Contemporary Drawings
by Michelle Flanagan

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[Drawings]

::Expressive

- Tondos

- Exercises

- Small Works

- James Dean

-- MFA Show >

1. Personal
2. So?
3. Fun
4. Know
5. Ok
6. Punch
7. Big
8. Trip
9. Patience
10. Mine
11. Indifference
12. Dare
13. Peculiar
14. Fool

::Realistic

[Sculpture]

::Flamingos!

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Master of Fine Arts Show 1997 Thumbnail Page


'Personal', 1997, created for MFA Show. Autobiographical, self-portrait with areas of realism and abstraction.
1. personal		 'So?', 1997, created for MFA Show. Large scale, gestural & painterly drawing inspired by a photograph of Willem deKooning.
2. so?		 Gestural and expressive, large scale drawing titled,'Fun', created for MFA Show 1997.
3. fun		 Personal, psychological and conceptual figurative drawing titled, 'Know', created for MFA Show 1997.
4. know		 Strange and expressive, large drawing titled,'OK.', created for MFA Show 1997.
5. ok.		 Very large, expressive, drawing with areas of realism and abstraction titled, 'Punch', created for MFA Show 1997.
6. punch		 Large scale, painterly & psychological self-portrait titled, 'Big', created for MFA Show 1997.
7. big
Colorful, expressive and psychological self-portrait titled, 'Trip', created for MFA Show 1997.
8. trip		 Charcoal portrait on color drawing titled, 'Patience', 1996; included in MFA Show.
9. Patience		 Oil sticks, graphite and acrylic on paper drawing titled, 'Mine', 1996; included in MFA Show.
10. Mine		 Gestural, charcoal portrait drawing titled, 'Indifference', 1996; included in MFA Show.
11. Indifference		 Expressive, self-portrait drawing, 'Dare', graphite, charcoal and acrylic on paper, 1996; included in MFA Show.
12. Dare		 Large, expressive and psychological self-portrait drawing, 'Peculiar', 1996; included in MFA Show.
13. Peculiar		 Conceptual drawing, 'Fool', oil sticks, charcoal and collage on paper, 1996; included in MFA Show.
14. Fool

     This section of my fine art, online gallery, features the series of drawings I created for my Master of Fine Arts Show in the spring of 1997. The fall of 1996 to the spring of 1997 was my last year of graduate school. It was an extremely intense period of time and I was exhausted after three years of graduate studies. What little I had left physically, mentally, and emotionally I channelled into producing new artwork for the exhibition. I produced all of the drawings within about a month or two. Characteristic to the series is the large scale format, a spontaneous and intuitive approach, and the figure as the means of expression.
     Realistic implications are combined with stylized and graphic areas to add interest to the figures visually and conceptually. The juxtaposition of realism with gestural and flat surface or patterned areas adds to the depth and story of the character which heightens the experience of viewing each piece. Combining different styles is my way of making the characters multi-dimensional and translating the diversities of the human condition visually. This was the last body of artwork made in graduate school. The media used for this series was oil sticks, graphite, charcoal and collage on paper. The drawings' average size is (H x W) 46 x 54 inches.