Art in our Brain ---- Laurie Frick

Art and science: two seemly unrelated subjects. I don't see a lot of artists using such a straightforward scientific method to present their art; or should I say using artistic means to show scientific studies. Especially when they are emotionally involved. This is why Laurie's work is very interesting to me.

'Everything you forgot yesterday', like all her other similar works, this piece imitates a neuroscience chart of a human brain activity. It is highly abstract, although it contains both emotions and probably scientific data of real life activities.

'January', It would be more exciting if I could read this kind of scientific chart. Then I would understand more of what's in this person's brain concerning January.

'Man Men', The artist has a very good sense of color matching, also a good sense of the use of colors to present different emotions.

'White white white', I appreciate how the artist mostly used found postcards to make these art pieces. Recycled found objects can make beautiful things, why must we spend so much money and new resources to make a not so practical art piece? Actually, art can be totally 'practical' if every artist starts to use found or recycled materials to make marvelous things just like Laurie does.

'Wyoming'

Scars ---- Baptiste Debombourg

Baptiste's work is very interesting to me. The ideas are very simple, but somehow he can make them into very powerful and emotional works.

'Turbo', Even if I'm not standing in the scene I can feel the strong impact brought by the gigantic form and huge wall cracks. Yet it's still holding, it may crash any second. Viewers must feel the same intensity I feel too. But mostly, viewers will appreciate the stability that's held by the cracks since the artist's focus is not to show the oncoming fall.

It creates such a new and interesting experience to the viewers, at least to myself, it will be very easily for me to be emotionally connected with the scene if I was sitting there and drinking my coffee (imagining it's in a coffee shop).

'Crystal palace', the artist really likes rifts, harmless rifts, that won't cause any collapse. That's why he really likes to use windshields or similar kind of glass or materials.

'Volte face', On the other hand, every single piece of glass is broken with holes and cracks on them. There is a lot of emotions going on with the piece.

There is a lot of hurt, but not destruction.

Scars on his body, heart and soul, tolerance, life.

In to the wild ---- Emily Nachison

I don't know how much I like Emily's work. Her work always reminds me of filthy and dangerous swamps residing in the wild. The other reason I don't like her work is that I am not into sculptured animals at all.

'Rabbit hill'

I don't know why artists like to make sculptured animals so much. Isn't it much more fun to look at a real animal? Especially in Emily's work, she basically just copied a wild scene that can appear anywhere in the nature, altered a little bit. I just don't like any art that's way too representational.

'White Grotto'

I guess the reason why I don't like representational art is that I see no point of copying scenes, figures or anything of our vivid living life unless the artist can do it in a very creative way. To me Emily's work is not interesting enough.

'White Room'

This is probably my favorite of her works, just because of the hanging abstract forms. The artist is very attached to the wild and the nature. Maybe I would like her much more if I was attached the same way.

I'm thinking if she can just go ahead and make the whole house an artificial cave full of sculptured rocks and animals and hanging stuff using man made materials, that would be much more interesting and attractive to the viewers.

Art and Fashion ---- Li Xiaofeng

I definitely think fashion is part of art, only more practical and well understood. Who can resist a dress with a unique design? Especially something as beautiful as Li Xiaofeng's creations.

I would wear this myself no matter how heavy it is. The artist or fashion designer wanted to make dresses out of porcelain, but it would be impossible to put a whole piece of porcelain dress on a human body. Breaking individual porcelain pots and dishes apart and sewing them together like that creates the flexibility of movement the material didn't have. It is a smart way to work it out.

I am in love with the blue and white color, also the very oriental style.

This piece is not really that oriental to me except the blue and white china itself. I don't ever see a Chinese girl dressing like this, so I'm not sure where the artist got his inspiration. The whole piece is so stunning, absolutely well made and designed.

His dresses are actually wearable, though I'm not sure about this one, it looks more like an art piece.

I know for Americans or most of Westerners, they wouldn't tell if these are Japanese style, Korean style, or Chinese style. Well, these are definitely Chinese, because I can see a trace of the Qi pao, a traditional Chinese dress with its unique elegance.

The quiet and the mild ---- Beili Liu

Beili's work is very pretty in my opinion, at least to my Chinese taste. But I didn't immediately write about her the first time I saw her art because I couldn't find anything very interesting to write about. And I still feel the same way: that something is missing.

Red Thread Series — Lure/Rise Installed at the San Francisco Chinese Culture Center Gallery. This is the first art installation of hers I saw. The beautiful red color really caught my eye, but when I tried to feel the inner emotion and the story of the piece, I couldn't feel a lot. It feels more like a professional art decoration than an installation? Or perhaps it's just me who is searching too much; maybe art can just be a beautiful form, and that's it, nothing else.

I really love the form of this piece called 'Miasma', the name of the piece is exactly what the piece is showing. So I guess she just wanted to create something beautiful, and that's the only purpose.

She is telling more of a story in this one. But emotionally it's still pretty weak to me. I do not know why; maybe I will feel it when the time is right.

