Hegelian Prayer Wheels
Acrylic on Canvas, 2012
Kylie Dally
Squeeler, Waddles, and Roary in da house
ms paint, 2012
Kylie Dally
Dogs in Space No. 2
Acrylic and Glitter Glue on Canvas, 2012
Kylie Dally
Sometimes I can’t transfer a sketch onto a canvas to my personal satisfaction, so I just cut it out and paste it on. In the case of this piece, that method actually contributes to the themes I’m trying to develop. It may end up being a stand alone painting, but as of now I’m planning on incorporating it into a larger sculptural painting.
The focus of that larger work is a scientific study on the chemical that an ant’s body releases when it dies. It is this chemical that signals to the other ants that their comrade has died. The scientists in the study put some of the chemical on a live ant and observed the other ants carry the live ant to a pile of dead ant bodies and otherwise treat it as if it was dead. Meanwhile, the chemical-sprayed ant continued to move and eat and do whatever else live ants do.
I want to further explore the idea of something existing two opposing ways at the same time. The crystal cutouts are sketches done in two simple layers, one of india ink and one of thinned acrylic. The rest of the painting has been built up in many thick layers of paint and mixed media. By placing the cutouts on top of this, I am pulling the very oldest ring of the tree out to the surface. In this context it appears young, with much maturing to do. Time has come unhinged. The image is existing in two opposing ways at the same time. Old and young, in front of and behind, a sapling and a fossil.
I need a memory card so I can take my own pictures on not a webcam.
Place Under Direct Light, View from Various Angles, Touch, and Step Back
Acrylic and Glitter Glue on Canvas, 24”x24”, 2012
Kylie Dally
This is the completed painting that I mentioned in this post. It’s not quite as ugly as I originally intended, and I’m still interested in pursuing the idea of an ugly painting that becomes beautiful under limited circumstances, but sometimes a painting pulls me in it’s own direction and I must follow.
Still, different elements of the painting are revealed in different circumstances. It’s impossible to take in every element of the painting at once. When light shines on the glitter from certain angles it overwhelms all of the surrounding colors and shapes and sends them far into the background. When light isn’t reflecting off of the glitter it disappears and everything around it becomes more clear. A friend once told me about a Japanese zen garden where large rocks were arranged in such a way so that one of the rocks would always be out of sight no matter where one stood. I have dreams like this sometimes, dreams where I’m desperately trying to see the whole picture but pieces of it keep alternately falling away. My friend said the garden represented the limited nature of human knowledge. I’m more interested in creating a response to the distress I feel in these dreams. That’s not to say that the two aren’t related, but at this point in my life I feel more comfortable making statements that are personal rather than universal. It’s comforting to create something that is designed to reflect the limits of perception because it puts me as the artist in control of a situation that in other circumstances makes me feel powerless.
The title is a suggestion for interaction with the painting in real life.
I’m applying to be an artist in the the Winooski Pop-up Gallery District. I was an artist last year, but the project is organized differently this time. This is both very exciting and very scary. Anyway, to apply you need to register as an artist in the Vermont Art Guide. I wrote a new artist statement and bio for the Vermont Art Guide that I want to share.
Artist’s Statement:
Painting offers me a freedom that doesn’t exist in any other part of my life. I have the power to experiment and create, tame chaos and wrestle it into the confines of the canvas. That said, I’m very interested in giving up control – to the medium, experimentation, reckless mark making, another artist – and then reclaiming it. There is a rhythm that develops upon repeating this cycle of giving up and reclaiming control throughout the creation of a piece, a pulse that brings the painting to life. Although this rhythm is only evident in creation, the history of the finished piece is hinted at in the thick, visible layers of paint that I build up.
