube is essentially a model of the water cycle. Lynn Davis’ Iceberg photos, specifically Iceberg II, contains an iceberg, the ocean, and the clouds in the composition. These are all three of the states in which water can be; solid, liquid and gas. Dew Point is comprised of multiple sized glass sculptures resembling water beads after a rainstorm or beads of condensation. It is located in the corner of the room, which according to the curator, is to protect the sculpture.

            The second room, while seemingly the simplest composition, was the most difficult to put together. The simplistic view of the spacing is the payoff to the hard work put into the layout of this room. The overall theme seemed to be that of civilization located near bodies of water. Maya Lin’s Pin River is the Hudson River and the Long Island Sound made entirely of pins. It took two days to assemble. Albert Bierstadt’s Waterfall is a beautiful realistic painting of a scenic waterfall. The waterfall creates a vertical white line down the landscape painting. There is also a painting of the New Brunswick train line when the city was first developing. The train line runs across the Raritan River.

            Room three is entitled Women in the Waves Men in Boats. It is an arrangement of paintings that play into the stereotype of men using bodies of water to conquer, explore and hunt such as Edward J. Steichen’s pieces. Women are portrayed as helpless and nude in the waves like Hughie Lee Smith’s paintings and portraits. This room had the clearest overall theme out of the four rooms. The pieces were arranged along the perimeter of the wall, with the exception of Steichen’s battle ship sculpture.

            The final room had a theme of artifacts and their relations to water. Diane Neumaier had an array of fountain photographs. The fountains were ornate, and intricately crafted. Atul Bhalla had an exhibit in this room entitled Immersions, which were ancient looking sand casts submerged in small water tanks. It almost seems as if these artifacts were originally discovered in the water, if they were indeed real artifacts.