About memories and pain ---- Chiharu Shiota

I am very fond of art that's exclusively personal and usually filled with memories and emotions. Somehow only this kind of art can truly touch my heart and therefore I consider only this kind of art soulful.

This is what I found: 'in memory' by Chiharu Shiota. I kind of don't want to admit that I am always attracted to a kind of 'silent darkness'. And this slight addiction is the reason why I like Chiharu's interlacing web series. I especially like this one because of the simplicity of the black and white; another important reason is that the scene of a grand piano and audience chairs reminds me of the strong heaviness of live classical music, which added a lot of the weight to the darkness in this piece.

Comparing with this one, you will understand what I'm talking about. A lot of her works have this particular kind of beds in them. They seem like hospital beds for patients, this makes me feel that her past pain must be strongly connected to illness or disease.

Sometimes a white wedding dress will show with the same theme. I'm not too comfortable with the scene because an old long gown hanging there gives me such a cold and strong ghostly death feeling, which I am very frightened of. But I do think the artist is very talented and gifted in showing and expressing her inner emotions and feelings.

This one is called 'matsukaze', an opera show she did in Europe. It is very interesting that I don't see many Asian traits in her art, they are very western to me.

She also has other works with slightly different themes. If you want to feel her loneliness, here is her website http://www.chiharu-shiota.com/

Dots obsession ---- Yayoi Kusama

I am not a big fun of dots, though I find them cute sometimes. I guess it's because they somehow reflect a little girl's dream land or wonder land: full of perfect round colorful bubbles.

And that is Yayoi Kusama's world. 'Dots obsession' she calls them. She said she's been making dots art since she was ten. I was very surprised because as a little girl I never even paid any attention to these colorful dreamy creatures. Maybe it's just that we are from different backgrounds.

It kind of reminds me of 'Alice in wonderland'. Bright, happy, soft, magical and a little mysterious. I definitely see a bit Japanese culture in it. Somehow Japanese people are very much into cute things, you can tell from many Japanese cartoons: Cute facial expressions, cute little animals, girls' cute tones of voice.

A bit childlike, but pleasant to see.

Some of her older works have herself in it. It adds a deeper meaning with her I think. It's more personal and more specific, it's like she's saying: this is my world, my only world and only my own.

The world is her and she is the world.

It's not always beautiful ---- Mowry Baden

When I though about art before I entered BSU and started to study about it I always thought about beautiful forms, colors, landscapes, figures, or any kind of abstract objects. I paid more attention to the appearance and ignored or was not aware of the further purpose of art. It is definitely more interesting and meaningful when an art piece speaks to the viewers and evokes some deep thoughts. But it is still important to me that the appearance of the art piece should also be eye-catching in a beautiful way.

That's way I don't really see the 'art' part in Mowry's work when I see his mattress series. This one is called 'ever pronating'.

And this one 'I can see the whole room'. The artist likes to create unusual spaces in his work, inviting the viewers to enter in in order to learn a weird psychological experience with his art.

He may be trying to communicate with the viewers through his art. But to me, it's more like experimentation; A psychological experiment.

The reason I say this is that he doesn't pay a lot of attention to the appearance or the object itself, he is more interested in the viewers reaction. Can an experimentation be art? Apparently! The definition of art is getting more and more broad that I doubt if art really has a definition or limit at all. That also makes it harder and harder to judge any art works.

This last piece is called 'Kinhin', I like this one just because it looks so much fun to walk on, and actually I am curious to try out a lot of his art pieces just because I want to experience some different psychological activities I never had before. It has nothing to do with 'the art'; or maybe the process itself is actually 'the art'?

Art and art itself ---- Joseph Kosuth

The title might be a bit confusing, but this is what I feel when I see Joseph's art. I couldn't quite get what he wants to say until I read some related articles.

To me, he is more a philosopher then an artist, an art philosopher to be exact.

The reason why I couldn't get what he tries to tell is that I tend to search the inner meaning each time when I look at an art piece; since most of the art works are formed of different objects and colors within which the truth or idea lies. So that was what I did when I looked at this piece 'Five Words in Green Neon' made in 1965. Of course I was not successful, how could I find words within words? The piece itself is titled 'Five Words in Green Neon', it's written 'Five Words in Green Neon', and it shows itself 'Five Words in Green Neon'. It is simply a straight-forward statement the artist wants to show the viewers: 'art as an idea/a fact/or a sentence itself'.

His art is so confusing to me I found its very hard for my brain to analyze his logic. That is part of the reason I am not very into philosophy, because one tends to think too much and get trapped in his/her own brain and thinking pattern, and it's almost impossible to get oneself out of that illusionary world. The searching and questioning process is so tiring and to me useless and a waste of time because there is usually no 'correct' or 'standard' answer and most of the people pay little attention to what you are doing really and see little value in it.

To question art like this is like to ask 'what's the meaning of life?'. Why don't we just simply create art like our ancestors did in ancient times with forms and colors in order to create a visionary pleasantness, a simple idea or meaning just like how we should just enjoy our colorful life instead of spending time questioning, questioning, questioning on the existence of art and life itself.

