THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, JULY 21, 2014
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SCULPTURE
PAGE 11
Artist blends humor, reality
DYLAN GUTHRIE
news@kansan.com
Juniper Tangpuz, a 2003 University graduate, began his art career working as a cartoonist at Longview Community College in Lee's Summit, Mo., but after coming to the University to study illustration his art took a different turn. He decided to switch his areas of study to fine arts and sculpture.
Tangpuz has been teaching art at Johnson County Community College for the last eight years. He spends the majority of his spare time creating art.
The Spencer Museum of Art recently displayed his art on campus.
Scott Barber, the Spencer Museum of Art's Visitor Services assistant and friend of Tangpuz, said that Tangpuz offered to create sculptures based on works that the museum already had in its collection, such as a cardboard readaptation of Luis Alfonso Jimenez's sculpture, "Howl." He also fused artwork with items needed for upcoming renovations: lateral files for storage, storage boxes and benches for the galleries.
"There was talk of putting a coffee bar in," Barber said. "I think his artwork is phenomenal. I have a degree in art education, and have worked with young kids. His work, specifically, bridges that gap between adulthood and childhood."
Tangpuz began drawing when he was five years old. He would watch cartoons after school and try to recreate the images he saw on TV in his free time.
"It was a place where I could play out all the things in my imagination, and it just stayed" Tangpuz said.
Tangpuz's art is reminiscent of after-school cartoons he watched growing up in Kansas City, Mo., and his work as a cartoonist in Lee's Summit. After he spent some of his early years drawing, Tangpuz said that he began exploring sculpture when he was nine years old.
"It was kind of like a switching of mind," Tangpuz said. "I still carried the humor that [you have to possess] when you write a cartoon. It still carried over into my sculpture. That's why they're all playful, and that it's
like a fantasy world."
Beginning sculpture at a young age has affected Tangpuz's sculpting style.
"I made things out of paper, especially my toys and stuff like that. I've always been working with my hands, ever since I was a kid," Tangpuz said.
Today, Tangpuz uses an eclectic collection of materials to create his sculptures, but he is often drawn to corrugated plastics and cardboards.
"What I've been trying to do is make artwork that is still childlike, and still reach out to as many people as I can," Tangpuz said. "It's not an exclusive thing. For me it's especially important to reach out to a younger person, and to teach them to value art at an early age."
Tangpuz is incredibly interested in linguistics, Barber said, and speaks eight languages, including Russian and German, but Tangpuz believes art should have the ability to transcend language barriers. Tangpuz strives to understand multiple disciplines and aims to incorporate his interests and world knowledge into his art.
"After I graduated, it was more like trying to build these different skill sets, to broaden the variety of skill sets—[I studied] weird things like blacksmithing and video effects," Tangpuz said. "I always try to do something different to make [art] exciting. I'm one of those people who always has to have something to do. You always have to give me something to do, otherwise I'll go crazy."
His piece "The Flight of the Paper Bee" incorporates plastics, paper illustration and a Zoetrope, which is a precursor to filmmaking invented during the Victorian Age. His piece "The Spitwad Drum" is both a piece of art and a musical instrument.
"The one thing I like about being an artist is that there's no bounds. You [take] little bits from here and there and you see where they could possibly connect, and then something happens," Tangpuz said. "To understand sculpture, I had to know how to make things out of paper, and then I had to do a bit of animation for the Zoetrope part of ["Flight of the Paper Bee"]. Because paper is kind of an ephemeral material, I had to learn how to shoot
video."
Tangpuz' created a YouTube channel to show him creating art, as well as his interactions with a finished piece, such as "Flight of the Paper Bee."
"I'll do anything," Tangpuz said. "I still identify myself as a sculptor, but I'm just an artist in general, and I will go to any place if it facilitates the thing that I want to make."
— Edited by Kaitlyn Klein
KELSEY WEAVER/KANSAN
Juniper Tangpuz, a 2003 graduate, plays his creation "The Hand Held Zoetrope No. 2." Tangpuz creates art that blends aspects of cartoon animations with reality.
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