|
8/8/2016 Three poems by Sneha Kanta the spice night held ~ I rested in the cypress like shade of the cloudless sky, and the glistening sea beckoned rest. The thermostat of blackness shivered through a warm pungency in the air. My eyelids were swollen of nightmares, when I woke at an hour whose time was not known; and sand caressed my toes with ardor. the dusty midnight soliloquies looked for him -- earth, sky and sea. a moment so profound, silence had a sound of vast emptiness stored in its vessel. The reckless hour passed like a stroke of lightning, and dark purple clouds arranged themselves such; the sky grew heavier. Girls like me were nomads of the world that nobody stopped for a second to understand. Before the crack of dawn, there was rain. in stillness There I was again, at the shore, and looked at the vast sea bent upon mending its own form, in its fluidity. The world was on one side, and I stood on another cliff, watching the sun prepare to set: that was the perpetual symbol of nearness and living. The distance between the inhabitants of the world and me increased after sundown: their perennial motion was stoic, unlike the movement in my motionless decorum. to dance in chaos, to touch ― dried leaves as i fall, was the order. The sea changed like an avalanche aftermath; the high tides grew with the fullness of the moon. I gathered like an alone rock, transmuted by shimmering moonbeams; I was a storm in the entity of fibers I held within that nothing could calm. The sea called me close and tranquility enlarged its measurement to fit my disposition. I lay on the golden sand and soaked its granules, the salty drizzle from the sea and the purlin of the moon. I was to lay alone at this spot and slumber, over the vast stretch of its circumference. the veil ~ I take long walks alone and intently watch scenes ahead of the road alter, that submerge me into whichever season it is. I lose all concept of time and gain a wordless understanding of things, within and without. I am here now: near the ruins that appear highlighted with the changing architectures of the sun. Something finite brushes through the ruins to reconstruct them into a different shape, as traversals of eras take their courses. I gaze at the vast ocean and the line of mountains on the other side, and my eyes drift, looking for him. how the sky lifts its veil for the sun to show its face. I am here, I am here. I have to remind the kernel of my heart, to breathe and to sustain its substance. The sea is my forgetting and remembering.  Bio: Sneha Subramanian Kanta is a poet, critic and writer. She believes in poetry being a form of dissent and is intrigued by unspoken words that vocabularies cannot define and believes in a world with no borders. She has taught undergraduate students literature and has also been an Assistant Editor at Charnwood Arts, United Kingdom. Postcolonial literature and literary theory and criticism are her areas of research interest. You can write to her at [email protected]
 AHC: You've been making music for over a decade now, what has that journey been like for you? Liz: It's been up and down. Huge highs and crushing lows, to be honest! It's an intensely interesting life and I love doing what I do but it can also be full of uncertainty and blows to the confidence, which requires a consistent recalibration of my faith in what I'm doing. Ultimately it's all about the music, the creativity. I've gotten to meet and play with some incredible people and see (and get to know) some amazing places. It's been a trip. Literally and figuratively!! AHC: Which comes to you first, the music or the lyrics? Liz: In 99% of the cases the music comes first and then the lyrics fall slowly into place. AHC: Who are some of your musical inspirations? Liz: I love old folk music, mostly from Ireland and Britain, because I heard it a lot growing up. Those old songs about people and their day to day struggles and triumphs are what have made the deepest impression on me as a songwriter. AHC: What is life on the road like, when you're on tour? Liz: No two days are the same, even though there can be a strange monotony about touring. Get up, drink coffee (highlight - god DAMN I love coffee.. particularly on tour, for some reason...), eat, drive to next place, sound check, play gig, sleep, repeat. I've had the best times of my life on tour. It can feel like a comfy bubble, particularly if you're on the road with people you really get on with. You become a family, a unit, and create your own little universe within the confines of the touring party. It's weird. But awesome. I've also had some hard times, when I'm tired, things don't go well, I'm stressed about money etc. Those troubles can seem amplified if you're a long way from home sometimes. I've learned to try and roll with it. It doesn't always work... AHC: You work with a lot of genres, folk, blues, rock, is