Fall 2004 – Konno

Vibrant colors, large in proportion, and having several scenes are just a few general things the two paintings I chose to review have in common. The first is Fall 2004 by Tomomi Konno. The medium Konno used was oil on wood.
The colors are bright and catchy first grabbing hold of the viewer, and then drawing them in with all of the different scenes going on. It is located in MacCollin taking up a large part of a wall near the sculpture room and design classroom. People walk by it several times a day, but if one of those times you were to just stop and stare at this massive painting for a little while, you would be able to take your eyes off of it.
There are so many different interpretations of what is happening here. An ever prevalent

Portion of Fall 2004

theme seems to be abstract symbols of humans, in a duo or individually. In one portion of the painting there seems to be a little person sitting on a ledge under a tree, looking like this individual could quite possibly fall right off the edge into what appears to be a sunrise (sunset?). It’s a kind of beautiful catastrophe, as if this artist was experiencing every single emotion while creating this large painting, lonely and not. To the far right of the painting is another depiction of a person, but this time with another human being, one sitting and one lying on a park bench under a light. These are just two of several scenes that appear.

Untitled – Sergeant & Bowitz

The other painting/sculpture I observed was an untitled piece, or so it appeared because I couldn’t find a tag for the life of me. It was done by an adjunct to Morningside College, Shannon Sargeant, and the Chairman of the Art department and Professor, John Bowitz.
I say it’s a painting and a sculpture because it appears to be paint on many wood panels that wrap around into an oval shape with an opening at one end so that the viewer can enter the piece and be surrounded by the paintings. It’s in a sense interactive.
Like Fall of 2004 this untitled piece also draws the audience in with it’s vibrant colors, and then at a close glance, by everything going on within the colors. Each panel is something different, and sometimes there are several different sections going on in a single panel. The panels contained many depictions of people, and some emotion. However, unlike Fall of 2004, this emotion more so comes from the words, phrases, and sentences that also appear on the panels.
The question of whether or not either of these have a deeper meaning than what than just

Portion of Untitled

paint or oil on wood pieces is debatable. Oscar Wild once said, “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Meaning art is whatever the spectator makes of it. If the viewer can connect and relate to the art, then they can understand the art. What one piece means to one person, may not mean the same thing to another, or even how the artist originally meant it at all in the first place. But that’s just art.
I really enjoyed both pieces, and found myself getting lost in all that was going on in both. It made me think about my life, and I took my own go at guessing what the originators intentions were of both pieces, but one can never know for sure. The artist may not even know, it’s all relative.

A portion of writing on Untitled by Sergeant and Bowitz.