Two self-portrait and stillife series

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Phillip Anthony Link (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Andrew Martin

Abstract: Just before I returned to UNC-G to study art (after over five years of almost complete inactivity), I told family and friends that I wished to find out if I truly wanted to make a career in art. More to the point, I wondered if I could become an artist. Now, after four semesters in various classes and almost another semester working independently, I am a person whose chief interest in life is to recreate various selected bits of my environment through the media of oil paint, pencil and clay. Above all I prefer creating directly from nature. The results are realistic, but not photo realism. Rather than superficial details, I seek an overall unity and sweep. I am most attracted to subject matter that has presence. I strive to capture this force which emanates strongly from certain objects and locales. When a balance is achieved among the chosen elements in, for example, a stillife, a wonderful tension results. The space around the component parts of a work then is revealed as plastic and dynamic. I experience little difficulty in locating (setting up), a subject when the desire is upon me to celebrate a bit of the environment. The problem of course has always been in the act of rendering of the subject. Perhaps Cezanne referred to it when he spoke of "realizing his sensation." It has become plain to me that continuous confrontation with the endless problem of execution contains the best avenue to something approaching success. Also, I feel that constant production stemming from the same or very similar subject matter is essential for a significant increase in powers of perception.

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 1977

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