Fuhrman-Shulz’s Statement
“My subject matter is nature, whether it is a traditional landscape or a bird and flower painting. I use traditional materials, ink and brush on rice paper, to capture movement and life – making the brush dance and the ink sing. Everything is captured in the spontaneous dance and movement of the brush as it meets the rice paper. There is no going back and correcting when painting with ink and rice paper. This love of spontaneous Chinese painting has provided a unique segue for my exploration of more abstract techniques of Oriental painting such as ‘Splashing Ink’ or ‘PoMo’. These techniques entail pouring color and creating an image from the abstract through the use of traditional brush work. At this point my work ranges from the very traditional to abstract and a blending of the two.”
Analysis
Fuhrman-Schulz’s work, I believe, can be best summarized by one word: traditional. This word is usually used in art to describe using physical mediums rather than digital art software, but the specific medium (sumi-e, Chinese brush painting) is an art form steeped in tradition. Fuhrman-Schulz portrays this in her statement, and this acts as a good summary for what she does in her work. This statement also goes into more detail about the artist’s individual process than the others do. This may be because Fuhrman-Schulz wants to properly explain the tradition she is trying to uphold–I think most people would notice her work has a certain “look” to it, but they wouldn’t initially understand the origins of why or how it looks that way. I appreciate the imagery Fuhrman-Schulz uses to describe the art form in the beginning of her writing; the image of a brush dancing on paper helps to bring more life to the statement and distinguish it from others. I think it’s also an effective method for helping Fuhrman-Schulz to get her point across–an artist using imagery in their writing seems obvious, but only two of my samples (the other being Gina Torkos’ statement) try using imagery to communicate outside of their artwork.