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| ANDRES PAYAN | ABOUT | WORK | CURRENT | CONTACT | |||||||
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| all work © 2015 by Andres Payan // Design by Unknown Creative |
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| FROM THE GROUND UP 9/7/2013 |
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Hello my savvy internet dweller! I have suuuuuuuch good news and you should like find a chair and sit down before you keep reading… not really… please keep reading. A few weeks ago I received fantastic news, I had been accepted to be part of the biennial exhibition “From the Ground Up” organized by the Las Cruces Potters Association, which takes place at the Las Cruces Museum of Art! It would be my THIRD time being part of this amazing exhibition and I could be happier. The piece to be part of this show… XXIII!!! This totally insane work I made to graduate from the University of Texas at El Paso, which consisted of soooo many glazes and 23 handmade and decorated clay birthday cakes. All which were done with the help and tutorial skills of me amazing sister Nayeli Payan. But the good news doesn’t end there! I was actually awarded Best of Show AND People’s Choice! I couldn’t be happier and I am filled with joy that my mother was there to receive the award in my behalf. It was a very special piece in my development as a ceramicist and one that I continue to hold dear. You can check it out on my portfolio page! |
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| GRADUATE SCHOOL 5/4/2012 |
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Pursuing an MFA has been in my plans way before receiving my BFA. The BIG question was… WHERE?. After a long, tedious, stressful, and hectic application process, I submitted applications to 4 programs and was amazingly accepted to all of them. (continues to pinch self to wake up) Immediately my heart went to Cranbrook, my body to SAIC, and my mind to CalArts… (RCA, London, was to far away to send any organ) My visits to each of the US schools only reassured me that graduate school was my next step but I still had to choose ONE place, reject the rest.
Truth is, at the end of the day having been accepted to all these programs was truly a blessing. A bittersweet experience that might leave a "what if" in the back of my mind, because with all sincerity I know any of these programs would have been excellent. But a decision had to be made, and my decision was to continue my education in The California Institute of the Arts and I know my decision was well made. The only thing that really matters is to find a place that supplies all the raw materials, because the person makes the program what they want to get out of it. |
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| WINNING 3/30/2012 |
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In no way related to Charlie Sheen.. I was informed early this year of my acceptance to participate in a national juried student exhibition by The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts in Seattle, Washington. To my surprise the piece accepted was Contrabando, a piece that could have easily been overseen by the jurors due its lack of technical approach that most traditional ceramics usually posses. The piece stands strong due to its conceptual ideas that both question the definition of a ceramic object and is successful in utilizing the material's history in Mexican culture by combining it with current social issues in order to create dialogue.
Incredibly enough and ironically I was awarded second place in the exhibition, with a highly political piece that speaks of a battle that many have already lost. Bringing into question the role political art has in the world and the art world and exactly what does a political piece do when subjected to a controlled space such as a gallery. In any case I believe the primal function a political piece should have, just like any other art piece is to spark though which I believe my piece achieves successfully. |
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| SOY MEXICANO 10/23/2011 |
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Do you ever see beautiful colorful stuff and get the urge to put it all in your mouth and savor them until you accidentally swallow them all? Yah... That was me when I saw all of these toys.. But since putting them all in my mouth would be frowned upon since I hadn't purchased them.. I just took a picture. Then I bought some. Did I mention this happened in a crazy whirl-wind trip I took to Mexico?
This trip could be considered a research trip due to a spontaneous ticket purchase a week after coming back from China. In a desperate attempt to reconnect to my cultural background and after having spent my summer living in Asia. This trip to Mexico rapidly became quite enlightening in many ways, with multiple trips to contemporary art museums, getting to hang around with fantastic current contemporary artists in Mexico such as Amor Muñoz and Archangel Constantini and of course a mega dose of Mexican Flavor!!! AYEEEE! So yes aside from the tequila and mescal the incredible take on color theory in Mexican craft is very inspirational and I can already feel it boiling in my brain into brand new work. (BTW these trompos/tops are amazing, I had to get my hands on a couple of them) |
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| UNSETTLED 10/18/2011 |
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This month I had the fantastic opportunity to be part of a curatorial group that was in charge of one of the pop-up galleries in El Paso's one and only Chalk The Block! I have to say when the project was first planted the first image that appeared in my head was me on my knees in some downtown El Paso sidewalk trying to chew-down chalk as an improvised performance. BUT. Slowly the project began to take shape and in no time we had 7 excellent young emerging artists from El Paso and a fantastic venue. (empty storefront)
Then Unsettled was born! An exhibition that spoke about individuals identities and their role in their society. Taking El Paso as an example of a modern globalized region, a snap shot of what cities around the world are starting to look like. With globalized societies composed of a hybridization of cultures, separate parts that survive within their own context but form part of a larger heterogeneous system that is constantly in flux. Contesting theories that ascribe fixed meanings to identity and cultures, and overall taking a new approach that strives to reach a more fluid understanding of how humans interact. |
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