there a particular style you favor most? Liz: I'd probably come back to folk every time. It's a broad umbrella, but it's where most of my favorite music sits, I would say. AHC: Do you have any upcoming shows you'd like to tell people about? Liz: I'm on tour nationally throughout August and September to promote my new album, 'All The Bridges'. All the dates and ticket links are at www.lizstringer.com/shows Visit Liz's website at www.lizstringer.com And visit Liz's Bandcamp page to purchase Albums and other merch at lizstringer.bandcamp.com A few of Liz's upcoming tour dates include: Aug 09 Cameron Bandshell, Beacon Hill Park Victoria, BC Aug 11 Duncan Garage Showroom Duncan, BC Aug 12 The Hive Emporium Gabriola Island, BC Aug 31 Club Mullum Mullumbimby, NSW Sep 01 Junk Bar Ashgrove, QLD  AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations? Sarah: I am trained as a printmaker though for the past seven years I’ve been creating collages with discarded patterned security envelopes that I collect from my own life and the lives of friends, family and strangers interested in giving the material a life beyond it’s intended use. I began working with the material in 2008, when I worked an office job that required me to sort the mail. While opening the mail I noticed the large variety of intricate patterns used to line the envelopes and was spurred to create art out of this abundant, free material. My first security envelope collages were small and depicted scenes of dense grasses and flora that echoed the material’s use as a camouflage for private and sensitive documents like invoices and statements. As I collected piles envelopes I learned there are hundreds of patterns and devised a system of sorting them by color, tone and pattern. As I developed my technique and repertoire of envelopes I created landscapes that became increasingly elaborate and dystopian. Some images depict the natural environment rejecting current earthly circumstances in exchange for an alternative. I conjure images of mass evacuations of plant-life: an entire forest orchestrates a location swap with an other forest from the beyond, a body of water breaks apart as it pulls itself into the sky as an aqueous rainbow, leaves and trees soar or are lifted away by alien beams of light.  Live Gloriously, 2014, collage made with security envelopes, 20"x28" My latest body of work includes traditional office imagery like drop ceilings, cubicles and uninspired décor. Offices are designed to maximize efficiency, indifferent to the cost of human comfort and happiness. The cubicle in particular has become a symbol of unfulfilling, monotonous, paper-pushing work so I make images that infiltrate these sterile spaces with vegetation. The result represents a fantasy in which the material of the reliable, boring disappointments of life, are transformed into a means of escape.  Office Solution, 2014, collage made with security envelopes, 22"x30" My collages call attention to the intricate patterns of the envelopes that are designed to be unseen. The patterns in this overlooked material are surprisingly delicate and beautiful, reminiscent of Japanese decorative chiyogami craft papers. I’m encouraging my audience to ponder whether other items in their lives have hidden beauty or could have a second life before headed to the landfill.  Piles of Leaves in Cubicle, 2015, collage made with security envelopes, 22"x30" AHC: In some of your work you've explored themes of nature vs. imposed, constructed orders, and, also it seems, notions of precarization, both societal & ecological, could you talk a bit about this? Sarah: For many, the Sisyphean task of paying monthly bills is a chaotic process that results in a precarious, financial house of cards. Reoccurring expenses enter one’s life in an orderly manner, and paying those bills can be automated, yet the system can spin wildly out of control with the introduction of one unexpected expense that disturbs people’s fiscal balance. To an extent, the environment is more adept at absorbing shocks to the system. In my collages, nature and entropy triumphs.  You Deserve More, 2014, collage made with security envelopes, 22"x30" AHC: The Curbside Object Status Tags are fascinating, can you tell us a bit about this practice & what drew you to document it as you have? It also seems to fit other aspects of your work, such as ethical concerns for recycling the materials used in the creative process, is there a connection there for you in that? Sarah: Curbside Object Status Tags are printed manila shipping tags that facilitate the smooth operation of the informal sidewalk gift economy. Those who place free objects on the curb for other people to pick up, may tie a tag to the object and indicate the condition of the object to people by ticking the appropriate box on the tag. Condition choices range from Works Perfectly to Has Valuable Parts. I created Curbside Object Status Tags to reduce the inefficiency that incomplete knowledge produces in trash-picking. Leaving objects on the curb for others to take is an environmentally sound behavior that helps divert objects from landfill. I noticed a problem with this practice that needed solving: people who consider picking up an object off the street cannot always discern the condition of said object, especially in the case of electronic items. I have passed by desirable objects because I did not want to risk dragging them home, up two flights of stairs only to find they didn’t work once plugged in. Some people take the time to tape a hand-scribbled note to the object, but most do not.  