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Public Art

The piece of public art I chose was “River Shadows” (Three Manatees) by Andre Harvey. The year it was created was 1989 and the sculpture is located in the Port Charlotte Town Center Mall. It is a cast bronze sculpture, with a stainless steel base, of three manatees swimming alongside each other.

The subject of the sculpture is three manatees seemingly swimming in a fountain of bubbling ocean water. The sculpture captures the manatees’ purpose by showing them swimming in a uniform line looking as careless and easygoing as ever. The sculpture doesn’t seem to portray any historical meaning to it other than manatees are a great thing to see when in Florida. The sculpture seems to say that Port Charlotte is a nice, breezy community and that people get along with each other easily.

This sculpture shows the audience that symbiosis and living among amazing sea creatures is a great way to portray the gulf town. The community seems to value sea life and a ‘beach’ lifestyle. This sculpture can be seen as full-round, not relief. The sculpture really interacts with the fountain underneath acting as the ocean waters. Other than that, I am not sure that this fountain piece is suitable for being in a shopping center. The size of the sculpture, as derived from the artist’s website, is the lowest manatee: 54″, middle manatee: 78″, and the upper manatee: 66″. The weight of this sculpture is 1800 pounds or approximately 810 kgs.

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Abstract Images

The piece I have chosen is an abstract painting called “Untitled” by Nasrollah Afjei (2013). Through this piece’s sensa, the painting accentuates curved, thin lines, and has small white dots over different shades of brown swirling between the lines. Towards the bottom right-hand corner, the lines show a 3-D effect on the thickness of the object, which reminds me of a churro for some odd reason. Maybe I was drawn to this abstract painting because it reminds me of different food items! The movement of the painting is going upwards and to the right, which gives this piece a nice flow that is pleasing for the eye to follow. As for the color, brown traditionally signifies simplicity, friendliness, dependability, and stimulates the appetite. The best way I can describe the emotional pull I feel while observing this painting is a longing to follow the stretched white lines. It takes me on a journey to find the source and to keep following the lines to see where they end up. With the brown-toned background, this painting brings me warmth while filling me with comfort and strength to carry on. What drew me into this painting was looking at the other ones around it, and how they all were quite standard with geometric aspects and bright primary colors. This painting stood out because of the different colors and thin lines compared to the surrounding paintings.  The painting stands out because of its intriguing marble pattern compared to the traditional abstract way of sharp, dark lines and splashes of primary colors.

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Representative Work

A specific piece of artwork I chose as a representation of myself is “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt (1907). I chose this painting because I was drawn by all of the colors and different shapes Klimt chose to portray as the woman and the man. I also have seen this piece of art many times as a teenager by people who imitate/make a parody of it in the media. This artwork has a dull and plain background, which highlights the main aspect of the piece: the two lovers sharing a warming and sensual kiss, patterned with golden cloaks. I enjoy that there is a contrast between the man’s black and white rectangles compared to the woman’s colorful ovals and flowers. The work overall speaks to me. This piece of art speaks to me because of the pure love between the two subjects and because of the bright and cheerful colors associated with the painting. It looks like these two people are standing on some sort of hill’s edge filled with flowers. To me, that really makes this painting feel more romantic. I bet these two just had the most perfect day and are so engrossed and in love with each other that they cannot simply separate themselves. The gold makes this painting exude class and happiness at the same time. With further inspection, the male subject seems to have flowers or vines in his hair: a sign of always having a piece of his partner with him. After researching this piece, The Kiss was the beginning of Klimt’s Golden Period. The Golden Period to Klimt was a piece of something he cannot have: intimacy and a real relationship because Klimt was not married during his lifetime. The Kiss currently resides at Austrian Gallery Belvedere, where the artist Gustav Klimt was from.

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I Created a Blog!

As this is my first post, I figured I would write an introduction. For me, art is about feeling some sort of emotional pull and yearning for more information. Art and music are pieces of someone’s life, pieces of someone’s most vulnerable moments. I am most interested in seeing things from a new point of view. Reviewing pieces of art that I have admired since childhood is something I look forward to. I also look forward to sharing this experience with my peers with hope to gain more knowledge about culture and art. Although I am in no way an artist or musician, I hope to have some fun as someone with an open mind in this class!