by Niña Abigail Mendoza September 13, 2021 Artist Burns His Artworks, Sends Them to Space by Jay Donato Watch the full work here: The Black ...
September 13, 2021
Artist Burns His Artworks, Sends Them to Space by Jay Donato
Watch the full work here: The Black Box Project - YouTube
The artist has been doing this project since last year. But it was only this year wherein he chose to do a figurative update for his Art, from digital to traditional - that allowed a new venture for this whole intended meaning to even fall into place physically and in more performing art. Still, that doesn’t change the defying beauty created in this digital & static art.
This Artist has always been fascinated by Space, distance, a spectrum of music, and pretty planets, because of the mysteriousness found in them. He always wanted to explore his work between memories and space that made this Art happen; where both pain and maddening is translated into a Beautiful speck of dust. Whether it is to be a metaphor or reality, the actual manner of the project is that it helps for that intended healing.
"The project (The Black Box) was inspired by burning ceremonies, where people write letters with the things they wanted to tell someone or things they wanted to release from their system, and then burn them in the hopes of emotional liberation." Jay Donato - The Artist said.
This project is not built to magnify the hurt, rather it highlights the process of getting over it, which made this exhibit a breath of processing the aliveness together.
"The morning when I -first- had submissions in my Inbox; after I called out for them, It took -me- a few days to start because I had to read them all, and decide which one's to do first, the colors to use, and how many would I do in a week, and the what captions would be, how would I sound like, where and how would I post them, and all that,” he said.
Now 100 artworks (Static and animated format) made it to Space, Yes he made some kind of "Space", that serves as a board to put up to our suppressed baggage that needs a "place" to disappear. “The Black Box'' is where you can anonymously send your vent message, a simple shadow work for your worst memory.
The 2-minute film video is a compilation of the first 100 submissions, which you can watch here on Youtube https://youtu.be/4qT-ni214WA.
It is an experience to feel like I also submitted an entry even though I didn’t send one, I fall to relate to some of the categories. It was a lot to take in but then when you realized that art is transparent there, that their story is the inspiration of the artist, it becomes easy. That you are looking forward to an inward play of emotions to be created in a form of something solid and grand, just for us to see it break into satisfying pieces.
"Simply wanting to have completed 100 artworks -is what motivates me to continue finishing the project-, also knowing that a lot of people bare their soul out to me; made me want to do the right thing and it is to keep my promise that I told them I'd do,” he said.
Saying overwhelmed is an understatement for this project. The Black Box Project exists because of the people who participate and collaborate their stories with the artist. Though the graphics are looking at ease with floating words into the space, the process is still not easy because of the numerous grit and sensitivity that comes with it. Over 200 people found the forum, the artwork is being done by 1 Artist; who faced the messages as raw as it is.
"I would read them and internalize the feeling they would give me. I translated that feeling to color first. Was it green with envy? Pinkish in hurt? Red for love or suffering? Blue with loneliness?"
Here are the examples: https://www.instagram.com/p/CKeJAIDLcz4/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CP8B66sL_Ap/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CRjBn_crtIu/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CLn0mJzrxRA/
"I would then create a composition and layout that would best describe that feeling. Are the elements crammed in together and overwhelming? Is one element isolated from the rest? Is it conveying the feeling of being obscured?" he said.
Here are the examples:https://www.instagram.com/p/CLqv6JML_e_/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CMcPij_rPtr/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CMeyMm4rhpa/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CNzzUXbLtjs/ https://www.instagram.com/p/COvLTv_rI2M/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CR6MVRMLI4z/
100 of them, both in static and animated format. These are all the digital artworks. https://www.instagram.com/p/CSmC9Jtpp-U/
The Artist’s style has always been bringing you a scope of space into a frame, It is this minimalist neuro-design with its reverb vibrant color that contrasts the black background with also figures of circles, curves, lines, and dots that goes in every timeline of Design.
"Towards the end of 2019, I think I saw an artwork that's quite similar to what I'm doing now (style of Art) and I was attracted to it. It looks like what you would see in space, I think space fascinates me because of its mysteriousness. It is also dark and moody which feels natural to me. In an artwork, if there's something relatively bright in the darkness, it stands out; high contrast artwork is appealing for me". He said.
For the second part of the project, he goes back to the inspiration which will consist of paper, pen, and capturing the burning of that memory. It will be more traditional and almost like performing art. "I wanted to capture the rawness of the emotion and wrote them down on black paper. I translated the emotions this time with how I wrote them. Was it deliberate from feeling hurt? In a hurry from rage? Almost illegible from contempt?" he said. This part of the project is ongoing but he is not accepting submissions anymore.
"I don't want the project to drag on for too long", "I want to do more physical artwork -in my next project-. Something I can get my hands dirty with and something I can hopefully display in galleries or people's homes. I already have a couple of ideas, still exploring space and memories" he said.
He wishes that when this is all comes to finishing touches he could hold an exhibit.
It is intriguing to see how Art is growing and becoming intentionally engaging and how words transcend more now than just an image, being said, being vulnerable is not so hard through this. The part that excites me for the participants is that they’ve found a stranger who doesn't scale how heavy your pain should be to have a “space”.
Maybe to move on we need to accept that it came that grand and that it needed a grand surrender. We humans sometimes forgot that the past is sabotage that keeps you from being in the bliss of happiness, such things, don’t have to stay and if you don't know that, this project will be the reminder for you, which is timely what we need now, somehow a grasp of "freeing".
Reach Jay Donato- The Art Director / Artist and his works here: https://www.instagram.com/jaydonato/
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