Artist Conversation 1

Artist: Jean Iwohara

Exhibition: Glass Eyes

Media: Acrylic, Wood Panels, Oils, Sculptures, Polymer, Clay, Felt

Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Dr. Maxine Merlino Gallery

Jean Iwohara is currently a undergraduate student in the School of Arts illustration program and is studying to get a BFA. her interests include painting and creating art that incorporates bright colors. She aims to create art that makes people feel something when they look at it. Her goal is to not only make her art look physically appealing but also evoke emotion in the people who view her art

Iwohara’s work included a lot of bright colors and pastels. She incorporated texture in her felt sculpture of a dog, and the colors used were pastel pink and purple. She also had a sculpture of a girls that had a lot of texture in the hair and in the legs, where the legs were made out of chain. Some of her art was painted on wood panels and on clipboards which added something different than just being painted on a canvas. She incorporated a lot of clean lines in her work but also included paint like splatters that still somehow looked clean cut. Her work made me feel a little uneasy, because she did not include eyes in the people she painted which reminded me of the movie Coraline where the characters had buttons for eyes. The reason this made me feel uneasy is because the movie used to scare me as a kid and the paintings reminded me of that movie.

When I went to go interview and artist I chose to interview the one who’s exhibit and artwork interested me the most. Her artwork not only caught my attention with the bright colors she used but also with how different it was from the art that I am used to viewing. She aimed to evoke a feeling of anxiety with her work, and it left me feeling anxious and uneasy.

Her exhibition was about trying to portray the feeling of anxiety. I believe she achieved this because when I was viewing her work it made me feel uneasy and anxious. The glass eyes of the people she painted and the odd angles that the people were bent at allowed me to feel anxious and uneasy when viewing her work. She tried to focus on creating work that portrayed both internal and external forces that created anxiety. When creating her work she aims to both not only wow herself with the work she produces but also to allow people to look at her work and feel the emotion that she was feeling when creating it.