George Ferrandi
George Ferrandi visited our school for a Lunchtime Lecture. She is an artist whose work is a combination of visual and performance art. George Ferrandi studied at VCU for the Arts and currently lives in Brooklyn. She now teaches at Rhode Island School of Design and at Virginia Commonwealth University. During her visit, she clearly expressed how she views art: she uses art as a "righting tool," to right wrongs or provide insight on things she would like to fix in the world. Her art is a response to a feeling, audience, location, or medium.
For example, she was once in a painfully boring meeting discussing something of little cosmic importance. From her boredom, she imagined a woman on tight rope with feathers walking above the heads of the buttoned-up men. This inspired her to make a project called "Cloud Seeding Circus," which began in Florida and traveled nationwide. Her show referenced historic circus performers, and explored the region between the backstage and the center.
She described her work as a celebration of awkwardness, where she chooses to highlight mistakes and build from them rather than conceal. This was extremely striking to me because I have a tendency to be a perfectionist. Her nonchalance about imperfection was inspirational to me, and is something I strive to achieve in my artwork and life. George Ferrandi also seems to be simultaneously original and inspired: she uses existing work as a reference, but is fully inspired by her own imagination and creativity in how she utilizes what she references. I am curious how she was able to take an image of children at a Bar Mitzvah (which most everyone probably scrolled over on Facebook) and make a full performance art piece from it.
George Ferrandi visited our school for a Lunchtime Lecture. She is an artist whose work is a combination of visual and performance art. George Ferrandi studied at VCU for the Arts and currently lives in Brooklyn. She now teaches at Rhode Island School of Design and at Virginia Commonwealth University. During her visit, she clearly expressed how she views art: she uses art as a "righting tool," to right wrongs or provide insight on things she would like to fix in the world. Her art is a response to a feeling, audience, location, or medium.
For example, she was once in a painfully boring meeting discussing something of little cosmic importance. From her boredom, she imagined a woman on tight rope with feathers walking above the heads of the buttoned-up men. This inspired her to make a project called "Cloud Seeding Circus," which began in Florida and traveled nationwide. Her show referenced historic circus performers, and explored the region between the backstage and the center.
She described her work as a celebration of awkwardness, where she chooses to highlight mistakes and build from them rather than conceal. This was extremely striking to me because I have a tendency to be a perfectionist. Her nonchalance about imperfection was inspirational to me, and is something I strive to achieve in my artwork and life. George Ferrandi also seems to be simultaneously original and inspired: she uses existing work as a reference, but is fully inspired by her own imagination and creativity in how she utilizes what she references. I am curious how she was able to take an image of children at a Bar Mitzvah (which most everyone probably scrolled over on Facebook) and make a full performance art piece from it.