owen nichols portfolio
contents drawing rhizome bfa graves panopticon printmaking
new york/paris shirt room building street city final
drawing
left: rhizome medina (fez) 2009 ink & graphite on paper 24 x 36 inches
this page: moss in the city 2009 graphite, colored pencil, & dry pigment on paper 36 x 24 inches
medina 2009 ink, graphite pencil & graphite powder on paper 24 x 36 inches
vertical creep 2009 graphite pencil on paper 24 x 36 inches
sphagnum burrow 2009 graphite pencil, graphite powder & dry pigment on paper 24 x 36 inches
BFA thesis 2007-8 The four drawings from this series comment on exploitation of the landscape and uncontrolled urban development. Buildings and landscape both mimic and contradict each other. Walls define and mediate opposing forces. The natural landscape, once pastoral and positive, becomes hostile, and the urban landscape, once a reasonable place to live, becomes impossible to navigate. Department of Art and Design Excellence in Drawing Award, 2009 Exhibited at George Segal Gallery, Montclair, NJ, June 2008
city with no cross streets 2007 graphite on paper 23 x 30 inches
citywall 2007 graphite on paper 26 x 40 inches
inversion 2007 graphite on paper 26 x 40 inches
hostile hostel 2007 graphite on paper 23 x 30 inches
Graves independent study 2007 During the summer of 2007, I worked with architect Michael Graves on developing ways of depicting architecture and keeping journals of observations as visual diaries for future work. I drew from photographs as well as made pleine air sketches in Princeton and La Jolla (including the Salk Institute).
panopticon 2009 An Advanced Drawing assignment to create a panoramic view, at any scale, of a built and landscaped space led me to choose a site on the Princeton University campus that included a Serra sculpture, a Gehry library, a Vignoly stadium and other buildings. Rather than creating a flat, linear drawing, I built a large cylindrical drum suspended from the ceiling at eye level so that viewers would enter the space. My vantage point in the actual space was deliberately off-center, which made the panopticon more dynamic.
princeton panorama 2009 graphite on paper 30 inches x approx 20 feet
panopticon
printmaking 2008-9 I was exposed to a variety of printmaking techniques in the BFA program, which led to the department’s Excellence in Printmaking and Paper Arts Award. However, most of my printmaking experience is independent of school. I started making stone lithographs on a Charles Brand press and soon discovered a process that connects ideas and technique in an inter-active way.
fanning a stone
independent lithography (work-in-progress) 2009 litho crayon & iron oxide on limestone 19.5 x 25.5 inches
previous page: 2009 combination lithograph & silkscreen 19.5 x 25.5 inches
bfa advanced printmaking 2009 aluminum plate photo lithograph 10 x 36 inches
stromatolyte sky 2008 stone lithograph on paper 19.5 x 25.5 inches
stromatolytes in austrailia
bfa advanced printmaking 2009 burrow to borough aluminum plate photo lithograph 18 x 24 inches
bfa advanced printmaking 2009 aluminum plate photo lithograph 18 x 24 inches
bfa advanced printmaking 2009 aluminum plate photo lithograph 18 x 24 inches
bfa advanced printmaking 2009 aluminum plate photo lithograph 18 x 24 inches
next page: 2009 lithograph & monotype 19.5 x 25.5 inches
columbia gsapp new york/paris fall 2009 the new york/paris program is a 1 year architecture program at columbia university. the first half of the year is spent at columbia and the second half is spent in paris at reid hall. the studio operates at five different scales ranging from the scale of the body to the scale of the city. the final assignment is to design a new york bodega/paris cafe for the highline in west chelsea, manhattan.
