Aviva Abrams – Studio in a School

Time, within artwork, takes many forms. A figurative expression of time may include movement and speed, showing its passing through its attributes, instead of time itself.  I made a choice to depict time passing literally, using clocks, sunrises and sundials in connection to a dancer and their body. The ballet performance inspired me to focus on a dancer’s relationship with the passing of time. The ballet dancers danced to the pace of the music and used beat as a guide to their movement, and that is what I aimed to show. I created my art by combining several visual attributes of time with a young ballet dancer’s body. All photos of the dancer are ones I took myself.  I made the decision not to show the actual dancer’s features and match her to the colors of the other image to represent the idea that in the ballet, time and the ballerinas become one.  It took me a couple of weeks to really understand what the idea behind my art was supposed to be and how I wanted to depict it. I didn’t quite understand the project when I began and it took a lot of literally staring at an empty Photoshop page for me to figure out my objective. The titles of my pieces are Rhythm, Repetition, and Impermanence.  The title of the series is Manners of a Moment. Something that challenged me in making my art was the fact that I hadn’t used Photoshop much prior to this. However, my peers and mentors gave me tips and basic knowledge on how to navigate through the program. In creating this series I feel that I successfully expressed the meaning of my artwork throughout all three pieces.
 
The reason I chose to overlay the dancer’s body with the colors of the image her figure was paired with, is because my focus was not on the dancer herself but her correlation with time and how time affects the dancers during a ballet. I hope the people viewing my art will comprehend the correspondence of a ballerina and her time on stage as well as the rhythm, repetition, and impermanence of the ballet.
– Aviva Abrams