Dario+Rainone

Q1 Benchmark: Artist Statement These days, the artistic potentials of several works are underestimated. It is a common conception that art can only be located and admired in apposite museums. Regardless of their beauty, originality or characteristic to generate feelings, creations outside the artistic world are too often denied the title of artwork. One of the fields where art has been created, yet never acknowledged, is the automotive industry. For decades inspiring, sensual, harmonious, and flamboyant shapes have taken the form of bodies of highly fine machines, cars. The most recent and modern of them all is, to my opinion and the one of several experts, the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. The latter is what I attempt to reproduce with my portrayal, so to represent art in one of its various forms, one that is rarely recognized or analyzed: the automobile. Before initiating this work, the very first decisions to make is what angle of the car would best represent its overall image and spring the most imaginative ponderings in the observer. Of course, the most obvious and sensible thing to do would be to create several drawings of the car from multiple perspectives, so to avoid that first problem. Nevertheless, given the time period and possible constrictions, properly drawing different representations of the Alfa Romeo may not the most practical of solutions. In addition, such an artwork cannot be considered fully completed unless it is at least partially colored, which is a process that can take several hours. For these motives, one well-done drawing is definitely the most sensible of options. It now comes to the decision of the car’s illustration. Speaking of the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, the front three quarters view captures the originality, ambiguity and grace of the overall form, reason for which my work pictures precisely this. Personally, by doing this work, I hope to master the ability to reproduce objects in three dimensions, specifically, automobiles. For what they can represent and the infinite emotions they can provoke, they are the objects of my study. My ultimate goal would be not only to reproduce pictures of cars, but being able to create one in absence of any reference. After all though, I have to admit I am not fully satisfied with my project as of today, the ninth of November, 09. Due to other academic obligations, part of which are also related to college admission, the artwork is not yet completed. It lacks most of the coloring, a procedure which I have never quite learned either.

Q2 Benchmark: Artist Statement As explained in the previous artist statement, my former art piece was not complete at the time of the marking period’s end. Therefore, I had committed myself to its completion for the remaining quarter. I imagined that obligations related to college admission were over by that time, but only later I discovered I was wrong. Predictably, not much time was left for me to work on my painting. Nevertheless, most of the car was colored, although in a rather simple way. In other words, it lacked sophistication; inasmuch only one hue was used. Two weeks before the submission date of the artwork, I was staggered to realize that the painting was missing from the art room. I am still unaware on what exactly caused its disappearance, but, whatever it was, it is irrelevant by now. As a result, I am not able to present my painting. Another intention for the second marking period was to create yet another drawing of the same car, the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. It would have differed from the previous one due to a different perspective and an almost certain different color as well. For the latter, I would have opted for yellow, since any dark color would have probably overshadowed the curves and lines that constitute the overall shape of the car. As I claimed previously, “the front three quarters view captures the originality, ambiguity and grace of the overall form of the car.” The only concealed section of the car in the painting is the rear view. In order to offer a new viewpoint, that is exactly what I intended to depict in my new painting. Then again, I only had two weeks to create it, and I spent the first three days only searching for the painting, hoping that it was simply hidden somewhere in the classroom. In the end, I have nothing to present but this artist statement. For the next marking period, I plan to create the painting of a new car – probably a McLaren F1 or a Ferrari 599- and seriously commit to it, given I will have a relatively normal of workload to complete for the other classes and commitments.

Q3 Benchmark: Artist Statement Due to the absence of the drawing of the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, my intent for the third quarter benchmark was to abandon the previous project and start a new one, still involving the graphical representation of cars. I had attempted to draw a car without imitating any other model: an original brainchild of mine. The viewpoint of the drawing was its profile, since giving the impression of three dimensions from the other viewpoints was something out of my reach. The work was not supposed to represent depth or color. It was merely a technical exercise to test my ability to create a shape pleasant to the eye, one that could actually be part of the real world of car design. Once that was completed, I had switched to a completely new project about Origami, the art folding paper to create artworks similar to sculptures. However, I wanted to focus on a specific type of origami, one that would act as a building block for any other origami. The technique consists in obtaining a small, rectangular piece of paper, grab the longer sides and join the two ends together. Then, grab the shorter sides and join those two sides together. Afterward, you would have to join the shorter side with the longer side for both faces of the paper. Open the paper, fold the two long, resulting strands of paper and close the paper were the final steps in completing these “blocks” that could join each other perfectly. The end result would have been a bird, although I was still working on a rough draft of the work, reason for which the paper in question was simply white. While I was still in the process of making the necessary number of “blocks,” Ms. Hull informed me that she had found my drawing of the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. Seeing it was incomplete, I decided to continue working on it and finish it for the third marking period. The drawing needed additional coloring and tracing. For the entire quarter, it can be concluded that I worked on three different projects, of which only two were completed.

Q4 Benchmark: Artist Statement For the last quarter of the year, I wanted to shift my line of thought and create something different from a sketch or a drawing. It did not have anything to do with the theme of the artwork; it was the art form itself with which I was not satisfied. I have always been skilled in making origami; there is something about an inherent comprehension of the paper’s geometry and the articulation of my hands’ muscles that makes manipulating paper for me the most natural activity possible. The infinite shapes that result from folding a single sheet of A5 paper are a constant motivation for anyone to continue working until something valuable has been created. The fact that the most complex forms can derive from a 0.01 by 14.8 by 21 cm sheet of cellulose pulp, giving it a volume of merely 3.108 cm3, is no less than fascinating. Creating an artwork by folding a paper is very similar if not identical to creating an artwork using paint: you start from nothing, but every line you draw or fold you make can inspire a multitude of other lines or folds. I concentrated on a very specific technique of origami making, which involves making small triangular prisms of paper that can act as building blocks for virtually any creation. Since it was my first experience with this new approach to origami, I decided to do something fairly simple: a flower. Once I had gathered the sufficient number of blocks, I could begin assembling them. The first component of the flower I made was its stem. When I was satisfied with the length of the stem, which would have to be proportional to the radius of the flower, I began working on the corolla. I made a circle by joining the blocks one next to the other and from that a series of concentric circles. I now had the ring that would act as the base for the entire corolla. I added two concentric circles of a smaller radius as to simulate a conic shape, but without an apex. I used pink and purple papers to create a pink-purple sequence as the color of the entire flower. To ensure structural rigidity, I glued every piece together. With this project, I not only wanted to practice my origami making skills, but also wished to show my classmates an alternative form of art that one can explore. People usually neglect origami as a form of art. Drawing and sculpting are often taken for granted as the only ways a person can demonstrate his or her artistic abilities. My goal with my artwork is mainly to remind everyone that origami is one too.