shirt critic: Thomas DeMonchaux transform a men’s oxford shirt. instead of looking at the “is” of the transformed shirt, i examined the “does.” by venturing off into the performative aspects of the new shirt i explored new ways of drawing something that one would think could not be drawn. to draw an experience when your sense of vision has been deprived was an experience in its own, not to mention the experience of being in something that deprives you of your most prized sensory possesion
shirt transformation
video stills: wearing the transformed shirt and making the journey from the studio in schermerhorn basement to outside at the 4th floor campus level
axonometric drawing documenting the experience of wearing the shirt on the journey upstairs, drawing only what was touched and implied space graphite on vellum 36 x 12 inches
details
performative drawing of light reacting with the transformed shirt
room critic: Patrick O’Conner I drew a room that was described in a piece of writing. I then transformed the room based on the program of it. the person who occupied the room only used it for sleeping, therefore i made the room all about sleeping and waking up. by transforming the bed into a hill, the experience of getting in and out of bed changes dramatically. i drew in a diagram the person’s experience of getting in and rolling out of bed.
above: room transformation process pencil on mylar below: original room pencil on mylar
next page: right: diagram of transforming the room without disturbing the walls by means of elevating and stretching. left: diagram of experience of rolling out of bed cutting the body into seven planes. drawing movement and tactile experience. pencil on mylar
building critics: William Feurman, Dahlia Roberts and Danielle Smoller using an I-beam from the burst *008 house (MoMA pre-fab show), a spine that supported the bleachers, I created a spine and used only slot connections and created rules about when and how to change directions. after following the rules that i created for myself, the component had transformed into a presumably occupyable space that then needed to be programed as a bodega.
study model using spine and slot connections bristol board 7 x 7 x 7 inches
final model, emphasizing spine and eliminating slot connections. spine becomes floor, wall, ceiling, and ramp in a few moves bristol board 9 x 7 x 6 inches
entrance
street critic: Jane Kim in this assignment i chose to diagram an intersection in three dimensions that cannot be seen. therefore an observation analysis was required. the intersection that i chose to diagram was the crossing of sight lines or visual vectors from different points of origin.
opposite page: final basswood model diagramming intersections of visual vectors. 12 x 9 x 12
this page left: cutting of sheet metal to diagram movement and collision on the highline. right: collision model intersecting with itself to become self supported.
visual vector intersection model wire
wire self supporting visual vector intersection model. hierarchy of wire based on point of origin.
city critic: Babak Bryan mapping sound from the highline by use of recording device. the volume units ranged and were derived from different points of origin. whether sounds from the street were the loudest points on the highline or sounds produced on the highline had to do with the acoustic and reverberative quality of the chelsea market tunnel. the tunnel excluded the street sound and favored the sound made within the space.
recording sound on the high line in nyc and at street level, in two locations, and creating 2d diagrams of audio waves (top), frequencies (middle) and temporal frequencies (bottom), and their overlap left: recording on high line at w 16th st and 10th ave right: recording on street at w 15th st/Chelsea market tunnel
scaling up an object based on sounds made within the surrounding space
frequencies recorded in chelsea market tunnel
3d model/diagram of sound mapping based on recordings black represents street sound and white high line sound, with dots denoting points of origin. at 16th St (left), street noise predominates; at 15th street above the tunnel, the tunnel’s acoustics change the dynamic. latex and metal tacks (medium was optional) 6 x 18 inches
final cafe/bodega for the highline critic: Jane Kim throughout the semester my work has had to do with the human experience through architecture by way of analyzing the senses of the body. i tied all of my previous projects into the final design for a cafe/bodega on the highline. i was intersted in transforming the preconcieved notion of the bodega as being a onestop shop. i modeled my bodega after the souk’s in morocco, where there are many independently operated shops that together create a large bodega. this increases the human interactions while making daily purchases. i was also interested in changing the intensity of slope throughout the cafe/bodega which would directly affect the human experience through the space. the walls of the ramps grow and are positioned at about ear level, they contract as one walks through the space, creating changes in acoustics.
site plan analysis of vegetation
plan projected into section
preliminary design
elevation
seating
program of bodega shops based on the intersection of the vegetation
intensity of slope
audio modulation diagram in plan
1”:1’cross section with images of moroccan souk in fez
final model
blind drawing