DeFeo and The Deathrose. Photo credit: Burt Glinn Last summer I went to New York City, and I found my refuge from the humidity in the New York Public Library, under the shades of trees in Central Park, and in various art galleries. The Whitney Museum of American Art was where I approached Jay DeFeo’s The Rose–in the way I do with most contemporary art pieces: confused and intrigued by the perceived irrelevance of it. I was drawn in by the vulgarity and stature. The Rose, at n

I’ve encountered the work of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures at random times, even unsuspectingly. My first time was when seeing the comedian, Chelsea Handler, in Salt Lake City at the architecturally severe Abravanel Hall. It is a rather unwelcoming building from the outside, brown and gray tones, sharp edges, concrete. Upon entering, the layers begin to soften but the effect is held back by an imposing red glass sculpture jutting from the center of the main entrance. Sinuou

I met the photographer, Alex Stoddard, on Day #306 in his piece, “Metamorphosis, interrupted.” The piece (featured above) was arresting. Is this a youth being born or a youth dying mid-birth? Is the photograph the interruption, or are we seeing a subject in the midst of its demise? “Metamorphosis, interrupted” is a dark muscular thing occurring, all the more alarming because it happens surrounded by such tranquility—by such clear summer light. The boy screams, falls, forcibly

Take two steps back and stare. The canvas only tells you what you want to hear. Unfold your arms moments before a hand slips into yours, and you forget what it is you’re looking at. Is this Monet, or Manet? Does it matter? Take two steps back and stare. The canvas only tells you what you want to hear. Unfold your arms, no one wants to hold your hand, and you forget what it is you’re looking at. Is this Monet, or Manet? Does it matter? I have this habit of being in love at mus

At a certain point in human history, the point of art (at least good art) was to render one’s creation—and thus one’s self—immortal. In Lives of The Artists, the (arguably) first work of art history (1st edition published in 1550; 2nd in 1568) by the (arguably) world’s first art historian, Giorgio Vasari, Vasari details the biographies of some of the Italian Renaissance’s most luminous artists, from Leonardo to Titian, Giotto to Michelangelo, Parmigiano to Donatello. Although

Kehinde Wiley, after completing degrees at the San Francisco Art Institute and a graduate program at Yale, has been making waves within the art community since the early 2000’s with his socially charged works. Looking at a Kehinde Wiley painting can transport you through time, recalling renaissance-styled portraiture with modern embellishments. A Wiley piece can simultaneously be rooted in the past, inspired by the present, and push the conversations of race, gender, and glob

A year ago, I watched the documentary, Cutie and the Boxer, about the tumultuous marriage of artists Noriko and Ushio Shinohara. Since then, first-time director Zachary Heinzerling has won the 2013 Sundance Film Festival award for best director, and was nominated for a 2014 Oscar in documentary film. The Oscar nomination, as noted by the New York Times awards season blogger, Larry Rohter, “…is a bit of an outlier in the feature documentary category […] it focuses not on uphea

I have an aversion to calling myself an artist, but what is an artist? What makes an artist? Is it a title assigned to someone by others? Am I even capable of forming a definition? I’m not certain yet if it’s a confidence issue or missing the feeling of having arrived: the moment where you feel yourself having become a peer instead of a follower, a rival instead of a student. Recently I had a moment where I took a step back and thought, on the art I have been a part of, and t