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Ataraxia: Finding Tranquility of Mind and Self

I was brought up in a Catholic family; church every sunday, prayer before bed, rosaries, and communions. As I got older and entered high school, I was given more liberty to explore what religion really meant to me. It brought myself to question whether I believed in the beliefs that were ingrained as a child or it was the only safety blanket I knew. A difficulty was trying to figure out whether I truly believed not even my family's religion specifically, but in a God. This led me to a more spiritual route that has opened my mind to choose my own direction. I use spirituality as a way to find inner peace and self heal. Notice the lightness of tones and the juxtaposition of each part of this series: the sky, the dainty flowers in the background, the thin frame with two empty eyes that are more than just empty, a crescent moon, and triangle to bring it all together. My suite of drawings bring attention and centers to the closest group but the openessbeyond that leaves limitless possibilities of what this could mean to you. One of my favorite components is the lotus flower. The lotus has always been my favorite flower but it was always purely aesthetic, until now. I realized its meditative components and discovered my own meaning for the flower and that helped create a connection.

Valeria Chavez

11/30/2020

Weston, MA

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My series is about skylines. I thought of my series by looking out of the window in one of the art rooms and looking at the trees. My series of art connects by the same sky. And the different types of skylines. I limit myself to the color of the sky. I chose skylines as my series because I like the endless feeling that it gave off. When the sky meets the ground it is very special. So I capture that in my series.

Helen Gallagher

Weston, Ma

November 2020

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At first, I was inspired by a time-lapse video that a father made of his daughter, from being an infant to 20-years old. However, when I actually started my series, my work did not show those intentions of time-lapse. I had made a decision to draw close up parts of the human body. While I was doing that, I had picked up another idea to make a narrative-like piece, with a black woman and a butterfly. Then I came to my final idea for the series I made “Freedom Of Speech” This series is a juxtaposition of a nose and a colorful butterfly with the expression of the human face and an “X” on top. On the lower half of the paper, there is a drawing of shapes from different angles that create the lower half of a face. Although, it may be hard to piece that together based on the fact that I have let the history of pencil marks, dark marks, and eraser marks be shown. I decided to use white paint to blend it together a bit to make the background look more grayish for the worn-out paper-like look. The amount of paint I used shows the time-line of the faded background to a more bold statement of the background. I added different sized x’s over the mouth which give many interpretations, such as not having the freedom of speech. This also gives a time-line of the soft touch of the pencil to the paper to the harsh like touch of the pencil to the paper over the mouth which gives many interpretations, such as not having the freedom of speech. There is one picture out of the series that I decided to have “X” and the mouth in floating-like motions right next to each other. This gives other interpretations based on the fading to the boldness of the “X” marks to now having the “X” and the mought floating about in different places. On the upper half of the picture, there is the colorful nose and the butterfly. This may also seem hard to

notice, based on the fact that the colors don’t necessarily follow the structure of the butterfly and nose. The most noticeable feature of the upper half and bottom half of the picture, is the blandness and to bright colors. The colors of the butterfly and nose are never in the same place as it was in the last picture. Unlike the different principles (fading, boldness, texture) of the bottom of the picture, the bold colored textures of the butterfly and nose stays consistent throughout the series.

Taylor Thomas

November 2020

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My “Winter Shades” series is abstract designs connected with geometric shapes. Using pencils and paint, I was able to achieve an “old” and overlapping effect. A scribble experiment that we did in class really inspired this series. My self-imposed limitations for this series include: free hand when drawing or placing materials, combining the material smoothly, not concentrating on small errors.

Valeria Lenskaya, 11/23/20

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Soul
I created two series for Advanced Drawing Studio. One is about the Forbidden City and one is about  traditional Chinese landscape art.

The first series I call Soul. I  used watercolor to draw each work. I limited my  materials, topic and colors for this series. For example, for the color part, I mainly use bright colors and colors that are traditional to Chinese culture—specially the red.  I spent a lot of time dying layers of color again and again. I pursued and emphasized  drawing the red color that involves a little bit blue and Cherry red together and this is one of the most important reasons I want to explore the beauty of the Forbidden City.

