Art by BIRD

Art and things

ROBERTA

EST

2000

Contents:

001: Introduction

002-007: Senior Thesis Projects

008-017: Experimental Work

018-021: “The Boys” Paintings

022-035: Film Photography 35 mm

Jackson Hole 022-025
Venice 027-029
Philly 030-035

036-051: Digital Photography

Japan 036-047
Michiana 048-050
D.C. 051

052-054: “Cardboard County”

055-059: “Mind Your Scanners”

060: Contact Page

Roberta “Maisy” Mabel Biden

001

Working with the resources at hand is integral to my creative process. It allows my mind to freely navigate my studio, ensuring no obstacles impede my work, fostering my peak creativity.

I've always perceived a confining box around the Arts, particularly within the realm of Fine Arts. There's a notion that one must adhere to specific guidelines to elevate paint into Art or transform a canvas into a masterpiece. However, for me, this only served to ignite my passion for Fine Arts further. I aimed to shatter barriers that hindered my progress, championing inclusivity and innovation. My art supplies come from a hardware store, enabling me to explore a wide range of artistic expressions. Artist-specific stores often exceed my budget, prompting me to seek cost-effective solutions during my school days. I strongly believe that anything can be considered Art if that's the intention behind it.

“I Forgot the Name”

002

Project: I Forgot the Name

November 2022

Senior Thesis Preview Show

Materials: Canvas, Sharpie, Japanese Alcohol inks, Couch, Spray paint, Scotch tape, Photography Prints, Backpack, Collage, Acrylic paint, Oil Pastels

“I Forgot the Name” Artist Statement

003

My work is a junk drawer of my finished and unfinished thoughts. These thoughts pertaining to my childhood and life in the present moment; they reflect the memories I have and the memories I lost. I often think through material and only after materializing the work I try to figure out what is it about. The theme and underlying current of this collection of drawings, collages, and paintings is my ADHD. My inability to focus on one project for longer than a week has in turn created some chaotic and uncomfortable pieces of art; uncomfortable in a literal way, having to stretch your neck to view a piece, or sit on a spray-painted cushion. Through this project I aim to rethink how my mental health has helped to create my work, and how it has affected it. Each piece is a fragment of my imagination and inner thoughts making me come to terms with the self-reflective reckoning I have been doing this past semester. The immediate strokes, and mush of colors and lines and shapes all comes together to create a map of my mind in a moment of time.

Over the past semester I have learned more about myself than the past three years have taught me. One important lesson I have learned is the analogy of a “string of pearls” explained by therapist Phil Stutz. His analogy helped me work through my own feelings of my work having no meaning. Instead, I see each work as a bookmark of myself, in a book that is never full. Like a junk drawer made by Mary Poppins, it may never be full, but it is filled reflective visual notations of time and space. The analogy explains that each decision or choice one makes in a moment has no greater or lesser impact than the previous or next choice one makes. This analogy gave me the space to see my work all on one line, each doodle next to a large canvas, next to a painted couch, all with the same amount of value as the last.

It is hard for me to open up verbally, and I think I have been denying myself the idea of meaning within my work because I myself do not want to hear about it. Through my exhibition of “Everything Happening All the Time” I hope that in all my work you can find that each drop of paint, each photograph, and delicate details all merge into a larger network in which each one of them is equally valuable and meaningful. The aim has been to materialize this network and hopefully use it as a reflective and reflexive departure point

“I Forgot the Name”

“String of Pearls”

36"x48"

004

“Love Seat”

“The Junkdrawer Book: Volume 1”

“A Paper Mirror”

005

Project: A Paper Mirror

March 2023

Senior Thesis Final Show

Materials: Canvas, Scanner, Film, Digital Prints, Metal String, Aluminium Poles, Rope, Duct Tape

“Junkdrawer Books”

“A Paper Mirror” Artist Statement

006

My junk drawer of work has become overflown.

In my final semester as a student of fine arts I have doubled down on my self reflection as an artist. Where I see myself in the future, and where I see my work and its meaning in the future. Being able to capture moments throughout the past year and express myself through them has been very important to me. My ADHD has been a central focus for me to reflect on and understand more; knowing what captures my attention or sparks my energy. I continue to aim my work as a self-expression of my mental health and my everyday experiences and thoughts. While some things may be silly, others may be serious. I decided to not divide things up and only have one emotion on display at a time. All these images and text were made simultaneously, with all these contrasting feelings I had in a day, I put into my work. I continue to try and make each piece a fragment of my imagination and inner thoughts, making me come to terms with the self-reflective reckoning I have been doing this past semester.

Last semester an important lesson I kept in the back of my mind while creating was an analogy about a string of pearls. This semester I continued to add analogies and lessons. A lesson I was taught by my therapist was at the forefront of my thoughts this semester. I ask myself regularly: “How do you feel, what do you need.” With this short phrase I ask myself in all settings, forgetting what people or things surround me. I put myself first and ask what I need. It has helped me in my self-critiques and questioning of my own meaning I have in my art. Something that I hope everyone finds differently in these images is meaning. There is no set of rules or principles that I followed in making this exhibition, and I allowed myself to do what I needed to make me feel better. My hope is that my art reflects whomever is looking into it, and that it reflects your own thoughts and feelings.

This idea that art must have a meaning, and everyone must understand it in my terms has been something I have never been able to grasp. I worked to let go of that idea in my head, and with that came the art I am showing today. My work- I hope- is a bridge to whatever your dreams might be, whether you’re looking for a laugh or a cry, I hope that you may find it on the paper mirror in the wall.

007

“A Paper Mirror”

“Paper Mirror”

36"x48"

Experimental Work

In the year after I graduated from college, I took a step back from my friends and family and hid myself in my studio. I really wanted to push myself to create as much as I could. In this time I found my true passion for creating and applied to the School of Art Institute of Chicago for a Post Baccalaureate. I begin in the Fall of 2024, and will complete my year by the end of May 2025. I hope yo expand more on these ideas and techniques during my time there.

008

Experimental Work

“Man in the Mirror”

36" x 48"

Insulating foam, Spray paint, Acrylic paint

009

Experimental Work

“Samurai”

36" x 48"

Acrylic paint, Spray Paint, Japanese Alcohol Inks

010

Experimental Work

011

“Right Where you Need to Be”

24" x 24"

Acrylic paint, Tissue paper, Modge-podge, Spray Paint, Magazine paper, Paint Markers

Experimental Work

012

“The Will of the World”

24" x 56"

Construction paper, Modge-podge, Glue, Acrylic Paint, Sharpie, Ball point Pen

Experimental Work

013

“Do You Have the Time?”

30" x 30"

Acrylic paint, oil pastels, paint markers

Experimental Work

014

“Dominos”

24" x 18"

6 mini canvases, super glue, Chrome Spray paint, acrylic paint

Experimental Work

015

“The Slide”

30" x 30"

Acrylic Paint, Yo-yo

Experimental Work

016

“The Sun and the Son”

24" x 36"

Acrylic Paint, Oil Pastels, Spray Paint

Experimental Work

017

“Touch of Calculus”

24" x 18"

“I love you Sweetie”

24" x 18"

“I Knew They Were Real”

24"x24"

“The Boys”

018

I fell in love with these silly faces and animals. It has always been apart of my work, but never something I took the time to expand on. Here I tried to push the limits of what I know, and try to make different each time.