The fifth person in our NSA Times Visual Artist Spotlight is Masami Agari. She’s a senior whose work has been exhibited at the Belmont Mansion, the Country Music Hall of Fame, MTSU, and the Hermitage. We discussed her evolving AP Studio Art concentration, her artistic influences, and her plans for the future.
NSA Times: What sort of subjects do you like to explore in your artwork? Masami Agari: In my art, I’m doing 3D art pieces. We have concentrations, and I’ve kind of jumped around a little bit. I first started with statistics. I kind of wanted to draw people out, instead of viewing them as statistics, with an issue that’s very important to today’s society. When you know that person, when it happens to you, then you start to see more than a statistic. Now I’ve kinda shifted from that into America’s ashamed moments. I looked at the atomic bombings, mass shootings, just all the things that we don’t really take into account, but America did. We just kinda glaze over them in U.S. History. Finally, I’ve kinda pushed over into more of my culture. I’m exploring the after effects and the image portrayed onto the bombings. There’s a very patriotic, like “It had to be done to end the war. It was retaliation for Pearl Harbor,” and I just wanted to point out how catastrophic it was to these innocent Japanese people. They weren’t active military, they were civilians. You can see their shadows, or their image burned into concrete. It’s a very harsh and intense reality, and we make jokes about it in today’s society. It’s a very light topic now. We’ve become very numb to that. NSAT: What are your favorite mediums? Masami: Mrs. Profitt’s gotten on to me about this. I’m very all over the place with my mediums. The most fun I have is with wood, because I like the grain, and the flow of just interacting with nature. It’s really kind of a calming effect to me, even just the carving process. I don’t have any jigs or machinery. I use just a hand saw and little carving things that kind of take it out on your hands. Other than wood, maybe a little clay or cardboard, but I think wood’s probably gonna my favorite. NSAT:What artists are you influenced by? Masami: I’ve looked into different ones, both sculpture and 2D artists, because you know, that’s where my roots were. I’ve looked at Ai Wei Wei of course. He’s a Chinese political activist. He’s really awesome. I just love how meaningful his art is and it can be so simplistic. He has a sunflower seed installation, he brought his whole community in, and were all just kinda like, working together to make this huge piece. He employed a whole village, and I was like “Damn, you rich!” They even put him in jail for speaking out against the Chinese government. Then he got out and made a piece about that. He made little dioramas of when he was in custody; he was like “This is what happened. I was watched all the time for going to the bathroom, or even eating.” I’ve watched a lot of Art21 videos about him. Wayne White is amazing to me. He took found art pieces at Goodwill and thrift shops, and wrote giant bold words on them that sometimes made no sense. But then other times, it was just like block letters on a landscape, and somehow it connected to the viewer. NSAT: Didn’t Mrs. Profitt make her class do a project inspired by him? Masami: Yeah! I put a pun “Can you sea me?’ on a picture of the sea. I’m really bad with puns. NSAT: Do you prefer individual or group projects? Masami: Now in my experience, group projects sometimes take a lot more effort. But it is important to deal with other people to see their views, but I’m kind of a control freak. I like doing things on my own a little bit. I’m pretty open to branching out and accepting criticism, but a lot of times, I’m like “Oh no, I wanna do this line like that.” But yeah, I’m kind of a individualist, but I’d be open to working in groups. NSAT: Looking back, do you have any favorite NSA art projects? Masami: I’ve always been interested in printmaking. We did this project in Ms. Spadafino’s class for Bryce McCloud. We had an NSA Presents with him, so we tried to make this print. It was a collaborative piece, so we really had to make sure what was going on to be a part of it and make sure it’s a very nice project. I thought it was a good project and I also liked his work, so that also inspired me to do more work similar to him, to show what we can do as artists here. There are several projects in Ms. Profitt’s class that were really fun little things to practice skills. We did folded paper paintings. I just liked folding the paper, mixing paints is really hard. NSAT: What do you plan to do after NSA? Masami: After NSA, I’m definitely taking a gap year. I want a little break. It’s all pretty hectic sometimes. I want to do a little traveling, but I’m going to go down for a month to Texas, because there’s this workshop where they’re doing woodworking. I’m gonna see if it’s the area I want to pursue. So I’m gonna go down there for a month and see if it’s to my liking. If so, I’m probably gonna go to Tennessee Tech, because they have really good arts programs. They have woodworking, metalworking, and glass. I was really interested in seeing the programs there on a college tour. After Texas, my dad finally promised to take me to Japan. I might go to Thailand after with my brother. NSAT: Oh wow, that’s a lot of places. Masami: I know! And when I come back, I wanna be a sushi chef! Like, “Ok dad, I’m back. It’s time to teach me!” NSAT: Do you have any other hobbies? Masami: Man, I wish I had a life. Um, I did have a really fleeting hobby, I went skydiving. It was really fun. I could only do it when I turned 18, so I had to wait a while. Once I did it, I was really into it. NSAT: Do you think of yourself as an adrenaline junkie? Masami: A little bit. That, and anytime someone challenges me to do something, I’m like “Alright, I’ll do it. Alright, come at me.” It’s weird, because sometimes I’m not really focused on other people’s opinions and I am sometimes too, it kind of shifts with me. But other hobbies, sometimes I like doing boxing practices in my garage. My mom won’t let me go full time, because she’s worried about my brain. NSAT: Do you have any advice for the younger students of NSA? Masami: If they’re here for art, which is why we’re here, I think they should really focus on their art. I mean academics are very important, and to maintain your place here, you show that we can be badasses at academics and be kickass at art too. If we’re so focused on getting good grades, then what are we really here for? We’re trying to find our voice here. You’re supposed to try to develop something here that you wouldn’t get the opportunity for at another school.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Student art spotlight: Corbin ChandlerCorbin Chandler is the fourth person in our NSA Times Visual Artist Spotlight. He’s a senior, and his work has been exhibited at the Frist Center for Visual Arts, the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Belmont Mansion, and the Hermitage. Corbin sat down with us to talk about past projects, his current work, and his plans for the future.