Traditional Chinese Landscapes
The second series, there was more  unknown for me and it presented many possibilities. I am inspired by  traditional art in china and by the landscape. My process was basically pouring  ink onto rice paper. After the ink dried, based on the pattern, I used color to add more details and drawing as I explored the possibility of making marks feel like foliage. This was new for me because I always make pre-decisions first, but for this series I tried something new and enjoyed the processes of spontaneity, imagination and exploration to create my art.

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I started this series by experimenting with condensed watercolor, and quickly figured out different ways to control it to achieve different effects. I then felt inspired by the shapes that came out of the different techniques, and decided to continue the flower-like shape that emerged from adding paint and letting it drip down. This process represented the balance between the natural occurrence of nature and intricate instructions of biology that let flowers grow the way they do. Throughout the process I used a wash in the background of every painting. I found that using different colors for the wash set a different tone for each painting, and that change of tone reminded me of the sky changing throughout the day. I then incorporated sketches of faces to represent people appreciating this simple yet beautiful process. Instead of using ink for the faces I used pen, representing how, though we are a part of nature, we appreciate nature from the outside. This was also represented by the faces being drawn on the edges of the paper, allowing the flowers to exist undisturbed, and keeping nature as the main focus. This reminded me of fireworks, the main explosion of color being watched from the outside. I named this series When Fireworks Turn to Flowers to incorporate what is going on in the sky and on the ground and to capture the amusement and enjoyment of looking at nature.

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My series explores the familiarity of a city that I have spent most of my childhood in. It portrays the ordinary-things that people might just pass on a walk and showing how they can be welcoming through their importance in how we perceive the world we walk in. I wanted to show what can happen inside the surface brick or metal you see. The sense of liveliness that is not only in the public but also in a more intimate space. In my drawing series, looking into the windows plays a big part as you can see the liveness of color that hides behind a monotone covering.

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My series explores my intuition and impulsivity. The compulsivity of my decisions that I can not predict with the patience and tenacity combine into the drawings I create. My series is influenced by childhood memories about museums, Russian artists of Suprematism, Constructivism, and abstraction – Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, Vasily Kandinsky. My color palette was influenced by Picasso’s pink period. All of this I was exploring as a child and it is stuck in my head unconsciously. In my series, I was trying to reach the harmony of complexity and simplicity, freedom of actions, and experiment.

Sonya Vasileva, November 2020

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In My series, I wanted to highlight how oppression affects different people differently. I highlighted this by creating an underdrawing with a variety of colors and shapes that worked together in Harmony. Then, I covered it up with paint in order to hide certain parts of the image. I left some spaces free of color while I completely covered others. After that, I used tape to uncover specific parts of the underdrawing. By doing this, The paint couldn’t bind to the underdrawing and created a residual effect where only a small amount of paint remained. What was left was a brilliant combination of color, shape, and paint. This process symbolizes    oppression and how everyone has different experiences. Some don’t experience it at all. (Some of the underdrawing wasn’t covered with the paint at all) Some people experience suppressing and break through, yet the effects are still apperrent. (The tape uncovered some of the underdrawing but a little bit of paint still remained. While unfortunately, some people fall victim to oppression and don’t have the chance to escape.) The portions of the underdrawing that is still covered by paint).

Rohit Ramanathan, 2020

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The title of my series is Colorful Abstraction. The first piece I made was a bunch of overlapping lines, of different colors. After making that painting, I decided that I wanted to focus my whole series around lines. They have some structure to them, but at the same time, there is space for improvisation, because it’s abstract so it doesn’t have to look a certain way. Some limitations I gave myself included basing each piece around lines and making sure each piece had at least five different colors. I used contrasting colors to make them pop more. Each piece also had to have at least one thin line, which I made using a small brush, and that connects all of the pieces. In all of my pieces, I put a piece of tape across the paper, and painted a mix of opaque and translucent paint over the painting, so that once I took the tape off, there is a window where you can see the painting under it, and on the translucent part you can vaguely see the painting underneath.

Nadia Helsinger

2020