Bonnie Weber
April 26, 2019
Arts, Culture, Media
Professor O’Leary
Artist Statement of
Bonnie Weber
For me my art work
for the last 3 years has focused on Family and landscapes with a focus on relationships between people and things in
nature that self-nurtures my soul. Although I have done a series of family
portraits recently I always return to the art works that are like comfort food
to eaters, my landscapes of various water scenes. My relationship with water
goes back to my childhood growing up in Arkansas and spending many happy hours
with my family hanging out on the Ochita river. The beauty of water in any
capacity draws me to paint it. It gives me a peace of mind to be around it like
nothing else can. It grounds me in some way, and always makes me happy.
Growing up poor I had little to look forward to at my
youngest stages of life. I lead an oppressed life because many family members
were sick and needed my Mothers, and my care. Oppressive would be a good way to
describe my childhood but I learned to nurture others and take care of myself.
The art that I have
done here reflect my happiest times as a teenager when I moved to Texas. In
Texas, life became more positive. I no longer had an oppressive existence and
life changed for the better. I found a new identity there. This would be along the lines of one of several of our readings pointed out by
Erickson’s theory of psychosocial development Generativity vs Stagnation,
making your mark on society. I needed a
goal to make me someone special. We all grow at various stages, according to
Erikson, and we don’t necessarily develop at the same stages at the same time as
other people according to Erikson’s stages of development. I really felt I started
finding new, better Identities as I got older. I found an Identity during my adolescence,
but my role was confusing for a while, life was better, but I had the desire to
act out for a while. I think this was due to my grown-up role caring for the
sick when I was younger.
My Identity at 16 was
that of a biker chick. Judith Howard states in her article about social
Identity how a person changes over time transitioning through time, changing
identities and evolving. I’ve been searching for a new Identity, evolving and
changing all my life. For creating these
sketchings, I start with me as a biker on my Honda at 16 then I am 34 as a
nurse graduate. I incorporate the graduating nurse with my future graduation in
2020 in a painting. I chose to borrow a style by an African American artist
named Kehindel Wiley who paints figures in classical European Portraiture with a
flowered background for my painted portrait.
I’ve done paintings
of others, my grown children, my husband and grandchildren. There is all beauty
and love there, but in this self-portrait I’ve created, it’s about how I have
been going about searching for an Identity and nurturing myself. How I am evolving. As people
we evolve and search for an “Identity,” all of our lives.
To
explain these sketchings and paintings
I have developed, it is simple. I start out as a young teenager looking for a
new identity in a new state, Texas. Before, I felt I had no identity in the state of Arkansas, and felt oppressed, but
moving to Texas changed me. Texas gave me the Identity of a girl who rode a motorcycle, a biker chick
at 16 years of age. It helped me form an Identity and make friends then. Now,
in the final painting I am an accomplished graduate nurse and a future
graduating Bachelor of fine arts major at Rutgers University. These are my
proudest past and future self-identities. The paintings images are super imposed over the other and the figures of my self are in abstract form. I used sketch pencil on mixed medium paper
for my sketchings and acrylics on cotton canvas for my painting.
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