The Artist Sees Differently: Michelle Lisa Herman

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Rolf Rykken

Michelle Lisa Herman, Digital Media Manager

Photo: Michelle Lisa Herman

How did you learn about the Phillips?

Well, I guess I first learned about The Phillips Collection in high school in Fort Lauderdale, FL, at the Dillard Center for the Arts, when I took AP Art History. I was familiar with some of the works in The Phillips Collection that I would come across in my textbooks, though I didn’t get to actually visit until I started college at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. My friends and I would make pilgrimages here as often as we could to see exhibitions at The Phillips Collection and other museums in the area.

Do you feel you are inspired by the Phillips art?

Just being surrounded by thousands of works of art is inspiring in itself, but the energy that The Phillips Collection has makes it an even more enjoyable experience as an artist.

What do you listen to as you create?

I usually would say my “Trinity”: Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, and Björk. But lately, Björk has been taking the lead. I also listen to a good amount of indie, electronica, and foreign pop. Continue reading “The Artist Sees Differently: Michelle Lisa Herman” »

Odilon Redon’s (Unsolved) Mystery

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Experiment Station

Symbolist art originated as a literary movement. Its proponents focused on the unconscious, believing that reality could not be perceived properly through the five senses. Art of this movement emphasizes dream-like imagery without concrete meanings.

Dating back to my first high school art history class, I have known for certain that Odilon Redon is my favorite artist. I fell in love with the whimsical nature of his paintings that all seem to take place in the same wonderful fantasy world. I feel as if Redon’s paintings are like storybook illustrations come to life, leaving the viewer like a small child in amazement over the colorful pages before them. Continue reading “Odilon Redon’s (Unsolved) Mystery” »

Answering the Question: What is Art?

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Experiment Station

Odilon Redon, Mystery, c. 1910. Oil on canvas, 28 3/4 x 21 3/8 inches. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Acquired by 1925.

What I love about What is Art?, one of the classes offered this semester by the Phillips’s Center for the Study of Modern Art, is the opportunity it provides to form a real connection with the artwork I see every day, yet so often find myself contemplating only in passing. During our second gathering, Director of the Center for the Study of Modern Art Klaus Ottmann took our class of about 20 to one of these works – Odilon Redon’s Mystery. While I’ve always found this painting intriguing (and perhaps a little haunting), I was amazed at the fresh eyes with which I observed it after taking in my classmates’ perspectives.

The class syllabus warned that we would leave with more questions than we came in with, and it wasn’t an exaggeration. In the full hour that we spent in front of Mystery, questions were raised from the broadest to most minute topics. Is this person a male or a female? Portrait or self-portrait? What is that bright green spot in the top right corner? Is there something hidden in those flowers? One classmate saw a self-portrait of the artist holding not flowers, but his painter’s palette in his left hand. Another read the contrast in hand and face color as an indication that this is a portrait of a man holding a mask to his face.

While some saw the brightness and pop of the colorful flowers in deep contrast to the muted palette of the rest of the piece, others saw echoes of the drabness in the background manifested in the drooping and dying flowers of the foreground.

My own thoughts fixated around the stark contrast in styles between the foreground and background; it looks almost as if one artist created a somewhat dreary portrait and a completely separate artist came along and added the flowers later.

The hour of observation went quickly, and I left vowing to return. What are some of your own impressions?

Amy Wike, Publicity and Marketing Coordinator