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What you see is not always what you get at the Art Institute Chicago

I recently visited Chicago to speak at a conference about the healing properties of visual art. Of course spending hours in the renowned Art Institute of Chicago was top on my list once the conference was over. I will write more about my visit to the Art Institute in next week’s post, but for now I want to share a fun moment I had while perusing the different galleries within the museum.

This one particular artwork caught my eye. It was brightly coloured and stood out because of its texture. It looked like used chewing gum stuck together on a surface and the overall effect had a pixilated appearance. My first reaction was to walk up to it so my nose was a foot away and inspect.

“What is that? I don’t think its gum but what… Hmm…” I said to my husband.

I took a step back. And another step. Then my eyes grew wide.

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“There’s a face in there!” I said loudly in the joy of discovery. Some other art patrons leaned back as well and then nodded.

It turns out the artwork is called, “Woman with Halo and Sceptre,” (1972) and the strange textural effect is created through acrylic, cotton and Rhoplex on canvas. Rhoplex is an acrylic emulsion for sealing the work.

What I find so interesting with this piece is that the material choice beckoned me closer and closer, to become intimate with the shapes and textures. At the same time, while standing so close the image of the woman was impossible to decipher, thus allowing for the aha moment later on.

I love aha moments.

Surprises are good in art; they keep the viewer from getting lazy, maintain a visual dialogue and stimulate creative logic.

What you see is not always what you get – sometimes it’s more.

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Once I stepped back from the artwork and saw the woman, I could no longer approach the piece without seeing her. My mind had assimilated the colorful acrylic cotton balls and made sense of it. Still, I loved the early observations where my eyes searched for meaning. And it was wildly satisfying when I found it.

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Find out more about this artwork by Joe Zucker.

 

 

Drawing Hearts for my Son – The Art of Struggle

Artwork: “Wanted, Chosen, Planned” Mixed Media, September 2010 © Alexis Marie Chute

I was well over halfway to my due date when doctors discovered that my unborn child had a large tumor around his heart. This news began a month and a half of daily testing to determine if there was anything that could be done. There wasn’t and my son Zachary passed away shortly after he was born.

During the month and a half before Zachary’s birthday and death day, I made art. I made art based on the news we were given and the new world of medical technology and imaging that was opened up to me. I was so overwhelmed on a daily basis that art became my therapy. It was a means for me to think about our situation in an effort to make sense of it all. I now know I will never understand the “why” of this tragedy but that creating art in that time was a helpful means to cope.

As the main issue with my son’s condition was the tumor around his heart, I began to draw anatomical hearts using black pen. I made three copies of my favorite drawing using a laser printer and painted three backdrops in flowing reds and blues, two colours associated with blood flow that I watched in real time on the monitor during many fetal echocardiograms of my son’s heart.

I did gel transfers to apply the hearts to the paintings, the abstracted reds and blues of the painted backgrounds showing through the images. I applied a sheer aqua fabric to the areas surrounding the hearts, sewing it on with red thread which I let hang loosely in certain places. The blue, water like effect, references the fact that a heart that is not beating properly, as in the case of my son, causes fluid to build up in a person’s body.

Black bars along the bottom of the compositions anchor the three pieces together and reveal the words that constantly ran through my brain as I struggled in the helplessness of trying to save my son. Wanted. Chosen. Planned. These three concepts became my mantra, my prayer during that dark time.

 

Have you used art to help work through a struggle? Please share your experience.