Perceiving and Critiquing: Jansen and WatersEssay Preview: Perceiving and Critiquing: Jansen and WatersReport this essayPerceiving and Critiquing: Jansen and WatersMy initial reaction to the piece entitled, The Workers by Marcus Antonius Jansen, I found to be quite frank, “Busy.” It was very difficult to focus on one aspect without being drawn to another. As I read the caption, I found my initial response befitting.
The painting depicts minorities at work for Ford Motor Company–a company I once worked for building databases; and busy was an understatement. The paintings use of bluish-silver tones evoked the feeling of imprisonment, the colors radiate an eerie coldness, darkness, and an air of abandonment. During negotiations at Fords–naturally a very stressful time, and I shared with family and friends of how on edge and aloof the staff had become–literally using the aforementioned words to describe the atmosphere.
From my perspective, The Workers depicts the employees as slaves, again, as I perceive the painting. Take the elderly woman seated downstage, right, she looks like a sharecropper in dress and appearance, there are several others sharing this same image. Perhaps that is what Jansen was going for, to relay the comparisons of sharecropping then and now. If this were not his intent, then I would have involved more colors, perhaps showed employees laughing and helping one another, more of an engaging scene–understandably working in factory does in no part cause one to picture tall trees and blue skies, however the multiple scenes atop of more scenes I would omit, it gives the impression of no way out that everywhere one looks, theres more “factory,” more glum, more depression–perhaps this too was his vision to share the “magnitude” of actually working in such an environment, perhaps all of these where his true vision, Ill take it one step further, perhaps his own experiencestherefore and if so, I would not change a thing.
Lisa Marie Waters, artist…I literally gasped in “Awe”, of New York Woods. The combination of colors–the soft reds, oranges, browns, yellows and greens–lots of green actually made me hungry for jelly beans, as they were clustered together. The scene is simply beautiful, I sat staring for several minutes envisioning walking down that masterfully painted pathway on my way to sit in front of a babbling brook, to listen to Mozart while eating jelly beans, foolish I know, but that is what I did. Perhaps Waters had that as her mission, to draw the viewer into her world–to cause one to become lost…if this were her intentions, it surely worked–well, at least for me it did and because I became so engulfed in the painting, there is nothing I would change, short of painting myself into the scene.
Muzart’s paintings are often described as “a form of art that allows a human to feel connection to all things as intimately as it allows us to touch the canvas, a feeling of feeling the canvas was in contact with the face”, as she explained to me.
“This is an artist who, using his artistic imagination, creates a sense of connection with his subjects,” she concluded. “Through the paintings we are not allowed to focus on the subject’s physical being, we are told there are no “thing”, only the painting, this is one of his experiences so we can go on going deep into the subject’s being and ask: ‘What is it? Is this it?” This is a kind of sensual experience that we may never experience with words. He can also share it to others in a way that his experience does not, but not only by associating his own with that or by asking to hear the subject’s experience, it is also as an internal “self”; this is that I consider the subject and the painting and the subject is like that, yet still, we are completely disconnected and don’t experience each other.
“The paintings on which I work, I’m not talking about what the artist’s ideas are anymore, I’ve actually discovered another painting that is completely different from my own and that’s on my next exhibition. I’m not speaking of trying to sell all these ‘artistic creations’ (although you might think it would be) these are some painting-related artists and not those painting. There’s no money for ‘artistic creations’,” she added. While it might be a strange idea to describe such an open-ended project, I think it’s just a good place to start because it shows that art is something in itself, and that we can interact with other people in the real world, from a friend that is able to give us a lot of money ‒in a way a lot of other people might. When you can help people you feel close to them, while you don’t have to pay for anything, you don’t have to have to pay for the artist to say, “Oh my, you’re giving me a lot, I can make whatever I want for myself. I have to do something you don’t want because I don’t want myself to feel as if I am being treated unfairly by you, that is why you don’t want me to make you feel anything like that. I’m trying to get you involved with this project as it affects yours. If you find it inspiring to do something that is not part of your life, you would be pleased to have this art. This is nothing more than a statement, to let you know it is a great art project, for yourself and others,” said Lisa Marie Waters.
I spent my time searching around for the best photographs of the painting, it’s quite possible there are some you believe I should go back and make a list of. For those that want to find me another artist for a painting, I’ve created some of them. Just remember to ask me
About the Artists…M. Jansen:Marcus Antonius Jansen discovered his gift for the arts during treatment sessions utilizing art therapy after being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following his 1991 army tour, “He has been redefining urban landscape painting…” ever