You haven't heard from me in a while. It's weird because I actually have had this entry saved as a draft for a like a week, I just had to finish it. There's just those weeks. I hope that you enjoy Pae though as much as I do.
I'm going to share with you today the art of Pae White. This week when I was trying to figure out which artist that I wanted to feature, I was a little stuck. So I started to just look at various museum websites and I came across Pae on Chicago's Institute of Art's website and I was a little bit blown away. She does installation art and I am very excited to share with you.
I'm going to share with you today the art of Pae White. This week when I was trying to figure out which artist that I wanted to feature, I was a little stuck. So I started to just look at various museum websites and I came across Pae on Chicago's Institute of Art's website and I was a little bit blown away. She does installation art and I am very excited to share with you.
Restless Rainbow (2011)
Pae White was born in 1963 in Pasedena, California. She received her BA at Scripps College, Claremont California, then attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and received her MFA Art Center College of Design, Pasedena California.
This particular installation is currently at the Chicago Institute of Art. Restless Rainbow, that's pretty much the perfect name. I love the bits and pieces of rainbow everywhere.
This particular installation is currently at the Chicago Institute of Art. Restless Rainbow, that's pretty much the perfect name. I love the bits and pieces of rainbow everywhere.
The above work of art is a close up of smoke. This is actually a tapestry woven. I mean that's awesome. I watched an interview of hers and she talks about how she likes to capture objects in a moment knowing the next moment they won't be there anymore. This is just extremely pleasing to my eyes. What a fantastic idea. It also speaks to her ability as a photography to capture such clarity and preciseness with the smoke. It's just beautiful. The work of art below, I am actually really inspired by. Don't be surprised if I try this myself because I think that it is graphic and bold. It's also the work of art that keeps giving, layer upon layer upon layer. I also want to note that this could be an environmental thing (please cut your plastic rings so they don't strangle the birds).
Multiplicity (2004)
Pae is also a graphic designer. When she is working on a project she looks at tons of images and journals and until an image (as she said in an interview I saw) crystallizes. This particular project she designed the seating on a metro line. Awesome! In the interview I saw she said apparently this is graffiti-proof. I probably like this so much because it does have a graffiti feel to it and well I love me some graffiti. I think that she has made her mark and no graffiti necessary.
Metafoil (2008) Cotton, Wool, Polyester
Okay, this is awesome (I know find another word Erin) This particular work of art is a curtain for the Oslo Opera House, that little person in the corner is Pae so that you can see this monstrous work at scale. She scanned a piece of foil and had it made into this curtain, I hear if a production tries to use another curtain, people get made. I'd be mad too!
“I am interested in how a shift through the presence of an art element, subtle or otherwise, can alter, if only briefly, the way we perceive a common situation. Perhaps the art aspect can re-define this “everyday” experience.” -Pae White
“I am interested in how a shift through the presence of an art element, subtle or otherwise, can alter, if only briefly, the way we perceive a common situation. Perhaps the art aspect can re-define this “everyday” experience.” -Pae White
Pae White's Artist Statement: "For the last several years, my practice has focused on an exploration of the neglected, the forgotten, the spaces between things, even the things between things. I am equally drawn to the temporary, the fleeting, to the ephemera of everyday life. My work has attempted to subvert the viewer’s expected relationship to an everyday object, nudging them off balance, encouraging a deeper look.
I like to take ordinary materials and simple, often conventional processes to achieve this – using paper shapes strung on thread to capture the feeling of a swarm of bees; freezing a moment of smoke or crumpled tin foil in the loomed wool of a Flemish tapestry; referencing an unknown narrative about a city in the seat fabric of its buses; evoking memories of home in Los Angeles by creating tacos and taco trucks out of marzipan in the window of a pastry shop in Meunster, Germany; forming out of canvas-wrapped metal the fallen leaves of California sycamores for a show in Milan, Italy; celebrating the local fauna of the Hudson River Valley by making cast-iron barbecues in their shapes; foregrounding the architecture of spiders by placing webs on colored paper and framing them; and on and on.
