Midterm

 

 

 

 

My assigned artist name is Greg Ligon. Greg Ligon, back in 1989 he was granted money for a drawing that he did, he then had to make a decision to either keep working 40 to 50 hours a week at work or take some time off to focus on being an artist, so he took some time off. The idea Greg Ligon has interest on is text, American history, language and color and also neon lights that are molded into text. The forms that his ideas take in his art work is to incorporate things he would read into doing his art work. When Greg Ligon was a child his mom would buy him any book he wanted, it didn't matter how expensive the book was she would buy it for him, but she wouldn't do that with buying him the most expensive toys or clothes so that’s how Greg Ligon developed a love for reading at such a young age. The way Greg Ligon expressed the process of making his artwork is by the readings he does and the history of America, comedian jokes and quotations. Greg Ligon in the beginning of his art career thought about using his handwriting in his artwork for the writings but he didn’t because he is more interested in what people have to say about the text rather than his handwriting. The types of material Greg uses are neon lights, plastic stencils, coal dust and oil crayon. At the beginning Greg Ligon was trying to figure out how could he use the oil crayon and not have such a runny and messy artwork but then he realized that, that’s what makes the art. I feel like his work is a successful and a complete exploration because he uses famous quotations, text and he tries to tell a story he puts that into his artwork. Sometimes Greg Ligon has ideas in his mind and he tries to interpret that into his artwork but it doesn’t come out the way it is in his mind so he keeps on trying and trying, mistakes and suggestions pushes his work forward. The video did make me think differently about the way artist work because artist take so much time and dedication in trying to bring their ideas to life, it’s not like you can just pick up a pencil and just draw or do whatever and call that real art you really have to gather your ideas and perfect what you want to show the world in your artwork. What I found surprising in the video is when I saw the piece where they showed his paintings and drawings that look like a coloring book and the way he paints the drawing is like a child going out of the line and using random colors just like how a child would. What surprised me was that it would look like that’s easy to do but it took him a very long time to get into that child mentality and relearn how to paint like one in order to master his artwork and it wasn't that easy to do.