Artist Conversation

Exhibition Information: Artist: Chanmealea Huy & Jean Iwohara Exhibition: Glass Eyes Media: Mixed Media Gallery: Gatov Gallery Webiste: chanmealeahuy.com & jeaniwohara.weebly.com Instagram: @chanmealeahuy & @jelly.jean

About the Artist: Jean Iwohara is an Illustration BFA student at Cal State Long Beach. She primarily likes to work with watercolor and gouache. Through her work she wants to create a sense of wonder and fantastical narratives. Chanmealea Huy is an artist and illustrator at Cal State Long Beach. She likes to work with many different media’s such as graphite, painting digitally, and acyclic. Huy says that art is her way to communicate with the environment and the world.

Formal Analysis: Lots of their worked contained faces and bright colors. In the art piece I liked, you can see the different brush strokes used to create the woman’s face in the center of the painting. The painting contains lots of different shapes and lines. There’s some small circles throughout the entire painting. There is also two bigger circles at the right corner of the painting but they aren’t filled like the smaller ones. You can also see some small squares at the left side of the painting Their are many different lines throughout the painting. There are some long lines, short lines, thick lines, and thin lines all over the painting. The painting contains lots of colors but the two colors you see the most are blue and red. The background is a light red color and the shirt of the woman contains lots of red. The color blue can be seen in the outline of the brain and all the different lines that connect to the brain. The painting is a medium sized so you are able to see it up close or even from a farther distance.

Content Analysis: Most of their paintings can relate to the technological advancements we see in the world. Many of the painting also show the emotion of sadness. In my conversation with the artist about one of her paintings, she stated she wanted to show how technology is taking over our world and its people. You can easily see how she tried to convey that in her artwork by how the lines look like wires connecting to the brain and symbolizing how technology is taking over people’s brains.

Synthesis/My Experience: I really enjoyed the artwork from Chanmealea Huy and Jean Iwohara. Their pieces show lots of relatable and interesting ideas. I do think that technology is taking over the human brain because lots of people rely on their phones or laptops to do simple things for them or for looking for simple information. Just walking around campus you can see how everyone’s faces are glued to their phone. I admit I am attached to my phone as well but seeing their artwork really spoke to me about how technology is taking over our brains and that should not be happening because sooner or later we will become “robots”.