My goal is to cause viewers to stop and consider the bits and pieces of our lives that are most often overlooked, perhaps suggesting a more comprehensive reconsideration of the world around us, even to ask ourselves: What is important to us? What are we seeing? What are we not seeing?"
I'm really impressed, I actually think that in some way I want to be an artist like this. I do a lot of collage and I use images and things that I have found. She really inspires me.
I find her work extremely aesthetically pleasing. I love this floating suncloud and I like want to run through it or something. I think that there is an extremely organic feel to her work, which is interesting given how graphic and geometric her work can be at times. I think it is because of the found objects.
Venice Biennale (2009)
Pae does a lot of installation art. This work is so interesting. It is this old building in Venice (is there anything but an old building in Venice?) and they asked her to create an installation that would compliment the architecture and allow people to enjoy it. In addition, there were performers, as part of the installation, who made bird sounds. Pae in an interview said that when individuals are looking for the birds (which they will not find) are almost forced to examine the architecture. Those chandeliers are to die for and that netting on the top, it's bringing this modern, graphic twist. It creates a feeling of some kind of aviary sanctuary. Everything that she does is to pay homage to the space. I want to go there. I added the two videos below because one is Pae talking about the space and the second one is a video of the extraordinary talent of these performers. It takes a minute to figure out what is gong on because the performers are so nonchalant.
This installation piece was done in Miami on the beach, she was commissioned to make a social space that would to replace steel shipping containers at Collins Park. “I am simply providing the stage, through a setting that has been provided to me,” says White who wanted to “play with the idea of a disposable city”. She has responded to the scale of the site, which is around 250ft long by 50ft wide, and its stark landscape—“the oceanfront area is totally open, totally empty, and the light is relentless,” the artist says—by proposing a temporary cityscape of “free-form monochromes” comprising scaffold structures covered in fabric... “My work is about teasing perspectives,” says White, and the view depends on where you are standing. The artist took inspiration from the shanty towns of Shanghai, Mumbai and Rio—“people on top of people, on top of people”—and hopes that the effect of the temporary community is “dense enough that you can walk through and get lost”.
Just so you know, the red picnic tables got donated to the Boy Scouts of America after the installation closed. There's canvas over the structures. During the day the cityscape (love the word cityscape) are bold colors like red and green. She wanted to show the contrast between the day and night in Miami because it has such an active night life.
Just so you know, the red picnic tables got donated to the Boy Scouts of America after the installation closed. There's canvas over the structures. During the day the cityscape (love the word cityscape) are bold colors like red and green. She wanted to show the contrast between the day and night in Miami because it has such an active night life.
I really quite like her. How come I have never wanted to watch a film more than I want to watch Dying Oak? I am compelled. I am inspired by her and you know we all want to be inspired. She has such a broad range as an artist and I really appreciate her for that. She jumps into a space and enhances it. Love her!!!
Sources: http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/2010Biennial/PaeWhite; http://www.artnet.com/artists/pae-white/; http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/18/entertainment/la-ca-pae18-2010apr18; http://www.smoca.org/exhibit.php?id=176; http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/seeing-things-studio-visit-pae-white/; http://my.calfund.org/artist-gallery/gallery/year-2009/pae-white/; http://www.mimiandmegblog.com/2009/11/artist-pae-white.html; http://www.re-title.com/artists/Pae-White2.asp; http://www.metro.net/about/art/artworks/multiplicity/; http://artistscommunityresource.blogspot.com/2011/05/pae-whites-metafoil.html; http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Pae-White-creates-a-city-of-dreams%20/19811.
Sources: http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/2010Biennial/PaeWhite; http://www.artnet.com/artists/pae-white/; http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/18/entertainment/la-ca-pae18-2010apr18; http://www.smoca.org/exhibit.php?id=176; http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/seeing-things-studio-visit-pae-white/; http://my.calfund.org/artist-gallery/gallery/year-2009/pae-white/; http://www.mimiandmegblog.com/2009/11/artist-pae-white.html; http://www.re-title.com/artists/Pae-White2.asp; http://www.metro.net/about/art/artworks/multiplicity/; http://artistscommunityresource.blogspot.com/2011/05/pae-whites-metafoil.html; http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Pae-White-creates-a-city-of-dreams%20/19811.