studio béluga

newly established, new brunswick-based artist deanna musgrave is definitely interdisciplinary. i got all excited when i first heard about her practice of “intermedia synthesis” because that just sounds amazing. i was thinking new media, which she does a little bit, but for the most part she does stuff a little more lo-fi with painting and music — and it actually doesn’t seem totally contrived (only a little, but them’s the breaks): watch ‘moon’ with andrew miller on youtube.

this is what she says about her work:

Since 2003 she has researched the interdisciplinary practice of “painting/drawing music” or “intermedia synthesis”, continuing a discourse which she sees stretching across art history from early philosophy to Wassily Kandinsky to John Cage and Fluxus. In endeavoring to express commonalities of music and visual art, she has developed motives and patterns to express her own musical language. She uses this language to express the movement, fragmentation, regeneration, and evolution of an invisible substance. This substance could be music, Pythagorean concepts of musica mundana (music of the spheres) or simply the gases of earth’s atmosphere.

She sees value in visually expressing the changes of something invisible in the 21st century, where fear of the unknown is still pervasive. By envisioning an invisible world in flux, she invites the viewer to step into a sensory experience which is unknown, disintegrating, and changing while also, remaining intriguing, familiar, and comforting.

that last bit reminds me of a little something i wrote about my own photography:

I photograph lines and textures found in unexamined, neglected, or taboo areas. Initially created through human agency – such as the scars that result from surgery – these patterns are then modified by uncontrollable natural forces. Scars stretch and grow with the body; metal rusts, paint peels and stone cracks. These are lines and textures of infinite detail and beauty.

let’s all hear it for change, decay, erosion! here are some images of her paintings:

this piece blows me away. she (wisely) uses it as the homepage for her website (http://deannamusgrave.com/)

turquoise+orange = happily married

artist at work as seen through paintbrushes (cliché much?)

one not-very-nice thing i was thinking was: would musgrave get such recognition if she weren’t so pretty? her art is good and well-grounded in theory — but it doesn’t hurt, right? and then i thought: why do i even care?

lots of hot girls have told me that life is not exactly made simpler by being a good-looker — but it does make people want to look at you, and people wanting to look at you is a very, very good thing for an artist of any kind. it’s such an important part of being a successful pop singer that we basically consider it a given. we expect the female pop-artist (yup, using that term loosely again) to present herself as conventionally attractive as possible, all the time. remember the outrage when britney shaved her head?

these thoughts were floating around in my cloudy coffee-addled afternoon brain and only cemented when i joined my friend kate matthews‘ facebook group. she’s a good house dj from vancouver and the fact that i went to high school with her does not make me a biased at all. anyway, someone wrote this on her group wall:

ugh play well…if you are good at one you do you don’t need to have trashy photos to sell yourself. You are ruining the reputation of all female DJs around. I have no idea what your skill level is, but you are selling sex here not music. Female DJs already have it hard enough why perpetuate the issues. *banghead*

and i was not pleased, and i replied with something like

so she can’t be super-sexy and super-talented at the same time?
she has to choose one?
sounds a little restrictive to me.

which i stand by, for the most part, even though it is maybe basically post-feminist. kate does not represent all female dj’s any more than weirdo ex-governor sarah palin represents all weirdo conservative ex-beauty queen politicians. and she has a right to present herself however she pleases; given our social economy, it’s smart to convey herself as a sexpot you’d like to see on a stage.* so why did i have trouble accepting deanne musgrave’s success and good looks when she’s not taking it nearly (at all!) so far as kate — not even doing naked soft-core ‘performance art,’ which would totally sell? you tell me.

*nota bene: in highschool she looked normal. like, she looked like the rest of us: overly made-up and under-developed. girl next door. i remember green fleece, curly hair, curvy body, pretty eyes — not the supermodel you see here:

she says: "legal disclaimer: these are not my breasts. my breasts are bigger!"

...and it's probably true.