Brendan Kwan

14 September, 2024

 

My friends and I decided to go to the Art Lab at Snug Harbor. We decided to participate in the Oil Painting segment. We met a nice artist named Griselda. She taught us how to utilize our eyes in order to fully understand the dimensions and of the object we are trying to draw. The object that I had to draw was a pair of pears. At first, I thought my art piece was going to be horrible just from the outline. As it came together, I stopped comparing my pair of pears to other people’s pairs of pears and started to really focus on my art, and surely enough, it became a masterpiece in my eyes. I began to mix colors in order to get somewhat identical colors as the real pears. I then focused on the background of the pears. Following that, I started mixing colors in order to make shadows for the pears. I was really surprised by how nice my pears turned out. Finally, when all was said and done, I signed my piece with a fine tip brush, giving it nice, slow strokes in order to write it neatly. The main lesson I learned during this art lab, is that even if you do not have much experience with art, anything is really possible

          I decided to visit the Art Lab at Snug Harbor with my friends, as they were hosting an open house free of charge. We chose to enter an oil painting exhibit, where we were introduced to an oil painting artist. She shared several facts about these paintings, one of them being how the illusion of 3-dimensional objects in a 2-dimensional painting are created. Farther objects are usually colored darker and closer objects are colored more vibrantly because that’s how humans perceive things. Some of her paintings scattered around the room clearly displayed the illusion she described. 

          She then set up a hands-on activity for us to paint one of the references out of several that were present. Our options were to paint tomatoes in a basket, two pears, two pumpkins, or a fennel. I chose the pear, because it was nice and simple and I could focus more on the color details rather than the shape, as it was mostly circular and smooth. We had several different colors to choose from, and we were allowed to mix them in order to make the painting as best as possible. I wanted the canvas to be positioned vertically, so I only painted one pear and half of the other pear. The artist gave us the color blue at first to make an outline because it was her favorite color to start with. I found it weird because I always assume that people would use the color black to make outlines. After finishing the outline, we added colors to the painting. In my painting, I colored the middle and top of the pear with a lighter color, and the sides and bottom with a darker one, in order to take into account the light and shadows and to try to accomplish the 3 dimensional effect. Then for the color of the table cloth, the artist seamlessly mixed the colors for me to make it as close as possible to the real one, which I found very impressive. To make the shadows on the cloth, I made the color slightly darker. After completing the drawing, in my opinion, I didn’t successfully pull off the 3 dimensional illusion. However, I did a lot better than I thought, therefore I am satisfied with my painting. 

          Overall, I really enjoyed this experience. Although I only visited one exhibit, there were many others, so I could only imagine what else I could’ve learned or seen. I would definitely go again with my friends to see what else they would have to offer.

On Saturday (9/14) I very reluctantly visited the Banksy Museum on Canal Street since I was already heading to a dentist appointment three blocks away and knew I wouldn’t make it back to Snug Harbor in time for the Art Lab Open House. I hated the idea of paying $26 ($30 without student discount) for a ticket to an exhibit of replicas of artwork from an artist who is strictly anti-capitalist. This seems to be the majority opinion as the museum was EMPTY except for a family of French tourists. The museum curators seem to be operating on this motto stenciled on the wall:

The museum layout oddly reminded me of an IKEA with blue tape arrows on the floor guiding visitors through a maze of plaster, stucco walls, and brick wallpaper. Of course, the employee at the ticket counter made sure to inform me to follow the blue arrows all the way to the end at which I would find the gift shop (yayy 😑). 

There was an attempt at making each room give off the vibe of the setting in which certain pieces were located, such as with the telephone booth and the vinyl sticker manhole covers in the UK section of the exhibit, but the look didn’t seem to be maintained very well over the past few months that the museum has been open. 

Additionally, the “immersive” experience that the museum advertises is hindered by the yellow-and-black tape on the floor in front of each piece. Street art is made to be exposed to the elements, but here it is protected by a piece of tape that tells the viewer ‘do not touch,’ and creates a facade of this art being expensive and/or exclusive when they are really just replicas printed or painted on wallpaper.

Of course the small French children in the room with me did not seem to care for the tape and went ahead and touched the walls anyways…

This piece to me stood out as cheaply replicated with its strange spackle texture that is not present in the original (or on any wall; fr whose idea was this??). I like the message conveyed by the artwork, but I think my enjoyment of it visually is affected by this odd texture.

There were also minor spelling/grammatical errors in some of the plaques, such as this misspelling of “Neptune Avenue.”

The entire visit I couldn’t help but feel ashamed that I actually spent $26 on this. For a museum that not only betrays the original intent of the artist, but also profits off of their work. And for a museum that features replicas of Banksy’s many anti-capitalist works, you’d think that they would try to mask the irony better. This piece in particular was comically ironic considering the price shown is the exact same as the standard ticket price for this museum.

Although I left with an overall feeling that I had wasted my time and money, I did enjoy some of the little details such as the small graffiti rats scattered around the museum’s hallways and staircases. I thought they were cute and demonstrated the museum curators taking inspiration from Banksy rather than simply putting replicas up on the wall with a plaque. 

I do have to commend the museum for dedicating a section to Banksy’s work in Palestine and maintaining a sympathetic view of the Palestinian plight. They even recreated a room from The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, which was designed and financed by Banksy and other artists to promote peace in the West Bank. While the real hotel is currently closed due to the escalating conflict, this recreation carries on its original message. I say this about this piece in particular and not other parts of the museum because the hotel room was the most immersive experience out of all the replicas I saw. It was clear that whoever designed this particular part of the exhibit cared that it looked like a real hotel room and that viewers understood Banksy’s intention by having an informational video play in the background as visitors looked around the room.