Danny Volk

Danny Volk. That was my first visiting artist lecture ever as a student here at Illinois State and I must say I am pleasantly inspired. All of his projects were extremely intriguing and stimulating, not because it was so deep and serious but because it was so playful and free. He started his career as a theater major and acted most of his life but he realized that the stage and him did not mix. Danny began his journey pretending to be someone else on Instagram during his DVNY project, then went on to GAP mimics with his GAP project, then to having people paint on his face during interviews for his very own show Made-Up, which led all the way to him managing a boy band.

Danny's DVNY project started in 2012 with his Instagram account. Danny's explained how he was tagged in a photo with Heidi Klum, but not because he was in the picture but because the person in the picture was another Danny Volk from New York. Danny noticed that he started gaining a lot of followers with a similar portrait of of themselves on Instagram, luxury. Danny decided to establish himself as the New Yorker on Instagram by pretending to be the luxurious Danny Volk in an almost overly creepy way. He took photos from other Instagrams and google and continued to post them as if it were him. If I wasn't at the lecture and someone were telling me about this I would probably be shook but because I could see him laugh at himself and poke fun it made me settle in and enjoy his story. Danny continued this project for a decent amount of time, Danny even involved friends and random strangers, who weren't so involved, in the fun and created false stories about this New York Danny's life. Danny realized that his creepy little project was only available to people with Instagram. You would think this project would end with a crazy story of Danny meeting Danny but it wasn't quite like that. Danny had found out New York Danny was having a birthday party at his New York night club. Obviously Danny's first instinct was to go to New York and do just that. When Danny got to the night club he noticed that he did not fit the ambiance. It wasn't a story book ending for his project but it was very unique nonetheless.

Danny's GAP project was also very intriguing. Danny explained how he got a job at GAP over the holiday season and told us his crowd was restricted to men or people shopping for men because he worked in the men's section. My first thought was, he did this while he worked? I related this to myself because I always feel as if I am experiencing people and observing their actions during my everyday life. Danny illustrated this project as a growing, intimate, uncomfortable relationship with random people asking him for clothing advice, because its his job! Danny described these awkward brief relationships as subtle skin on skin contact and series of passive intimate dialogue. 

After another creepy little project Danny was in an exhibition with other artists where he recreated the GAP check out isle with identical decor. Danny then gathered a production team of models and photographers to take photos just like models in a GAP advertisement. During this project Danny wrote stories on found paper about his awkward relationships with these random people. Danny said the stories were things people shouldn't tell people at all.

To conclude, I was very impressed with Danny Volk, he was hilarious and pleasant. I was locked in on his lecture the entire time and the brief lecture only made me more curious. The DVNY and GAP projects were my favorite of his, but his show "Made-Up w/ Danny Volk" that I was able to check out a few episodes afterwards had me laughing even more. I think it's comforting to know that people like Danny and myself can still go and be fun and playful even with the label as artist attached to ourselves that I feel locks down the creative process now-a-days.

Amy Cousins: "All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75" (2015)

The winner of the curator's choice award, Amy Cousins' All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75, is currently on display at Illinois State University Galleries in Normal Illinois. The piece is part of the International Juried Print Exhibition, the exhibition will be on display until October 16, 2016. Cousins is an interdisciplinary artist from Houston, Texas who currently lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She holds a Master's of Fine Arts in Printmaking degree from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University and a Bachelor's of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Amy Cousins
"All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75"
Serigraph, paper, buttons, wood, & foam - 2015

Amy Cousins' piece All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75 was a stand out from the rest of the exhibition. The piece suggested a powerful and controversial essence to it. As I scanned the piece I felt as if the headers of the news were yelling out to me in disarray. The use of the intolerant topics in large bold print crumpled and contorted from the buttons makes it challenging to see at first, but that only helps you by pulling your eye closer to the piece and force you to read the headers. Once you realize what the headers are saying and what they are portraying, depending on your point of view, you were probably agitated. On the other hand, there are furniture, theater, and lingerie ads.

My particular assessment of Amy Cousins' All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75 is drawn two ways. I am very intrigued by the way the headers show one side of society today and the advertisements show the other side of society. What I mean by these two sides is that society today is corrupted with dreary and bleak headlines we see today in the news (headers on the piece), and the other side is what we are distracted by (ads on the piece) and how easy it is for society today to brush off the issues in the world and get engulfed in their own muse's.

But away from the deep emotion, this piece is very unique for the exhibit is was presented in. The piece sat in the middle of the wall surrounded by other pieces in the exhibition, but what made me walk to it before any other piece was that it was protruding out of the wall. Behind the piece is a foam base overlapped with paper which gives it the lift off of the wall. The other interesting parts are the wood buttons that push through the front of the work and distort the the words/images. From afar the piece looks stiff on the wall but when you get close you can see the corners of the serigraph moving with the subtle breeze in the gallery. Overall the medium of the piece assists the intense message it portrays, but neither factors take away from one another, the piece is in perfect unison.

Amy Cousins 
"All The Queerness That's Fit To Print: The Abiline Reporter News 1967-75"
Serigraph, paper, buttons, wood, & foam - 2015

Rob Swainston: "They Said What We Said" (2016)

If you were lucky enough to catch the mind bending woodblock prints by Rob Swainston at the University Galleries this month, your eyes were probably drawn to his "They Said What We Said" prints. The four pieces focus on the line between historic and contemporary art. Rob Swainston was born and raised in Pennsylvania and is founder and master printer at Prints of Darkness, a collaborative print shop in NYC. The prints are some of his most recent works made in 2016. Most recently the pieces were being shown at the University Galleries in Normal, IL from May 21st until September 11th 2016. The four pieces are a collection of woodblock prints on fabric with aluminum stretchers and fluorescent lights, with each piece measuring 126 x 54 x 10 inches.

Mind bending was almost the perfect term to describe Swainston’s work. Almost as if the waves of the oceans confuse your wandering eyes as they glide from the first piece ever so smoothly to the fourth. The use of the fluorescent lights and the texture of the fabric give off a three dimensional feel to it almost as if it is coming alive. The light bounces off each stacked print in a wavy pattern giving it the illusion that it is floating off of the frame. Swaiston wrestles with the earliest print form from the 2nd century and the dark undecipherable imagery that leaches on the viewer's soul. As uneasy as these prints may make the casual contemporary art consumer feel there is almost a clear image throughout the black and white illusions.

Three aluminum frames hold three layers of fabric on top of one another while being backlit by fluorescent lighting. The light is a pure light almost piercing the eyes through the very abysmal black that is the print. This set up creates a texture almost too similar to a mirage in the desert. As the light bounces through the layers of fabric and the viewer walks left to right there is almost a black wave produced that flows across the pieces bringing satisfaction only a dehydrated traveler can get from a desert mirage of a glass of cool crisp water. The motion of the viewers eyes and head moving in all directions trying to make a solid image out of this collage of black and white create a rhythm with the pattern of these mysterious black waves. Somehow a faint image of teeth and an eye pop out of the nothingness and then it cannot be unseen. All of this chaos is almost a perfect balance of imperfectness stemming from the fact that this is almost a three dimensional piece with the aspects of the frames, the multiple pieces and light fixtures clearly shown behind the works of art. All of these elements and principles create these dark holographic illusions that is a perfect connection between the historic print technique and the contemporary idea that comes with society today.