There is a subset of the population that delights in both discovering excellent street finds, and placing objects out for a new owner to happen upon. When I place an object on the street I spend a moment fantasizing about its future owner and moment of joy they might feel when they find the thing in question. Our motivations may be encouraged by frugality, generosity, concern for the environment or more pragmatic reasons such as a speedy solution to a sudden purge. The coolest thing I found on the street was a pair of perfectly working Mission brand speakers. The coolest thing I put out was a set of bicycle aerobar extensions. The tags have been popular with users who feel they legitimize the practice of trash-picking and remove some of the stigma of dragging things off the street into our homes. Users of the tags send me photos accompanied with an anecdote about the object or about how quickly it was picked up.  Although more of a utilitarian tool than “art”, I absolutely consider my tags as dovetailing with my art practice. I want people to pause and consider the stuff they throw out. If you’d like some tags for free send an email to Sarah at[email protected] with your mailing address.  Security Grass, 2013, collage made with security envelopes AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or projects you'd like to tell people about? Sarah: In the winter of 2017 I will mount a solo exhibition at The Courthouse Gallery in the city of Lake George in upstate New York. I am making new collages made with envelopes and unsolicited credit card offers. As I sketch out images in preparation for the show I can tell you the resulting work will be more colorful and abstracted, yet have similar themes I have been working with.  Silk Lobby Bird of Paradise #02, 2015, collage made with security envelopes, 18"x15"   Bio: Sarah Nicole Phillips is a Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist. She received her B.A, in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and her MFA from Brooklyn College with a concentration in printmaking. She participated in a year-long artist residency at the Lower East Side Printshop where she continues to teach. She’s been awarded residencies at The Blue Mountain Center in upstate New York and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska. Sarah exhibits widely in Canada and the US and has been included in shows at the Queens Museum of Art in New York, the International Print Center New York, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). In early 2014 she had a solo exhibition at McKinley Arts and Culture Center in Reno, Nevada. She is a 2009 & 2014 recipient of Brooklyn Arts Council grants. Her work is in several permanent collections including The James Hotel and NYU Langone Hospital.
www.sarahnicolephillips.com https://www.instagram.com/snphillips https://www.facebook.com/SarahNicolePhillips 8/5/2016 Four poems by Morgan Downie the wedding song it is smoke this song, the ash that sound leaves. there a man in dark glasses, the sun in crazy glints, his teeth flash golden. who could not love such a man, i said and the shadows of the trees whisper that this is so. there a woman, down from the jetstream, long legged and high on her barstool, cracked nail varnish tapping against a shot glass. oh now, that was a lullaby and then a lament. her voice gone in a splintered rush of yellow cabs, a blur of engines. and of others, yes there was my father’s hand and yes, a mother’s love, hidden down in the long shadows. i feel those things like old photographs, tinted postcards sent from the front, the turf of memory carved into a battlefield, long fields of wheat, poppy-strewn, blood red blooms casting pollen up into the air, spilling out all the secrets when asked of love i see that printed word, a circle i’ve been taking from circular to circle line and all the stops along the way, so long i swear i met myself, saw who i was with, remembered that i didn’t want to speak to me, the sea at my feet lapping saying all of it is true. and you who hold me now, how is it you came to pen me, inclined across a different voice? we are like an old married couple they say, and me so