Page 97 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2001)

REVIEW OF EXHIBITIONS bY TAMARA PASZTOR

focus of Contemporary Art? This question the background around them. This is equally sTRATOsPHERET
has raised issues not merely with myself, central. I attempt to conjure a sense of MATTHEW HARPOLD
also amongst my fellow colleagues. Is various emotions in my works as well as I was born in Kent, Washington, USA (30
Contemporary Art solely a public site-spe- leaving the viewer with a question, “What is miles south of Seattle) in June of 1976. I
cific work or is it an assemblage of found it about?” have been experimenting with digital and
objects used to create a type of sculpture traditional art since I
or mechanical operating device? After sAINT sEbAsTIAN was a child. In my early
visiting numerous exhibitions in Hamilton A bOdY CAUGHT UP IN teens I began to use the
and Toronto area, I still discovered it to REPREsENTATION early Atari 400, 130xE,
be difficult to answer this question. Is a JUSTINA M. BARNICkE Atari ST,. and finally the
carved piece of wood placed against a wall GALLERY PC in high school. I took
compared to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO as many art classes as
frescos truly a work of art? Or should locks TORONTO, CANADA I could in high school,
of hair matted into a ball with tiny fibres of Bound to a Roman column and pierced essentially devoting
paper tangled into it even be considered with arrows, the ethereal Saint Sebastian my senior year to art- NIGHTTIME BIRDS
an art form? Think about this question next gazes skyward. Not a flicker of agony passes independent figuring PHOTOGRAPHY/DIGITAl
time you visit a contemporary art exhibi- across his youthful visage. Strong hues and drawing classes, and 1998
tion. Answers vary from person to person. a golden illumination executed logo designs
On the other hand, I have found that art in suffuses the torso. for local businesses.
general has become much more than just Scarce traces of blood I attended Pacific lutheran University in
a painted masterpiece hanging on a gallery spill from the open 1994,completing two years of coursework
wall. It has become an area where any wounds. This is the towards my bachelors in fine Arts, before
artist can explore and discover new ways classical iconographic transferring to Cornish College of the Arts
of creating that next, Portrait of my Mother. depiction of the martyr in 1996. I spent 3 years there, eventally
An artist is no longer restrained to a paint- in the Italian Quat- graduating with my BfA. Since college, I
brush to a canvas or chisel to clay. I believe trocento and into the have worked for a number of hobby game
this is what defines Contemporary Art as present. companies with national distribution,
SAINT SEBASTIAN
we see it now. It is a break from the past TIZIANO VECELLIO The legend of Sebas- including Rubicon Games, Alderac
so to speak. While the ideas of the great OIl ON CANVAS tian hails between Entertainment Group, and Atlas Games.
masters of history still linger in our minds, 1570 the Christian periods Nightshade Books published my first novel
new ideas and areas can be explored with 210 x 115CM of 283AD or 305 AD. cover, “TheAngel with Television Eyes” this
numerous sources of mediums. According to one year. Currently, I am devoting almost all
I am a young artist, nevertheless still an source, in 283 AD, Sebastian ventured forth my time to a computer game proposal, for
artist, trying to fit into a neat category of to Rome and joined the army of Emperor which I am executing all the 3D models,
the Contemporary genre, conquering new Carinus against Diocletian. After the defeat texture art, and animation. What I set out to
forms, disciplines, mediums, and choosing of Carinus, Sebastian swore fealty to the do before anything else is to create mood
the next path. new Emperor Diocletian. Afterwards, he was and ambiguity. I play with layers of color and
Tuesday’s Child, is invoked from an bestowed the honourable rank of com- texture to obscure the imagery, but not so
inspiration that began with viewing works mander of the Praetorian Guard. Never- much that it all becomes lost to abstraction.
by Andy Warhol. Canadian singer Amanda theless, Sebastian adopted the Christian I like Enthropy, and corroding away a
Marshall was created by using various religion and was ordered by Diocletian to be pristine painting using the digital process. I
shapes to define her face and hair, rather executed. use oils for the original painting, PhotoShop
than actual features. Numerous Renaissance portrayals show for my digital manipulations, found textures
To me photography is more than a simple the martyr in the traditional Grecian stance and photography to work into the piece.
picture. It can be quite (contraposto), fettered, and staring upward Though a painting almost always serves as
cinematic. It can tell a in ‘religious ecstasy’—this emphasis is the primary foundation. At present, I am
story, capture a specific placed more upon Baroque sculpture. working on art and design for a computer
time, event, or invoke Matthew Stradling, author of The Aura of game.
thoughts and feelings. Timelessness, provides another rendition: This is the next level for visual artists; the
Keeping with that, I “Saint Sebastian is a perfect icon for truly interactive experience. Computer and
usually like to take one homosexuality. The writhing wounded man video games are a very young medium,
photographic idea and is sensual, vulnerable And passive. The fact and have the potential to be a fully realized
produce a sequence that he is in a religious ecstasy heightens the ‘art’ medium inasmuch the same way
of images, as seen eroticism.”
MARCUS photography and independent cinema are,
COlOURED CHAlK, OIl PASTEl, below with Marcus. It The rationale behind the engimatic on the other hand it will take time, and
AND CONTAY is originally of 1 of 12 ‘homosexual’ theory of Saint Sebastian plenty of experimentation. Stratosphere
photographs taken, in the modern era is perhaps, due to our began as an archetypal form for the
later photocopied, enlarged to a standard fascination with deciphering the imagery game book in the same manner.I did 12
size, coloured overtop with chalk, oil pastel, presented. The semi-naked, almost archetypes for this book, and this one
and contay. Photographs can be bent and statuesque torso, and the piercing of arose as the most robust design concept to
shaped. I took a photograph and literally the arrows could be perceived as sexual be used as the cover. I used fragments of
manipulated it into my own type of drawing. penetration. several paintings and a found rust texture to
From Here to There another portion of a In spite of these hypothesis’, the figure of pull it all together.
series of photographs. This particular pic- Sebastian is plausible in terms of ordinary Nighttime Birds was the first successful
ture was not only meant to ask the viewer human experience. It is the physiognomy, PhotoShop piece I completed. It was
what exactly the two figures are doing or movement, and emotional ambience that primarily found photography and fragments
the fantastical tale it is trying to narrate, are invoked by the icon. from old paintings.
more importantly what is happening within A breakthrough piece.

WORLD of ART 79