Faded glory. Iowa Research Online. University of Iowa. Christopher Wayne Reno University of Iowa. Theses and Dissertations.

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1 University of Iowa Iowa Research Online Theses and Dissertations Spring 2011 Faded glory Christopher Wayne Reno University of Iowa Copyright 2011 Christopher Wayne Reno This thesis is available at Iowa Research Online: Recommended Citation Reno, Christopher Wayne. "Faded glory." MFA (Master of Fine Arts) thesis, University of Iowa, Follow this and additional works at: Part of the Art Practice Commons

2 FADED GLORY by Christopher Wayne Reno A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Art in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa May 2011 Thesis Supervisor: Associate Professor Susan Chrysler White

3 Copyright by CHRISTOPHER WAYNE RENO 2011 All Rights Reserved

4 Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL MASTER S THESIS This is to certify that the Master s thesis of Christopher Wayne Reno has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Fine Arts degree in Art at the May 2011 graduation. Thesis Committee: Susan Chrysler White, Thesis Supervisor John Dilg Laurel Farrin Sue Hettmansperger Anita Jung Julia Leonard

5 To Henri ii

6 Frustration is one of the great things in art; satisfaction is nothing. Philip Guston Faith, Hope and Impossibility Bitchin! Josh Black iii

7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Iowa City community of artists, both within and without the University. Small but potent, you keep art alive in the darnedest of places. Also, to Joshie, Danny, Dougie, C- Dawg, Meredith, and DKNY me love you long time. Zack- Attack, your help in the construction of this BHP was invaluable, thank you! To my Recommenders, I say Cha- Ching! (or hopefully, Cha- Ching, anyway! Still haven t heard for sure but things are looking good...). Thanks for taking such enormous effort on my behalf. To Randy, my therapist, I say thank you and I m finally off the Lexapro! I say No thank you! to all the virgins I ve met at Joe s Place, and I hope never to go in there again, except I can t deny Joe s appeal when it comes to cheap and crappy darts. Avoid Joe s, come closing time, that s all I m saying. And while I m on that subject, Georgio: How I love thee? Let me count the ways. To Susan, I m thanking you a second time because you deserve it and also because my dog bit some kid at your house one day and that deserves something all on its own. So, to that kid: Thanks kid, and I am sorry my dog bit you. To everyone else on my committee, I love you and thanks for entertaining my idiosyncrasies. Everybody else in my department: I m sorry, I ve said so many mean and ridiculous things about your work in workshop that it embarrasses me to no end and I am forever in your debt simply because you listened politely. Oh, and thank you Iowa, you are very pretty and I am smitten. iv

8 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES... vi SYNESTHESIA DIALOGUE COMMUNITY v

9 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. The Invisible Man Black, Lit Lies, Cheats, Steals Josh s Piece PRETTYTHIN Leno at Breaks, Enters Afraid to Love Me Page from Untitled Book Page from Untitled Book Page from Panopticon Page from Panopticon Page from Panopticon BS Logo BS Gallery Web- Presence Tony Gant Opening for Commander Yek Chris Reno and Josh Black vi

10 1 SYNESTHESIA Synesthesia, often considered a disease or disability, is an experiential goal that I seek out for each of my paintings. I hope to create in myself and in the viewer a conscious synesthetic condition, a mania, where senses mash one with another. Sights become sounds, tastes ignite color, and images are felt in the fingers and toes. It may be an ideal state of being for all of us. I say may because far be it for me to prescribe ideals for others! And yet we are losing something in our drive toward the complete categorization and classification of all of life s experience. As our language expands and we retreat into the languor of signs a capitulation to the notion that no pre- verbal or pre- categorized experience occurs in us, and as our objective instrumentation expands everything can be examined under the sun, and can be named as separate, and as our individuated systems and specializations thrive, our connections to the world around us, both our community and our environment, diminish. Will we eventually become just glass tubes filled with only saline, vital organs and our brains, connected to machines that maintain and sense the world for us- far more efficiently, far more vividly, and far more explicitly? And what will be left of our natural world when we achieve this supreme state of evolution, where the mind has almost completely eclipsed the body? What will it matter? Perhaps artists are beings who tend toward synesthesia. At the very least, it may be the case that we have a synaptic propensity for sense- categorization spillover. We seem to take impulses that make no rational sense and make a space

