MFA Grad Lecture: Anoka Faruqee

Finally catching up with my blog posts!

About a month ago now, I went to the Anoka Faruqee grad lecture.  I'm usually not that interested in painting but I thought I would go listen in anyway.  Faruqee's work is very, VERY meticulous and tediously constructed.  The bulk of her painting are made up of what might be millions of asterisks.  She grids them out according to what color she wants to paint and where and then hand paints every single one.  She told a story about one time where she actually damaged her eyes from painting so often.  Every time she looked at one of her own paintings she would get a migraine.  She ended up having to hire assistants to finish her works for her until her eyes went back to normal.  And now she's supposed to do eye exercises everyday to make sure it doesn't happen again.  That just seems nuts to me.

In the beginning of her lecture, she talked about how she grew up in a house heavily decorated with elaborate Indian fabrics and that their patterns heavily influenced her work.  I wish I knew more about the significance of the asterisks though.  I know she explained it but even at the time I wasn't able to catch it.  She talked very little about why she makes the painting she makes and talked mostly about how she made them, which was slightly disappointing.  She talked at length about colors and grids and pours and copies and mixing and charts and stuff but not much else.  Finally at the end of the lecture, the grads and faculty were able to pull a little more out of her but by then it was too late and the lecture was over.

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For more info about Faruqee and examples of her work, check out her website.