Julia Colicchio

Julia Colicchio: Click "Collect Me" to help me win $10,000 and a show in the most immense exhibition of art in New York City : Art Takes Times Square.

This semester and especially this week I've been struggling with composition. My paintings are very frontal and I've really gotten used to painting quickly, but I've been diving into my compositions too quickly and they have been suffering because of that.  Since I place the subject in right in the viewers face and don't focus much on the background it makes them less interesting. Although I'm spending less time on each painting, I still would like for someone to stop and look at it rather than walk right past after glancing because they think there isn't much to see. I've started to look at Frans Hals' drunken portraits for inspiration. They are simple and painted with detail but you can tell there is immediacy to his brushstrokes. He does not pay any more attention than needed to the portraits, especially since they seem to be of low status people. He does some interesting things with cropping, negative space and shadows that I'll begin to take into consideration more as I'm forming my compositions!

I've been thinking about simplicity in art work a lot lately. First of all because the paintings I have been working on require a lot of simple thinking. Also, I have been spending a lot of time with my almost-two year old cousin. Her favorite thing to do is for me to read her books. I remember this being my favorite thing as a child as well. I will never understand why kids love to be told the same story over and over again, but it may be hard to understand as an adult. The best stories are still the simplest ones. From my obsession with Dr. Seuss as a child, I'm pretty confident that I could recite How the Grinch Stole Christmas to out entire class this Friday if I really tried. To be honest, those stories are still my favorite ones. Maybe for the repetitive rhyming or the goofy and familiar illustrations. Spending so much time reading to my cousin and revisiting my Seuss days has inspired me to write my own children's story about a girl with big, wild hair. Its been a really fun side project to work on that reminds me of the genius in simplification, which is something I'll always try to remember while making work.

Seussville!

I've just discovered an artist who essentially has the same idea as my thesis. I'm a little angry about it, but also pleased because I'm taking my reactions to her paintings into consideration and imagining what I would do differently. I really love her paintings, but I also think some of them don't work in certain aspects. ttp://www.nyartsmagazine.com/may-june-2007/leah-tinari-could-definitely-run-for-the-presidency-whitney-may

Work of Art, a show on Bravo is back this month. I watched it last season and it was interesting but also seems like a bit of a sell out for these artists. But its fun to imagine what I would do for the projects that they are assigned. I'll be watching this season even though the contestants seem like the average nyc hipster. http://www.bravotv.com/work-of-art/season-2/videos/work-of-art-season-2-sneak-peek

Dr. Lakra, mexican tatoo artist, knows how to use line like a champion. http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/03/27/arts/design/03272011_LAKRA_Slide-10.html

One of my favorite artists Eric Fischl founded the organization, America Now and Here. It's sort of a traveling art festival with participants from every artistic genre. I think its awesome and I signed up to be apart of it, hopefully they can come to a city near Rutgers! Even though we live in a era of constant communication due to facebook, twitter and other social media sites, I feel they have made us more cut off from each other than ever. This mobile upload culture has forced us to communicate less in person than on the computer. An event like America Now and Here brings people together to talk about our culture, spread ideas and become more active members of our society! Check it out: http://americanowandhere.org/