On the other hand, his art philosophy art is part of the art itself, so there is nothing wrong in creating his own art. To him, it is a pleasure to question and to show his ideas. Though I usually find that no matter how much you think or question one thing, the simplest and happiest thing to do is to get out of yourself and your complex illusionary world and just live your life in reality and make your art in reality just like the rest of the world.

Chinese Landscape ---- Yao Lu 姚璐

I found a lot of Chinese artists share one common quality in their art, that is: the romantic and poetic element that is sometimes a little sentimental.

Like Yao Lu's photography series 'Chinese Landscape'. The romantic and poetic element is rooted deeply in Chinese literature and art since the ancient times, and the influence is still affecting us generation after generation. The inspiration of this series is derived from traditional Chinese ink painting. The square-like shape is one of the shapes of the hand fans ancient women use. Those fans usually had landscape or figural paintings on them as decoration. A red stamp shows the name of the artist who did the painting, usually with a year and date.

We can find all these elements in Yao's work. In Chinese, we literally call these kind of paintings 'water ink paintings' since we usually mix up water and ink together to draw, different ratios between water and ink create different layers and highlights in a painting, it's kind of like western water colors. The dissemination of the colors create a dreamy romantic feel in the art.

And here in this series, Yao added clouds and smoke to create the similar feeling. The draperies of the cover cloth on the mountains imitate the soft shades, lights and the gradation of layers on the mountains in a traditional Chinese landscape painting.

They are so beautifully done, I'm so impressed he did it with modern tools and techniques.

It's kind of sad to talk about the subject matter. Because it's related to the pollution of our land and the destruction of our beautiful past landscapes. It will be ironic to compare one of the ancient true landscape paintings with one of these. The beauty was gone, all we have is the imagination on a trash land.

One of the weirdest ---- Phyllis Galembo

I decided to walk out of my comfort zone and write something about the art I don't like and I'm very uncomfortable with.

I believe probably a lot of the Americans will like Phyllis's work; just think about how enthusiastically Americans celebrate Halloween! All those masks and costumes and ghostly stuff. I'm not against that, I actually think it's kind of fun. But Phyllis' work is usually way more frightening and scary than funny.

She is very obsessed with mystic rituals in Africa and some other tribes. I think it's fine to show those people's mystic masques and clothing style in her art, but somehow she always alters it a bit and creates a dark scary scene like a horror movie. I'm thinking, "is it really necessary to add disturbing elements in an art piece to draw people's attention and arouse strong reactions?!"

My answer is definitely 'NO'! Maybe I don't really have the right to judge it this way since I never considered myself as an artist or one who knows very much about art. But I tend to like things that's more humble, quiet and under-toned. Especially in an art piece that shows darkness, sadness and sorrow; I think it's more human and natural, since most of the people in the world do not like to broadcast or even show a sign of their dark side. Most of us keep silent about these feelings, keeping them to ourselves and at the bottom of our hearts. If an art piece 'acts' the same way, I think it will evoke more resonance.

I don't really think the people in those cultures do make up this way in real life. The rituals are not about creating horror scenes and feelings, they are more about mystic power and submission. Maybe there is power but I mostly feel so frightened that I don't want to look at them any more. Or is it possible she is trying to show the person's inner soul through the weirdness of clothing and mask? There is no way to know unless I visit all those tribes and get to know their culture.

No matter what, I just can't get myself very much into any mask and custom thing especially when it's weird and bizarre.

The abandoned ---- Mike Kelley

I'm not a big fan of stuffed animals. Probably because I didn't have the 'luxury' life of having lots of stuffed animals for childhood comfort and fun when I was little; just like most of the other Chinese children in the 80's. My only zoomorphic or anthropomorphic toy was a toddler size, plastic, blond western boy doll.

Because of this I am very picky about judging if a stuffed animal is cute or not; and so I found a lot of them are very ugly. That's probably one of the reasons I don't like Mike Kelley's work very much.

Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites, 1991-1999

I can't believe this installation was sold for 2.7 million dollars once! 'many viewers had a very empathic relationship with the stuffed animals' says the artist. I guess it makes sense if most of the viewers are westerners who generally grow up with lots of stuffed animals. It must be painful for them to see bunch of them are tangled together, abandoned, dirty, and without any identities.

More love hours than can ever be repaid, 1987

I read an article which the artist wrote, talking about his works. Seems he mostly talked about the viewers reactions towards his work and how he made the work. He didn't mention much what his original message is exactly. And he is even a bit surprised this second work caused people to think it's a 'cruel treatment'. I mean what do you expect when you put bunch of abandoned dolls so randomly with some of them facing inwards toward the wall? Apparently, He just wanted people to enjoy and appreciate the 'beautiful geometric form' he created with the dolls. I personally don't see a whole lot of beautiful geometric forms; maybe I'm just judging it too much with my own taste.

Frankenstein, 1989

To me, just making a work without any message is kind of a waste of time. It's like a beautiful person without soul. Perhaps I'm just being arrogant, there are lots of people living happily without souls, is it wrong? It's probably not wrong, it is just part of life. And that is just part of art.