undeserving that it makes the laughter come. we so like an old married couple, this life i’ve stumbled into, it makes the laughter come. and those clouds up there in the dazzling blinding blue, they nod and say this is so. trees lounge there is birch, powder thin, skin silvered by the countless bar years that ash his memory. birch, the hustler, haunts the pool table, cue shaking in his hand like a divining rod and stories that never existed tumble from his lips, speaking to no-one, mouthing words into empty air. apple, a mermaid’s daughter she says, but all goodness cored out of her, her mouth a gash, a streaming pour of rot. straw-blonde, perched on a bar stool high as her heels, she shrieks at the world, stares into bottomless glasses at the creatures without name that swirl within. and oak, hard man, silent type, always in his spot. the same spot, they say, he left for a twenty stretch, an ugly crime, unpremeditated, never said sorry, welcomed the years like a tree welcomes lightning. doesn’t say much, one to avoid, we see it in him, the inward fire, eyes ablaze, a waiting thunder. notes from a colour chart 13-0858-tpx despair, despair is yellow, the yellow of biohazard suits thorned with warning, visors misted, faces smeared into anonymity, 18-4434-tcx luck, luck is blue, arrives on an old bus, wheel arches winged with chrome, steps itself down into the dusty street dancing to the rhythm of endless possibility 12-6204-tcx laughter, laughter is silver, precious as mercury and just as quick, the perfect alembic to measure the heat of your voice and mine, blended 16-5422-tpx love, the memory of love, is aquamarine, lives in sea-caves blushed with coral, verdigris upon drowned bronze, scallop shells rising in waves of foam 6-ec and black? black is a boat, the colour of sleep, dreamless, wide as the farthest ocean, star dusted, and sky to the horizon notes on grass descriptors pencilled in from hubbard (main key) some detail crossed out in the margins a sketch of the sun and the words you are beautiful spikelets on stalks spikelet without bristles spikelet 2 or more flowered spikelets stalked borne on panicle glumes shorter than lemma ligule membranous spikelets the same lemma entire lemma rounded on back lemma awnless spikelets 3 - 20 flowered spikelets erect leaf sheath united spikelets over 12mm long tentative identification glycera fluitans floating sweet grass a meadow i shall not walk again  Bio: morgan downie is a short story and poetry writer. an island man, he finds mainland roads no less circular. he is a friend of the neighborhood cats and likes to smile at strangers.
 The work of Heather Accurso is truly an oddity in the world of art. It occupies a strange but beautiful, dare I say hopeful, liminal space between fantasy/horror and reality, although our reality is certainly drenched in its share of horror and increasingly realized sci-fi scenarios becoming not so far fetched after all. In a world of war, terrorism- ours and others, mass shootings, gender binaries, sexism, militarism gone amuck, scientific experimentation- both good, bad and we're-not-quite-sure-yet and the looming catastrophe of the fate of our entire planet itself, the world could use a few super-heroin(e)'s. Not the Marvel and DC comic variety, which, caught up as they are in the ever expanding waste filled market economy can probably only ever add as many problems as they subtract, and aren't really that subversive. After all they reinforce binaries, good vs evil, light vs. dark. Rather an odd, mutant, hybrid mixture of Henry Darger meets Kathy Acker/Angela Carter, transcendental super-hero characters who are, as Accurso puts it, "multi… -disciplinary, -cultural, -historical, -species, -perspectival creative Girl Geniuses--Liberal Arts Magicians, symbols of the inner child at work and play." Wouldn't these figures be slightly more subversive than Wonder Woman? At the very least it is harder to pigeon hole their form or location, their immense and gender/genre bending power and the multi-configuring possibilities that they open up in a world hell bent on decreasing possibles and unknowns. Accurso's heroin(e)s are anti-emblems for the new world whose light may be dwindling but whose inner fire still burns brightly. AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations? Heather: I’m dedicated to the visual language of drawing. Using mixed materials on collaged paper has allowed me to work out ideas on the actual piece and to experience a continuous evolution of technique and narrative. I lived in Chicago until age 33. The collaged, mixed-media drawings of Henry Darger and the harsh paintings of the Chicago Imagists strongly influenced my iconography. Themes took a political turn during six years of living abroad in Cologne, Germany (2002 – 2008) which coincided with the onset and escalation of the Iraq War. Lately, I spend time thinking up fantastical situations wherein, my model (who is my daughter), overcomes impossible, even deadly, real-life world events, as a transcendental super-hero character.  