Apr 01, 2008 10:18
Isaac Grover
Art 1120 Foundation 3D
Cerese Vaden
Cerese Vaden grew up in a very small town in Idaho. Her home was an isolated ranch which might make some people cringe; but for Cerese it was a very beloved place that would influence her art greatly in the years to come. As a young child she would explore drawing in a way that she describes as care free. She would never worry about what the result of her efforts would be and felt free in her exploration of art. Eventually she left the isolated ranch and attended the University of Idaho where she studied communications in 1987. Over the next few years she decided to change her area of study and eventually got her bachelor of fine arts degree from Idaho State University. Soon, after attending Idaho State University Cerese got her Master of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in painting and print making from Utah State University. Since then she has had a large amount of experience as an instructor of painting and other general art affiliations. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Arizona.The medium and materials used by Cerese have been vast in her career as an artist. She has explored small metal, print making, etching, water color, and wood in many different ways. The process in which she makes her work shies away from ritualistic creativity. She describes her artistic process as "Just diving in". While she does often have an idea of what she wants to create, she tends to carry the same free exploration she had as a child.
Cerese's intent in making her art is heavily influenced by her past and the way she grew up in her isolated ranch. Gender roles played an important part of her life on the ranch and there were certain duties and expectations for the women in her family. As a result a lot of her art depicts rules and perimeters conceptually. For example, a lot of her art is constructed within a frame or inside a box. Cerese is inspired by a sense of nostalgia for her old isolated ranch which is apparent in much of her art through images of chickens, eggs, grass, and other images correlated with a ranch. Another interesting series of work incorporates old victorian style photographs of women that Cerese found in a thrift store. She expresses how she is shocked that people would get rid of photographs of such beautiful women and is interested in giving them each a story. One piece shows one of these pictures in a box next to a crude man doll which symbolizes the perfect man to be paired with this forgotten woman.
All of Cerese's work shows evidence of the basic organizing design principles and visual elements. For example the piece titled Summer 75. The piece has an all over balance when looking at it from the front. While the left side has a strong visual weight by a brown hook, this seems to be evened out, over all, because the right side shows a think border which carries an equal visual weight. Color creates two focal points in this piece which create an emphasis on both the left and right sides. This occurs because everything in the piece is generally a tan or dark brown color which brings attention to the red focal points; One on the left, which reads "75" in red ink, and one on the right which uses the same red ink in the illustrated ribbon. This piece shows unity in the similar colors used throughout the composition, and also variety in the different objects and shapes. Finally, the piece incorporates space through a confined space because most of the visual information takes place within the frame and boundaries of the box. Other visual elements used, outside of color, are shape and texture. Through shape Cerese creates a repeated rectangle several times in the piece. The box it'self is rectangular, the fragment of a yard stick, the spine of the scale, and the border of the image on the right which creates yet another rectangular negative shape, all incorporate this rectangular shape. Thirdly, various textures are apparent throughout the composition. The different media used, from the wood to the metal to the ink, all use texture inherently and through the use of repeated lines in the illustrations of the underwear which create the illusion of texture.