Experience: modern contempoorary art

Optic - Robert cottingham

Last week, for the VMFA young at arts program I volunteer for, I explored the Modern and Contemporary Art exhibit. This is a permanent exhibit in the museum, with some pieces rotating. For the program we analyzed pieces with human subjects, specifically people with some familial relationship to one another as an exploration of the idea of family. The children are preschoolers so the discussion about them was not extremely deep, but as we were walking out of the gallery I spotted "Optic" which caught my eye. This piece is very similar to the paintings of neon signs that I have done. There is, however, room for me to grow. There shadows on this piece are dynamic, and it is clear the artist took time in selecting and changing reference to fit his needs. Also along this line the composition is intentional, and avoids the often stagnant, flat feel that neon signs can fall into. Moving forward in my art I hope to apply these concepts for dynamic pieces.