Winter 2019: Christine Cole

During Winter Break 2019-2020, I visited New York City by the generous grant of the Rollins Department of Art and Art History. The main objective of my travels was to research and view artwork which would inspire both the formal and conceptual aspects of my senior studio work. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I was able to see 17th-century Dutch still life and genre paintings from which my video compositions and lighting techniques derive to reflect the historical ideas of vanitas and memento mori. At both the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art, I was able to take influence from historical and contemporary art approaches to continue my senior capstone studio work. In these museums, in particular, I was able to see a variety of video and installation techniques that I would not necessarily come across in my online research. The in-person experiences in the museums allowed me to get a better look at and understanding of works that I might only see in textbook reproductions at best. This research trip allowed me to see where my studio work is situated in the greater context of the art world as I prepare to create works fit for the Cornell Fine Arts Museum.