Eudaimonia: Art as a Way of Life
Selections from the University of Louisville
Advanced Drawing Concepts class

Krantz Art Gallery
Jefferson Community & Technical College
VTI, First & Chestnut Streets
Louisville, KY 40202

January 16 - February 15, 2008
Reception: Friday, February 1, 5-7 pm

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Introduction

Eudaimonia is the Greek term generally translated as happiness. However, happiness is often hastily associated with pleasure, hence this translation is habitually misconstrued as hedonism. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle considered eudaimonia as the ultimate purpose in life. According to Aristotle, the good life can be achieved by being excellent in art, by performing virtuous acts or by contemplating philosophical reflection.

During fall semester 2007, the advanced drawing concepts class at the University of Louisville produced drawings to examine three main themes. In addition, the students also present a research paper on a subject relevant to the direction of their work. The first series of drawings is to define art and to explore the subject of beauty in the contemporary context. The second exercise is to research and experiment with various alternative art materials; and the third project is to examine the ethical issues confronted by the modern artist.

Lucy Brown presents a large drawing painted with beet juice. Deeply involved with issues of the environment and sustainability, Lucy researched the history and the use of beets as a cultural symbol, as a food, and as an artist’s pigment. The large meditative drawing is a result of her extensive experimentation with various methods of extracting and applying this brilliant dye on paper.

Fascinated by the sophisticated renderings of Paleolithic cave paintings, Jenni Deamer studied Lascaux and other sites. Using salvaged ceramic floor tiles as a ground, primed with clay gesso, and drawn with charcoal and pastel, her drawing depicts a pair of cloned cows. This subject reflects Jenni’s concerns for the danger and responsibility of technology and the future of humanity.

Amanda Dodson presents a small and intimate artist book, defying the hegemony of scale and masculinity. The book is a culmination of her work and research. Amanda is concerned with the formation of people’s taste by aggressive practices and promotions by transnational enterprises, from the fast food to the cosmetics industry. Using the heart as a theme, Amanda’s book laments the loss of spirituality under the pervasive control of the consumer culture.

Inspired by the biblical story of Babel and a recent movie of the same title, Andre Foster studied the history and development of sign language. By displaying the sketches in a circular form, this work questions the communicative viability of language.

Jason Guest presents a series of drawings in the tradition of the comic book. Having been attacked, censored and burnt by moralists, as well as investigated by the Senate in the 50’s, the comic book has continued to be a fringe genre. Inspired by a C. S. Lewis poem, Jason’s work narrates an expedition to an unknown space.

Ashley Hart produces a self-portrait that reaches deeply into her memory and consciousness. Throughout the semester, she has continued to use the self-portrait as her subject and as a means to understand her existence, reflect upon her past and ponder her future.

Nicholas Karl’s large pastel drawing is a critique of the wedding as a frivolous and ostentatious ritual, expressed with Freudian discontents and frustrations. This work portrays the bride as a harlot, the groom as sacrificial pig, with the other participants engaging in lewd acts. The deviant behaviors disturb the boundary of the body, identifying with Julia Kristeva’s concept of the abject and Georges Bataille’s theory of excess.

Daniel Kessler’s pen and ink drawing depicts the loss of identity and individuality in a large corporation. The television set and broadcasting tower represent the corporation’s use of advertising in manipulating the consumers and altering their perception and reality.

Thomas Knight produces a visual book of Nietzche as Philosopher, written by Arthur Danto who is now a prominent art critic known for his Hegelian historicity in proclaiming the end of art and his vision in linking art to philosophy. As the idol of the resistance, Nietzche is forever more relevant in postmodern discourse.

Yuriy Lozitskiy presents a silver-point drawing of golden bodhisattvas. Yuriy purchased this series of small kitschy statues at a flea market. Originally, the bodhisattva represents charity, generosity and compassion. In folk culture, the “laughing Buddha” has evolved to become the symbol of good luck and wealth, sometimes holding a large piece of gold above his head.

To awaken the citizenry, Cornell West advocates the practice of paideia, a Greek word for an ancient Athenian system of education in which students were encouraged to think critically and to utilize the Socratic questioning of society and culture in public engagement.1

Herbert Marcuse concludes that the importance of art is in its ability to fight against the risk of “forgetting.” While art may not be able to directly transform the world, with deep thinking and reflections, integrating form and content, there is a great potentiality that art will fulfill its mission as the emancipatory agent.2

Ying Kit Chan
Louisville, 2008

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¹ West, Cornell (2004) Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism, New York: Penguin.
² Marcuse, Herbert (1978) The Aesthetic Dimension, Boston: Beacon.


Image: The Wedding, by Nick Karl, 2007.

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