Event 2: Hammer--Seeing Things Invisible

Hammer Museum is really worth visiting because it is free for UCLA students! I went there to see the exhibition of Forrest Bess--Seeing Things Invisible. This was really not only an experience about watching paintings but also a lesson that made me get to know the artists and how they integrated their special ideas into their work.

Firstly, I thought Forrest was just a normal artist who liked painting landscapes. He taught himself how to paint by copying the artists he admired when he started to learn painting. However, when we followed the guide into his later paintings, his style was changed. He started to use symbols to convey his ideas. This was probably because he was always isolated from the world and came up with his own interpretation with everything in nature. 

His work in his later time is pretty impressive. Forrest tried to use his paintings to cover universal meanings. He made up his own "thesis" that men and women are united after he learned some medicine and other fields. He even did a surgery to his genital to prove the hermaphroditic state. Even though his idea seemed weird and unbelievable to us, he was an artist who sought to combine paintings with medicine to create a bridge between art and science. He believed that there were some universal meanings which involved art and science. Forrest, unlike Snow who thought art and science stood against each other, created a new way to perform his paintings.

When artists are creating their work, they also developing the way they are working in. Combining scientific knowledge into artistic creation is a very impressive method because artists have different ideas and understandings of science. Forrest's unique interpretation of medicine helped him improve his painting style and use it in artistic expressions. This event is really a great chance to learn about how artists make those amazing paintings and what artists want to express in the paintings.

Resource:

"Forrest Bess: Seeing Things Invisible - Exhibitions." Hammer Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.

http://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/242