Bio:
Kylie Dally grew up in Essex, VT with her parents and two younger sisters. She currently lives in Burlington, VT where she is working towards a B.A. in art history and Asian studies at UVM. In her freshman year of college she studied abroad in France where she had her first real introduction to the visual, musical, and preforming arts. She responded to the experience by embracing art as both a regular studio practice and as a topic of philosophical study. The following summer she traveled independently in China, Nepal and India, an experience which greatly informs her understanding of art as a tool for communication and community building. Kylie has shown her work at a number of local venues including the Art’s Alive Gallery at Union Station, Frog Hollow, Speaking Volumes, Uncommon Grounds, and the Winooski Pop-up Gallery District.
I’m working on a painting that is very ugly
unless it is viewed from a particular angle with light shining directly at it in which case it becomes very beautiful.
Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture
I used to be extremely embarrassed by the idea of anyone knowing that I spent any more than five minutes putting together an outfit in the morning. Fashion always seemed like such a vain pursuit. In my second semester of college I read a few existentialist texts (Sartre, de Beauvoir, Fanon). Existentialism introduced me to the idea that I had the power to create my own identity through my behavior, thoughts, and appearance. While this is incredibly empowering, I did not make the connection to fashion at this point. In my third semester I took a class on aesthetics where I read Hegel’s philosophy of art. Roughly summarized, Hegel wrote that art is a human assertion of power over nature. Any sort of body modification or adornment fits into this category - piercings, tattoos, haircuts, and of course, fashion. At this point I was able to understand how embracing fashion was not necessarily a sign of vanity and weakness, but rather a way to become the person I want to be rather than merely the person I was born as.
This is still a big struggle for me. While I now understand fashion as a powerful tool for creating one’s personal identity, so much of the identity that I worked to create before college was about appearing as if I didn’t care what I looked like. I have become completely comfortable, however, with thinking about and discussing fashion as an academic subject, especially as it relates to art in the broader sense. That’s not to say that I know much about it, just that I’m not embarrassed by it in the same way that I have a tendency to be embarrassed by my personal fashion choices.
This is a long and not necessarily important introduction to my personal reaction to Johanna Blakley’s Ted Talk on what the rest of the art world may have to learn from fashion as a copyright free industry. It was extremely interesting to me and I’m itching to find more talks and writing along the same vein.
Strangers stopping strangers, just to shake their hand
Every month at Frog Hollow we put together a show in the front of the gallery focusing on a particular artist or theme. For this month’s show, dug Nap’s Art Stuff, the artist himself has set up camp in the gallery, lounging in his art bed, working on digital images for an illustrated monologue on his iPad, chatting with customers, and signing prints.
Paint Pictures… by dug Nap
May is also college graduation season leading into summer tourist season, which means there is a steady flow of customers for the first time since the winter holidays and more hours (yay!) for all of us gallery assistants. Now I’m working about five days a week, and as a result I’ve spent a decent amount of time talking to dug. Usually he asks me about what I had for lunch or what I’m planning to have for supper (he says he’s happy to eat the same salad everyday for lunch, but perhaps he’s getting bored and wants to live vicariously through others). Sometimes we talk about poetry, as he writes himself and is also very well read, or art or music. The other day he asked me my plans for after work and I said that I’d been itching to paint. He suggested that I come to his studio since it’s nice to have company. Thus came my first ever opportunity to oil paint.
Based on my first experience, oil painting feels so infinite whereas acrylic (in comparison) feels so finite. Colors blend and mix in new and interesting ways. This might have something to do with it being my first time, but I have a feeling that I could surprise myself even as a life long oil painter. As dug put it, with oil you can make the colors shake hands with each other. As a result, even in abstraction it is easy to create a unified world. Which kind of makes me think of this verse from Scarlet Begonias by The Grateful Dead (although I’m sure it’s not actually about painting):
The wind in the willows playing Tea for Two / The sky was yellow and the sun was blue / Strangers stopping strangers, just to shake their hand / Everybody’s playing in the heart of gold band, heart of gold band
Maybe that’s a good way to think about non-representational art, “Strangers stopping strangers, just to shake their hand.”
Anyway, as if I wasn’t working my hardest to earn money for food and rent, now I’ll be saving up for oil paints as well. Wish me luck.
I took the megabus into New York City this week with my dad and my sister Rayna.