Big City Girl 2: Books, Feeding Foxes, Science ProjectGraphite, Color Pencil on Stonehenge Paper, 22 x 24.5 ", 1999  Big City Girl 3: Rhino, Weapons, GamesGraphite, Prismacolor Pencil on Stonehenge Paper, 22 x 29 ", 1999 AHC: Could you talk a little bit about the role of the baby girl in your work, and also about the role that art plays in fighting back creatively against regressive societal expectations of both gender roles and identity issues? Heather: Child beings have dominated my work since the early nineties. Their Cherub, Christ, Buddha or Fairy-like appearance expresses different ideas per series. In the Mutants Series (1993 - 98), nude female baby figures sport tribal tattoos and fashion…part human, part animal, drawn with precision, they float in blank negative space, as if observed, actual specimens. The images are quite sexual, but not sexy. Many contradictions coalesce. I was contemplating art historical images of the baby Jesus, and cherubs. I was also thinking about the female figure in art, and what was missing, what gaps I could fill. Their gaze is direct, their eyes meet the viewer’s. These creatures are not good or evil, passive or aggressive, simply un-definable and powerful in their pure un-acculturated state. The Creators and Big City Girls (1998 – 2001) are active with animal counterparts in horror vacui settings of paraphernalia. They are multi… -disciplinary, -cultural, -historical, -species, -perspectival creative Girl Geniuses--Liberal Arts Magicians, symbols of the inner child at work and play. I broke away from the girl symbol in order to focus on the head with the Cherubic Intervention series (2004 – 2016). I remember thinking I was drawing a boy’s portrait for months, only to realize the source was a photo of a girl baby while examining another printout with text. This cherub energy pitted against threats to the world is unisex! Alas, I had a baby girl in 2008, who enjoys collaborating and posing for the series in progress entitled Fairy Heroes. I would have happily used a boy figure, if I had a son, for he could also express wisdom, courage, humor and hope for the future of the world. Still, this world can definitely use some more strong images of girls.  "For the Drone Children" Gouache, Color Pencil, Graphite, Pastel, Marker on Collaged Stonehenge Paper, 33 x 45", 2014/15, "Fairy Heroes" Series  Potato and Two Views Graphite, Prismacolor Pencil, Watercolor on Paper, 18.5 x 22.5", 1998  "Guardians" Gouache, Graphite Pencil, Color Pencil, Pastel on Stonehenge Paper, 35 x 49", 2014, "Fairy Heroes" Series AHC: Who are some of your influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on your work, writers, filmmakers, philosophers etc? Heather: The world’s current events are my endless source of concern and inspiration. I listen to NPR while drawing. The ideas roll in continuously: war, terrorism, the environment, poverty, human rights and the plight of children. Diane Rehm and Terry Gross are my favorite radio hosts, so thorough, intelligent and compassionate. Children’s literature and illustration have been a key resource, specifically in providing an entertaining formula that I can twist with a dose of reality. Essentially young heroes and their animal companions face and resolve conflicts with their hearts, intellects and white magic, in fanciful outfits and settings of course. I fell in love with extinct animals while teaching drawing classes at the University of Michigan’s Natural History Museum in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where we have lived since 2008. In recent drawings, the extinct animal cohorts, juxtaposed with crises of our era, represent the temporal nature of life.  "Bus/Bomb" Watercolor, Color Pencil, Graphite, Pastel, Acrylic on Collaged Stonehenge Paper, 32.5 x 42", 2007, "Cherubic Intervention" Series  Reclamation Graphite, Color Pencil, Watercolor on Paper, 26.5 x 25", 1995  Highrise - Plane Color Pencil, Graphite, Pastel, Watercolor, Acrylic on Stonehenge Paper, 21 x 17", 2006 AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you'd like to tell people about? Heather: I’m just finishing up a drawing begun in 2007 for Gallery Project’s upcoming dual-site show entitled “Re: Formation”, in Toledo and Ann Arbor, August through October. Here is a link to the show statement--http://thegalleryproject.com/ The piece is called The Gun Fairy. The Virginia Tech killing was the catalyst; that’s him holding the gun. Originally, the full figure of the murderer was included. I tore him out, so the pointed gun became a universal symbol. Almost ten years later, I resolved the other half. The Fairy/Undertaker/Grower of the gun-stopping giant lotus is based on a choreographed photo of my