Dara Katzenstein, a student studying at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, and here is a sampling of my artwork.
"Proposal Drawing for 'Nine Years'" Collage 50x70 cm
This is sculpture that is constantly changing and will continue to grow. It is currently titled "Nine Years" because the sculpture has been a process that has lasted for nine years and next year the piece will be called ten years. For each year I harvest the lavender of the one plant and dry it in a bundle and sit it next to the live and now flowerless plant. There are now nine bundles of dried lavender.
Materials: Engligh-Italian Dictionary, Italian marble, brown hair, strawberry blonde hair, and black thread.
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These are two sculptures that I created while in Florence that relate under the same themes and are currently under the same title of "More than you will ever know," but its still a working title.
This is a series of three pieces that are inter related but also can stand alone. All three were created under the same title, "She was an honor student." I worked on these pieces during my time abroad in Florence.
While in Florence I was lucky enough to be chosen to present my own artwork along with other American students at the contemporary art museum the Strozzina, as a part of their "American Dreamers" exhibit. http://www.strozzina.org/en/exhibitions/american-dreamers/
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The first piece is a sculpture that I created which inspired the other two videos. In the first video, when watching it is set up to be a individual experience where there is one chair and a set of headphones to listen to the music through. In the second video there is a projection onto a mirror which then reflect back onto the wall in front.
Well four and half months have come and past and I have no idea where the time went. My semester abroad in Florence was amazing and now all I want to do is go back. I had an incredible time traveling around Europe and met a lot of awesome people and did a lot of really cool things. There was so much to see and do. I ended up traveling to London and Paris for my spring break and then after my program I went to Luzern, Frankfurt, Berlin, Amsterdam, Madrid, and Barcelona. It was such an incredible time, I truly can't put my experience into words. I also saw so much incredible art and discovered a lot of artists that I now love.
Although I did a lot of traveling during my program I spent most of time working "diligently" in Florence. But no complaints there. Even days in which I was stuck in studio all day were amazing days as the window over my studio looked over the San Lorenzo church and leather market. I honestly can't believe all that I have done within the last 4 months, its so surreal.
Art is important, especially since this is a blog about art. But let's talk about the real art of Italy...the food!! I ate so much amazing food during my time in Italy and I will probably never be able to eat Italian-American food again. Never have I ever eaten such fresh and delicious food, the quality of fruits and vegetables in the US is embarrassingly crappy in comparison. If anyone who reads this plans on going to Florence in the future please let me know because I would love to give suggestions on where to eat and go. Just thinking about Italian food is making my mouth water. Also the wine!!
I'll post some pictures of the amazing artwork that I liked while abroad and save the artwork that I created for another post. Also I'm only including an overall sampling since there was so much amazing art that I saw, I am going to leave out the obvious stuff like the David, Sistine Chapel, Pieta, and etc. because I only have so much time.
And there are so many other wonderful works, but it would take much too long to post them all. So to summarize my time abroad I think the words of Lawrence Weiner are most appropriate...Mai cosi tanto (Ever so much).
Well, I finished fall of my sophomore year and I took two studios: anatomy and printmaking. I had a rocky start to the semester but I'm content on how everything turned out; this semester I definitely learned a lot of things not to do. But then I said arrivederci to St. Louis because my spring semester will be in Florence, Italy!
I leave in just one week and I'm excited to make some kickass art and breathe in all of the incredible art history. I will try to blog from Italy, but knowing me that seems a bit unlikely. But eventually I will update. I promise. Ciao!
Unfortunately the content of the fort is partially lost within these pictures because part of the concept that the interior is dark and requires a flashlight. Silkscreen, Linocut relief, fabric, clay, thread and wood.