(She’s the festive one, in the middle)
We stayed with my aunt and uncle 3 blocks from Grand Central Station. They live in Pennsylvania, but he’s an iron worker, so they have an apartment for when he has to come into the city for work.
The first night we went to an Indian restaurant. I’m still dreaming about the butter masala chicken, roti, and rice. I don’t think it will be topped anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean that the next two days weren’t full of good food. I had one of the best Italian subs I’ve ever had; bacon, eggs, and hash browns fried up by a short order cook who, without writing anything down, had six other distinct orders going on a small grill; and lamb dumplings served in a garlic yogurt sauce at a Turkish restaurant. The trip reignited my desire to live in a city, maybe even New York, and the variety and abundance of good food was probably a big factor in that. I’m getting a little tired of burritos and sandwiches from Boloco/my favorite deli everyday for lunch in Burlington.
Rayna has recently decided that she wants to be an architect. When my uncle heard this he began pointing out all the interesting architecture in the City, totally in his element. We checked out several lobbies as well. When there were guards at the entrance to keep at anyone who didn’t belong in the building, my dad used the old “my daughter’s an architecture student, do you mind if we look around” line.
On Wednesday we went to the Guggenheim and the Met. Some paintings I would look at and my dad would say “Kylie’s got an idea” or “I knew you would zero in on that part.” I don’t know if I’m completely transparent or he’s just very perceptive, probably a little bit of both, but he was dead on every time. I saw a few Paul Klee’s, which is all I really needed to see to be happy, everything else was gravy.
May Picture, Paul Klee (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
On Thursday my uncle took us up to the top of the building that he’s working on during his lunch break. I expected to be blown away by the view, but I ended up being more interested in the construction of the skyscraper. There are a lot of man made things in the world that I have absolutely no conception of how they come into being. I want to know how things work. From the top we took the stairs down a couple of stories. It was cool to see the progress at each floor, starting with the naked iron skeleton and working our way down into a massive space, not yet subdivided into rooms, with walls of windows that blocked out the noise of the city below. It made me want to be an iron worker. But my mom would have a fit, so we’ll just have to wait and see on that.
Improv show at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater, the public library, Grand Central Station, bagels and pizza, The Brooklyn Bridge, I can’t believe I stayed awake and on my feet for eight hours of work yesterday after all did and the seven hour bus ride back on Thursday night.
I’m in the mood to revisit my sketchbook from Summer 2010 - China, Nepal, and India.
I visited John Brickels’ studio (or mad-scientist workshop?) today with Lexie and Assad. Click on the picture to check out the artist’s website. He told us about his process and answered a ton of questions. He also showed us what he’s working on for an upcoming exhibit of his work at the Shelburne Museum, a family of three legged, spider-like robots with a larger than life mama robot, all made of stoneware clay with a metal skeleton. It’s such a nice day out… good for walking around.
Dogs in Space No. 1
Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 2012
Kylie Dally
p.s. This started out as this: Click me! And then I added paper, and crayon, and thin sheets of cotton fuzz, helicopter seeds, unidentified organic matter, modeling paste, and India Ink, among other things.
Pradipti & Echo, Colby-Sawyer College International Festival, 2012
After I painted with Echo’s housemates back in February, Pradipti sent her boyfriend one of the paintings that she made. He sent back a set of paints and brushes. When I visited again at the beginning of April, Echo and Pradipti showed me all of the beautiful work that they’d done. It made me so happy to see.
Hey! This is my family… we don’t always go by “The Dallys” oOooOoOooo….
I am an artist living and studying in Burlington, VT.
I work primarily in acrylic, but I like to experiment with new and mixed medias. This blog will document my experiments with pictures of final work and works in progress, reflections on art and creation, photo essays, ms paint sketches, aesthetic philosophy, etc. Sometimes I show my work publicly and you can also find information about that here. If you're in the area I'd love to see you at an opening. I think my work is generally better in person anyway. And I might even let you touch it.
krd.dally@gmail.com