daughter. Some process photos are provided. The Placerias dinosaur is carrying an Etruscan burial urn, which doubles as a fairy house. This drawing needs a few more delicately blood-stained flowers and the burial hole needs a tweak. More Fairy Hero series drawings mixed with 3-dimensional found and self-made objects housed in shadow boxes are coming soon. I have been researching the life and work of Joseph Cornell, and taught a few Shadow Box design courses this past year. The Detroit art scene is teeming with low-relief assemblage artwork, which has also been influential. I’ve been drawing little shrouded corpses for years, that I make myself with twisted fabric, (see The Gun Fairy and For the Drone Children). Soon, these small-scale sacred bodies will be nestled in front of the 2-dimenional background images. Stay tuned. I’ll upload new pieces on Flickr in the coming months!  
All images © Heather Accurso
To find more of Heather's work and for further information visit her website at www.heather-accurso.de/ And for more recent work visit her Flickr page at www.flickr.com/photos/specimyn/ 8/3/2016 Photography by Mike Linaweaver      a. "Winter", El Dorado, Kansas b. "The Remains of Summer", El Dorado, Kansas c. "Hydro-electric Generator", Big Thompson River, Colorado d. "Winter: Hour Glass Fire Burn Zone", Emmaline Lake Trail, Colorado e. "Dead Truck in the West Pasture", Roxbury, Kansas f. "Barn Door", Roxbury, Kansas  Bio: Mike Linaweaver is a socialist, activist and writer operating in the endless summer of South Texas. His story "Are You Alright?" was nominated for a 2014 Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in Sleet Magazine, The Magill Review and Red Wedge Magazine. He was a founding member and editor of the South Texas art and culture (maga)zine, Strike and is currently working on the small press project Strike Syndicate with fellow founder, editor and writer Raul Alonzo.
8/2/2016 Interview with Artist Nina Talbot Nina Talbot's works are rich with stories, personal histories and the emotional explorations of both a sense of place and often loss of place. She focuses in on how people from various elsewhere's keep their cultural compass points near, how they adapt and what becomes of neighborhoods and spaces once they slowly erode the signs of these precious personal and cultural histories. Like a good folk song Nina's work carries these stories into the future, bearing the prevalent marks and sometimes scars of their past, these pieces are their own type of compass, without works and stories like these how easily we would be lost. Anti-Heroin Chic recently interviewed Nina, here she talks more about her process and the inspiration behind these works:  AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations? Nina: I organize my paintings by series. I am interested in history: communities, war veterans, survivors and people in my neighborhood and family. Some of the more recent series I have worked within so far include The Shoprite Series, Vendors of Newkirk, Generations of Brooklyn, Neighborhood Folks and Faces of Dynów. I am interested in the story behind the face. The paintings are narrative portraits based on personal interviews, in which I come to know the person, and what they’ve experienced in their lives. I work with people whose lives have intersected with historical events such as war, survival and immigration. Vendors of Newkirk is a series that explores several of these themes by virtue of the people I came to know. In the painting Hot Bagels, there is a small sign in the background announcing, “We now have cappuccino!” This detail is a nod to the advent of gentrification, which is affecting all of our communities- not always in a positive sense. My mission was to portray the community in constant and rapid transition; mementos of an evanescent moment. In Neighborhood Folks, I sought to portray people that we may see only for a fleeting moment in our neighborhood. Their visages hint at their past and their present-- a battle scar, a hijab, platinum blonde hair. The paintings in these series tell the stories of what these faces have seen. One never knows what the guy behind the counter in the corner bodega has gone through. In the painting Ben, the man who sold jewelry in his shop on my local shopping strip was kidnapped by military police when he was trying to escape Iran when he was a teenager. He was brought to an underground prison and tortured. Miraculously his parents found him and bribed the guards to free their son out of that situation. When Ben was sponsored to come to America, on his first night in a hotel, he was robbed of his ten dollars in the elevator. These are snippets of stories I’ve heard just for the asking.  