11 2 for them in our culture. Metaphors, metonyms, homonyms, etc. are our primary building blocks for expression. What could these tools be other than neural confusion similar to what we call synesthesia? Electrical flashes from one part of the brain connecting to another, suggesting meanings that should not make sense, and yet we all understand their implications. They do make sense and we are comfortable with the confusion. These neural mistakes that we call creativity seem to be necessary, perhaps even evolutionary, requirements. I wonder and paint to see if I can take myself beyond any one category of sensate experience. These days, I start with words and allow them to evolve, or devolve, as they require. Our words are commands for how we should see and feel. Do they limit our responses to our sensations? This is a romantic question in our current philosophical climate, but a question that I can t help but consider. I look at a beginning drawing student s work and see that the student is drawing the sign of a chair or the sign eye. Progress comes to the student who can move beyond language and see/feel the specific light entering the eye. As an instructor, I find that to be such a fascinating moment, when a student first begins to draw from a more direct sensate experience. I am still that beginning student, too, realizing time and again that the sensations of being are felt through the body in its entirety. I am not a brain within my body. My body is one big brain. If I lose part of my body, I lose part of my experience and my body will mourn the loss. My body does not necessarily differentiate between the senses. The senses is a limiting word for what the body, a unified sensual organism, experiences. Taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell

12 3 are just limiting words to move past in my artistic practice. My hope is that the viewer of my paintings feels something of my attempt at synesthesia. Figure 1. The Invisible Man. Oil on Masonite, 48 x

13 Figure 2. Black, Lit. Oil on Masonite, 48 x

14 Figure 3. Lies, Cheats, Steals. Oil on Canvas, 54 x

15 Figure 4. Josh s Piece. Acrylic on Handmade Flax, 8.5 x

16 Figure 5. PRETTYTHIN. Oil on Masonite, 48 x

17 Figure 6. Leno at 10. Oil on Masonite, 48 x

18 Figure 7. Breaks, Enters. Oil on Canvas, 84 x

19 Figure 8. Afraid to Love Me. Oil on Masonite, 54 x

20 11 DIALOGUE Some of the things I ve heard about my work while in grad school: My paintings are like watching CNN. Who wants to watch CNN? My paintings look like exercises. My paintings need something else I think, some kind of difference or other. My paintings have a surface reminiscent of CANCER. My paintings have 1940 s color. My paintings really feel like the 70 s to me. My paintings are SOOOO totally about the 80 s. My paintings seem to be nostalgic for a time that I m not really nostalgic for. My paintings are anti- art, like Josh Smith, or maybe mall art, like I d see near the food court. My paintings could maybe be used as dinner tables! My paintings are sophomoric. I mean, who DOES really give a fuck about NEW AMERICAN PAINTINGS. My paintings are loaded with MSG, like eating a whole bag of CHEETOS. I want to eat the whole bag but then I just feel SOOO gross. My paintings use beginning painter s tricks. The FADE is one of the sexiest tricks that we painters have. I tell all my students that. My paintings suggest that maybe I should be making my paintings on walls with VINYL LETTERING. My paintings are really starting to work in the smaller scale pieces. My larger paintings seem to have a better sense of what I m going for. My paintings can t find the needle in the haystack. A lot of hay COULD be made with my paintings

21 Figure 9. Page from Untitled Book. 7 x

22 Figure 10. Page from Untitled Book. 7 x

23 Figure 11. Page from Panopticon, Hand Assembled Book, 5 x 7,

24 Figure 12. Page from Panopticon, Hand Assembled Book, 5 x 7,

25 Figure 13. Page from Panopticon, Hand Assembled Book, 5 x 7,

26 17 COMMUNITY Active since August of 2009, B.S. Gallery is an artist run 10' x 32' basement space in Iowa City, IA. The BS operates from the economy of our own home and has emerged as both an experimental gallery and a galvanizing force for the network of artists around us. We aim to expand this network and explore the intersection of art and domestic habitat. Figure 14. BS Logo

27 Figure 15. BS Gallery Web Presence 18

28 Figure 16. Tony Gant. tropic of capricorn. Installation

29 Figure 17. Opening for Commander Yek. Installation by Caleb Gentry

30 Figure 18. Chris Reno and Josh Black. Installation