Ranch House: Art Piece & Artist Analysis

Art Piece: Abstraction # 507 0 (1950)
Artist: Vincent Pepi (American Abstract Expressionist 1926)

The Artist & Artwork
The artist I received from the Weatherspoon gallery is the abstract expressionist Vincent Pepi and the specific piece I received is titled Abstraction #507 0. Pepi is an artist that paints in a gestural manner that is often compared to that of a contemporary Jackson Pollock. This style of “gestural abstraction” that he uses in his drawings is also known as action painting, painting that involves impulsive dripping, splattering, and smearing of medium on a surface in order to achieve the artist’s concept. In this innovation of art, New York and its New York School became a sort of rival to the classical Paris School. Classical teaching gave way to expression through abstraction as art became more about artist satisfaction rather than opinions of critics.

Abstract Expressionism
When looking back at the era of Abstract expressionism and the date my chosen artist painted this artwork I found it to be influence by the ideas and structure of jazz music. Abstraction of jazz and blues was a trend that started during the occurrence of World War II and continued to be effective after the war. Artists like Pepi were drawn to the parallels that improvisational jazz inspired, a sort of “gesture & response” pattern as stated in Gibson’s Abstract Expressionism. Jackson Pollock, often used in comparison to Vincent Pepi’s contemporary style, even painted to jazz music by Charlie Parker and “Dizzy” Gillespie in order to achieve the patterns and designs he needed to express his ideas on canvas. With this inspiration of music, pigments of acrylic and oil paints were what instruments in a Jazz band were, different components used to create an entire composition.

Inspiration to Ranch House
In the piece Abstraction #507 0, Color is a key element in the composition. The painting itself is fairly small in work of art but the color dominant the surface with its contrasting whites, yellows, reds, and blues. This contrast of color is accented due to the dark brown, chipboard-like, canvas board that the painting is painted upon. Also there is no clear linear element in the composition to draw the eye, all the strokes of color are curvilinear and random, only the colors move the eye through the painting. I think this idea of color will also become a key element in my design of the Ranch house as it did with Vincent Pepi’s piece, with all the levels nooks, and built-ins existing in the space color could be used to identify public and private functions of rooms or as hierarchy in space and furnishings. Another idea stemming from this research and the idea of color is the affect of different types of light (like artificial and natural lighting) on colors in an interior. When I was observing my art piece in the Weatherspoon the colors looked more like they were white, orange, green, and blue rather then the colors that showed up in the photographs I looked at, this phenomena of color change based on environment could open up other ideas such as gradient or attention to atmosphere of the space when I’m designing the interiors of public and private spaces.

Resources
+Weatherspoon Art Museum: http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu/collections/show?id=2799
+Abstract Expressionism Gibson, Ann Eden, New Haven : Yale University Press, c1997. P. 31-32
+Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia on Abstract Expressionism
+The New York School versus the School of Paris, Article from Historical Methods; Fall2002, Vol. 35 Issue 4, p141, 13p, 11 Charts