AHC: What first drew you to art? Nina: I am lucky that I always knew I wanted to be a painter from the time I was a young girl. I went to the High School of Music & Art in NYC, and consider that time to be the beginning of my career. It was a luxury and hard to believe that we students spent at least half of the school day in art classes! Growing up in NYC is an amazing place for a budding artist. The museums became my living rooms.  AHC: There are a lot of personal connections & in depth narrative behind a lot of your subjects, what is that process like, how do you form & build those relationships through the work? Nina: It thrills and surprises me that the people who become my painting subjects share intimate stories of their lives with me--a complete stranger! I think the reason is that it is a cathartic experience for people to have someone interested in them and their lives. A great example of this is the work I did interviewing, researching and painting American war veterans for the Veterans series. Usually one series will segue into another one. When I was coming towards the completion of the Neighborhood Folks series, I only realized towards the end, that I was painting portraits of people who represented various aspects of the community. I had painted immigrant shopkeepers in their stores, an elder historian who was active in mobilizing the residents in their housing project to fight eviction, and more. That is when I thought, “Of course I have to paint a war veteran.” With the current raging conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the multitudes of injured soldiers returning home, many with PTSD, I needed to paint a veteran. After interviewing my first one, a Desert Storm vet who wore prosthetics, I realized I needed to dedicate a whole series to these men and women. Naturally I have become friends with many of the people I have painted- it’s a great way to meet interesting people! And it is also very emotional as there is no way that the emotions don’t creep into my painting process. Actually the interviews are the basis of the paintings. I take notes during the interviews, and lately use a digital recorder. Then I type and print out my notes, which I use as the starting point for a painting. Often the hardest part of this process is editing out, as it would be difficult to include all of the elements of the stories I hear.  AHC: Your work profoundly explores the themes of history & sense of place, how the past continually informs the present, can you talk about that aspect of your work? Nina: Reflecting on my old-time New York, I often wonder if some of the people and places I paint will still be here in five, ten, twenty years. Will the storekeeper from Tajikistan, and the one from Ghana hold on to their culture, or mesh completely into the American landscape? The aspect of time in the sense of intersections of personal lives and world events is a strong force in my work. I think about the accident of birth, and where we are when events occur. The experiences of the people I’ve come to know fascinate me because of how their personal lives intersect with history. The young writer from Haiti who witnessed killings by the tonton macoutes affected her life AND what she chose to write about. A young woman who struggled to find her parents after an earthquake in Japan walks with those images. These are folks whose stories are worth hearing about for our generations, now and in the future. It behooves our upcoming generations to hear the stories of those who came before us.   AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or projects you'd like to tell people about? Nina: An excerpt of the female soldiers my Veterans series of paintings- are currently on display at The Women In Service to America Memorial at the front of Arlington Cemetery, and will be there until March 2017. Another exhibition of Veterans will travel to The Louisiana National Guard Museum in New Orleans in November of this year, and remain on display for a year. My current series of paintings, Faces of Dynów, documents the murder of 40 members of my family by Nazis in their Polish town in 1939. The paintings depict the lives of people from the town against a backdrop of the history of the town during the pre-war 1920s and 1930s to the present day. Portrait subjects are part of my family tree by way of ancestral, familial and spiritual connections, a tree broken by the travails of war and imprisonment. I traveled there in 2013, 2014 and last year where I learned the extent of this horrible chapter. Since then I’ve been researching my family genealogy and interviewing people who currently live in the town, and some elders who survived that live in New York. An article that tells of this project appears in The Galitzianer, a journal of Gesher Galitzia.  