Jen Stark

Jen Stark is a contemporary artist well known for her incredibly entrechat paper sculptures and use colour to create vivid sculptures that represent organic patterns in nature. Her work is mainly exhibited in America, Miami. I found this artist as a link to Peter Callison as she also uses paper to create her sculptures.

In this work I can see mathematical design that entices the viewer to look deeper, spiraling inwards into a black hole almost like another dimension. Her work is also based on space and the cosmic universe and 3 dimensions. Stark uses the common classroom material; Paper to create her sculptures. She piles different coloured sheets of paper creating layers that transform into designs that appear in nature. This creates depth in her work. For example some of her works remind me of tropical flowers found in the Amazon or beautiful waterfalls that cascade. The artists uses line in this wok to draw the eye into the piece and follow the geometric pattern I especially like the way the lines in the spiral sculpture draw the eyes into the centre and gives the illusion of infinity. I believe she uses natural organic shapes in her work to represent the fact that the paper is a natural material. The sculptures appear man made but the material used (paper) reminds the viewer that it is as natural as the shapes portrayed. Jen Stark uses vivid colours to capture the audience’s attention. I think she also uses colour to create a mood as she believes "colour makes people happy". She uses patterns in her work to create her mathematically inspired pieces. The scale of her work varies and she often does large scale paintings on the wall of 'drippy art' which creates a fun playful decorative effect and her version of psychedelic art. The elements that interest me the most about this art is the patience and her mathematical calculations that have gone into the pieces in order to create mind altering outcomes that infuse geometric patterns with psychedelic art but with a childish innocent twist. The elements that interest me the most is her use of paper to create layers that invert inwards, I think this is a really effective technique as they draw the eye in creating the illusion that a wormhole is opened up in the wall/ground leading to a world of colour and rainbows, this may give the impression of psychedelic art the sort that you imagine while your dancing and waving glow sticks around at 4am however her etiquette use of colour creates innocent and elegant designs. The precision in the cut of the paper creates a clean finished look that is reflected in many patterns in nature, it looks perfect just like a flower or a snowflake. In her sculptures she adds the finishing touches of dripping colour around the edge this gives the work a playful childlike mood and emphasises the explosion of colour as it tries to leak out of her work.

I think the art work is overall about creating something that is visually pleasing I know this because Jen Stark talks about how she uses colour in her design to draw peoples attention. Her intentions are also to make complex geometric shapes that at the same time appear organic, I believe she did this using paper as her main material to communicate to the audience the fact that it is a natural material and to remind people that it can be used in many other ways and not just the common use of carrying information.  "The nice thing about paper, at least in relation to my sculptures, is that it comes in a prescribed form with a set function that I ignore. You can actually do a lot with paper instead of writing or printing on it; you can scrunch it up, you can make papier-mâché out of it... Just cutting and folding seems the most elegant, the most pure. With a few cuts and a few layers I can create pattern and depth and make my eyes dance around lines that aren’t really there. It’s not so much the fact that everyone uses paper, it’s the fact that you can take something that is so set in its ways and find unique ways of working with it." I would like to ask the artists whether she draws her inspiration from anywhere else apart from nature for example her subconscious mind like surrealism artist. I would also like to know what other materials she would like to use apart from paper as this is not the only common everyday material. I have researched about the work and have found out that her work is featured in many locations and forms such as murals and her work was also publishes in a New Science magazine. This research has altered my opinion about her work as initially I thought it was quite niche but if it is used in the media and is on public display in murals then it must have a good reputation. I think her work is relevant to my project as she uses colour to represent a playful fun nature in her art ad I want to use colour in my piece in the same way.

I would give this work the tittle ‘water fall of colour’ as this creates the impression that it is an organic form.  Another tittle that I would give this work is portal to another world. This is because this sculpture looks like a wormhole. I would like to compere this work to Audrey flack work as the both take a normal everyday objects and enhance their colours visually to give them a more depth meaning. Stark used paper as it is something everyone uses and she wants to find different potentials for it and celebrate its beauty and simplicity. Flake uses ordinary object that are meaningful to her and then puts them in a composition. Both pieces capture the viewer’s attention and makes them look closer.

The elements that I think are successful are the contrast between the bright vivid colours and the black. This makes it look like something in spaces like a black whole or a star constellation. The elements that I don’t think are successful are the shape of the overall structure, and the outside is completely white. I think the piece would have worked best if in certain places the colours dripped further down so that it looked like the colour was over flowing. Also the paint could have been thicker to make it look as if the colour is melting and tripping down.

In response to her work I will use her main colours in this order in my final piece:

Pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, blue, lilac, purple and pink

This is similar to the colours she uses, I wanted to use these colours as they represent all emotions and together they look fun and playful which represents my exciting experience in Italy during my summer. My peers also commented on Jen Stark’s work they said “they are interesting paper sculptures to look at, I like the use of vibrant colours.” I think they said this because when you look at her work you are instantly amazed and wonder how the work is created out of such and ordinary object. I think my ideas link to my brief as I wanted to explore my memories of the summer and the feeling and emotions I had and one way of visually expressing this is through colour.