Wayne White Unit

 Wayne White was born and raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is an artist who works as an art director, illustrator, puppeteer, and a painter. Wayne white graduate from Middle Tennessee State University and then moved to New York City. His first jobs were working as an illustrator for magazines such as East Village Eye, New York Times, Raw Magazine, and The Village Voice. Wayne white has won three Emmy’s for his work as a designer in the hit television show Pee-wee’s Playhouse. White moved to Los Angeles and continued to work for television shows. He also won awards for being an art director for music videos for The Smashing Pumpkins and Peter Gabriel. In White’s recent works he works with putting three dimensional text through old replica painting that he finds in thrift-stores, garage sales, or any second hand store. The text is usually humorous in some way and makes the viewer think about what Wayne White’s underlying message really is.

Cultural Frame: What do you think that Wayne White is bringing to our attention about the art world? What do you think that White is saying about how humor is traditionally viewed in the art world? Can you think of any other works of art from other artists that uses comedy in their art? Do you think that comics and cartoonists can be viewed as fine artists? What makes them fine artists or what makes them not?

Postmodern Frame: How do you think the meaning changes when White uses reused paintings as the background for his work? Why do you think that he would do something like this? What are some other examples you can think of that where you would reuse something in order to change its meaning? Would you use humor?

Barbara Kruger

Cultural Frame: Why would the artist choose these people as the subjects of her work? What about our culture is the artist trying to get us, as the viewers to think about? How would the artwork be viewed if the figures were a male, or if the subjects were not of white descent?

Vocabulary  Collage- A piece of art made by sticking various different materials such as photographs and pieces of paper or fabric onto backing  Composition- the placement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art  Feminism- The advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men  Sarcasm- the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.  Repurposed- adapt for use in a different purpose.  Foreshortening- method of rendering a specific object or figure in a picture in depth. The artist records, in varying degrees, the distortion that is seen by the eye when an object or figure is viewed at a distance or at an unusual angle  Atmospheric Perspective- method of creating the illusion of depth, or recession, in a painting or drawing by modulating colour to simulate changes effected by the atmosphere on the colours of things seen at a distance.

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