COURSE: Art History 546: Graphic Design for Publications
MEDIUM: Print Design, Zine, Graphic Essay
DESCRIPTION:
How to Hold an Effective Art Critique is an instructional zine I created in my Graphic Design for Publications Class, and was driven by my passion for genuine investment and improvement in each others’ art during critique. I both wrote and designed the publication.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT:
My name is Jessie Burton, and I’m a senior graduating this Spring 2025 with a Bachelor’s in Fine Art and certificates in Art History and Environmental Studies. I specialize in chalk pastel and charcoal figurative work, but graphic design and its intersection with fine art has been another of my artistic focuses. Criticality and deep investment in my peers’ and my own work has been a consistent theme throughout my undergraduate studies, so this project felt like a satisfying culmination. Feeling frustrated with the lack of engagement in some of my classes’ critique settings, when I received the “How To” publication prompt, my idea for How to Hold an Effective Art Critique was instant. I don’t think the lack of engagement I’ve experienced in critiques is entirely the students’ fault, but rather an absence of honesty and education on how to make critiques hold weight, so I wanted this zine to be a direct, accessible answer to this issue. Using a limited color palette and an engaging but consistent spread style, my desire for this zine is to be an unintimidating reference to remember why we hold critiques in the first place. It felt good to put visual direction and concrete words down for the ideas I’ve been collecting over years of discontentment to hopefully help others make their own critiques count sooner than I did.