Welcome to my Thesis Portfolio

I would like to present my Thesis work in this portfolio that I am currently working on as undergraduate Printmaking - Senior at Hartford Art School in Connecticut.



The Artist Statement

In the past year I have come to the realization that many of my friends are in a multi-cultural/multi-racial relationship often come are from very different ethnic backgrounds. I was not used to this before I came to the United States. My entire childhood in Germany was spent rather isolated from foreigners except the one girl from China and one boy from Russia that went to school with me and travels my family and I had done. I had never contact to African American people until I went to Highschool in New Jersey but even there it was a very small minority. The past 6 years have been filled with learning and discovering different religious traditions as well as a vast variety of different people ranging from African American to Hispanic, Vietnamese, Australian... etc.
I am extremely fascinated with multiracial couples. Two People in a relationship that is just as normal, dramatic or even a failure as all other couples, but that often come from very contrasting backgrounds.
While the personal and psychological as well as sociological aspects of multiracial relationships interest me, I find the physical contrast between these two people interacting, highly intriguing. I find it a real challenge to take well composed and nicely balanced Black and White Photographs of these couples because of the different way light bounces off different skin tones.
I am interested in the push and pull of lights and darks, highlights and shadow shapes that happen when two people with two different skin tones interact with each other. And how those shadows and shapes express the “dance” (the ups and downs, push and pull, the compromises and little battles) that people do when they are in a relationship.
Taking photographs is a very important aspect of my work. I do not mind working from life but printmaking and photography go hand in hand for me, both are extremely process oriented.
I have taken photographs of multiracial couples and selected specific ones for there most interesting light/shadow patterns as well as cropped into them to capture the essence of there relationship then I used these as references for Monotypes as well as Lithographs. The large Monotypes are reflecting what these couples show and look like to outsiders. While the small intimate Lithographs give a glimpse of what they are like privately, or at least what I believe they are like in their private setting.





The first Image of Couple #1:
Title: "Caught"
Medium: " Stone Lithograph"