Week 5 —Visiting Artist Essay: Bobi Bosson
Ashley Brach
Professor Glenn
Art 110
26 September 2020
Artist: Bobi Bosson
Media: graphic design, printmaking, sculptures, monoprints, paintings
Website: https://bobi-lee.com/work
Instagram: @barbieleeboss
There are many ways to express oneself, but some people choose to express and create a career in different forms of art just like Bobi Bosson. Bosson has spent many years discovering which style of art was best for her which ended up leading her to printmaking. She first originally went to college as a performing arts major, but found out it wasn’t really for her. She used to draw every so often when she was younger, but didn’t receive formal training in art until college and ended up being very engaged in it. She first went to art school to become an animator, but she was so focused and passionate about the details that animation didn’t provide, so she turned to graphic design/fine art. Since then, she has made many pieces for a lot of people with different styles of art such as graphic design, printmaking, sculptures, monoprints, paintings, interdisciplinary, and so much more. She tends to do a lot of feminist, gay pride, and environmental topics for her art work, but she says her inspiration comes from many things that are all around us.
Since Bosson is so passionate about making sure to capture all the details, she puts a lot of different styles and “formal” qualities in each of her pieces. The piece I will talk about specifically is a ceramic screen print called “Come at Me Bro”. This was an experimental piece she did which is a ceramic part of a woman that has different types of mediums on it and her past works displayed on it. This is a very large piece that has a different array of colors. The ceramic woman piece itself contains neutral colors while her art pieces around the painting express the magnificent vivid colors, which some are monochromatic, as well as some black and white pieces to make the piece pop. She also added a specific type of wax, which was also experimental, because by putting it on the piece, it created undulating drips all the way down to the bottom. To get the shape of the female body right, the ceramic is sculpted in sinuous waves since a female body has many curves and body.
Now that we have discussed what mediums and qualities Bosson has used on her “Come at Me Bro” ceramic piece, it’s time to get to the true meaning of this piece. One reason she created this piece was to definitely test her abilities on what she can do and how she can blur the lines of all the different mediums. She encourages people to do monporint work because it’s a way to test your limits as an artist. Also, she wanted to celebrate the women artists she admires such as Joana Vasconcelos. This piece is to celebrate the female within us and symbolize the beauty of females because she said the female body is very beautiful and luscious since they have all these curves and bumps. She wanted to show the true beauty of the female body for everyone to see.
Her meaning of the piece is beautiful and now it’s my turn to show how “Come at Me Bro” affected me and my opinion on it. This piece is so beautiful and different compared to what I have seen. I believe that this piece is so great because the female body has these curves that look so sensual, passionate, and delicate at the same time. This piece shows the sensual body parts of women, but then she covers up the lower region with flowers and vines going around the body. To me, this represents that a woman will show most of herself, but will only show the rest to someone special. Also, I believe that this piece shows how women grow in many ways whether that be physically or mentally, inside and out. The art pieces and drippings all around the ceramic body may represent all the troubles, traumas, and hard times a woman has been through, but instead of hiding it, a woman should show them and be proud of what they are because in the end, when you look closer they are beautiful.