NSA Times: What subjects do you like to explore in your artwork? Corbin Chandler: Usually I draw things that I enjoy or that I’m interested in. When I do the political comics, I often focus on Trump, because I really disagree with him and I find joy in that. The other stuff that I do, I’m usually drawn by aesthetic, like looking at something or sketching something out and going “Yeah, I like that.” And If I don’t like it, it usually doesn’t end up in my final pieces. NSAT: What mediums do you use? Corbin: I work particularly well with ink, but what I’m really trying to work on is digital, because it’s becoming more important, and I want to be an animator, so that’s definitely a big part of my future. NSAT: What artists are you influenced by? Corbin: A lot of artists on Tumblr, a lot of digital art, often using pastel colors. I don’t usually use those specifically in my own art, but I really enjoy looking at that. I also read a lot of graphic novels. NSAT: What are your favorite graphic novels? Corbin: One of the ones I read this year was called Fun Home. It was really good, and the art was really interesting. There’s another, it’s a manga, and it’s called Wolf Children. The art is really beautiful. Even though I kind of got out of the reading manga phase of my life, I still have that book, and it’s really beautiful and one of my favorites. NSAT: Do you prefer collaborative or individual art projects? Corbin: It depends, because collaborative, you have to work with people. Sometimes the people you work with aren’t people you get along with. That usually ends up to be a piece that isn’t really cohesive. But if you work with people that you get along with and mesh with in the intellect section, or just you like being with them, you probably will create better art. NSAT: Could you explain your concentration idea for AP Studio Art? Corbin: So my concentration has changed a couple times, but what I’m working with now is seeing the beauty in vultures and how they’re very important and how they shouldn’t be looked at as scary, death-bringing creatures of hate. The history of vultures is really beautiful. From Egyptian mythology, they’re referenced as creatures of motherhood, purity. They help eat things that carry diseases, and they stop anthrax from spreading, as well as rabies. They’re just really really important creatures to our ecosystem, and people don’t see that. So that’s what I’m trying to explain in my pieces. NSAT: Are there any memorable NSA art projects? Corbin: We talked about collaborative pieces, and we’ve done several with Ms. Spadafino. One of them was a print project which didn’t turn out very well. We painted the school from three different angles and it didn’t turn out as well as it could have, and people didn’t work on it like they should’ve. What we need to do is take down those pictures, because I really wish we could re-do them or something, do something that really shows what the seniors have reached. We were sophomores when we did it, I don’t think we all were practiced enough to be able to accomplish something like that. NSAT: So those projects are memorable in a not so good way? Corbin: Yeah, I think they were good ideas at the time. We weren’t able to do them well. I can remember a lot of our projects. We got the pictures the kids drew, which was interesting. We never gave them to the kids, they’re still in the library. NSAT: What do you plan to do after NSA? Corbin: I’m gonna go to college. I’m going to college in California, so I plan on getting into animation or digital art after i graduate college. I’m going to either USC for their animation program. I still haven’t heard back from them. I’ve been accepted into the Academy of Art University for animation. NSAT: Do you have any other hobbies? Corbin: I write a lot. I've been writing with one of my best friends for the past 3 and a half years. We’re working on a couple of things that might be turned into comics or novels. That’s my other thing that I do, I don’t do anything else. NSAT: Do you have any advice for the younger students of NSA? Corbin: My advice would be to not focus on a lot of other people. Keep yourself enough self-centered to the point of where you can get your work done, because when i got into high school, I thought everything was about making friends and trying to be in a group. And even though I got that, what’s most important is the fact that I’m passing. I know a lot of kids joke about how they’re not passing. You know, it’s free education, and I feel like you should try as hard as you can, even if you don’t feel like you really can accomplish things. I think it’s important to try, because a lot of kids don't try. AuthorArticle by Jessica Cardona |