8/1/2016 Interview with Artist Ezra Wube AHC: Can you tell us a bit about your process, themes & inspirations? Ezra: My creative process begins with the idea of a new experiment. I work in a chain like process, each work is a development from earlier works and no work is complete. Once I have a flash of a new idea I begin exploring it in every way possible, branching out in various directions. Many of these creative paths might end short or not connect with the others. Once I feel satisfied learning the possibilities and impossibilities, I strip down and focus on the finds. The process activities can include walks to observe the everyday, readings on the subject, or even doing other intervention projects that would allow me to have distance and possibly to find a means to re-approach the subject from a different angle. Generally to realize my idea I need to make the idea exist outside myself, I need to produce it. I make the art to learn the idea, to search what it can offer me. Sometimes it takes me even years to know what the heck I was doing or searching about. My recurring themes have been mobility, everyday icons, celebration, fragmented space and shifting time. I find inspiration in everything outside my studio space. I sometimes think my work tries to defy the neutral studio striving instead to be part of everyday life, however, I continuously need and use the studio so that I can sort out influences and develop ideas.  AHC: What first drew you to art? Was there a specific moment in your life or turning point where it became clear to you that you were being called to create? Ezra: I believe what drew me to a visual art as a young kid was its means to communicate inner feelings. I always made art, I actually don’t remember when I started making art. In college I had an elective course in studio art/ drawing. It was just a couple of years after I migrated to the US from Ethiopia. Everything was new, language, culture, weather--- the three hour class was therapeutic, I felt like I could process the experience, I could breath. I then wanted to take more art classes which required me to be a major. I majored in painting and all the doors opened.  AHC: Can you tell us about your technique of time-based painting? Ezra: For my time based painting/ stop action animation, I use a single canvas that is stapled to a wall. On the opposite wall a camera is mounted. The camera is connected to a computer. After making a line or shape or an image I take a picture of the painting and paint the next scene on top of it. I keep working on the same canvas until I feel satisfied with the exploration. I then import the images to a video editing software add with sounds and make an animation. In this process the confinement to a singular authenticity is forever gone eventhough its progress has been documented. The documentation aspect serves as an indexical vehicle connecting the past with the present. This technique interest me because of its life like experience. You can only be present or move forward. As one who migrated between geographies the idea of a singular time and space is also no longer true for me. For instance Ethiopia follows the Julian calender which is 8 years behind the Gregorian calendar, I’m born in two different years. This inbetween-ness of identity can only be reconciled through keeping the past to make sense of the present and moving forward to be here and now, to adapt, to embrace the ephemeral in the everyday.  AHC: Who are some of your artistic influences? Is there anyone outside of the art world who has had a huge impact on your work, writers, filmmakers, philosophers etc? Ezra: The artistic influences of my early years were renaissance painters. I learned mixing paint by copying their work. I was interested in their narrative construction, use of body language, and the ambiguity of time and place. My influences include the utopic aspects of Ethiopian Socialist murals, the love of outside studio life of plain air Impressionism, the artistic puritanism of the New York Abstract Expressionists, the clarity and order of Suprematism, the humor and mobility in Dada, the ephemeral works of Song Dong and so on.  AHC: What is the first work of art you encountered that took your breath away? Ezra: Probably art in its own way, some of my breathtaking visual experiences have been; a drive from Colorado to Utah through giant red rocks, the never ending mountain range of Semien Gondor, over 5000 Kungufu pupils wearing the same uniform at Shi Xiao Long Kungofu school, a swimming mother Polar bear at a zoo in Singapore... AHC: Do you have any upcoming exhibits or new projects you’d like to tell people about? Ezra: This coming fall I’m very excited to be in a couple of group shows one at the Drawing Center, New York (www.drawingcenter.org), and another at Addis Fine Art, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (www.addisfineart.com). I’m also thrilled to be awarded the Lower Manhattan Workspace residency program (www.lmcc.net/workspace/). To find more of Ezra's work and for further information visit his website at www.ezrawube.net/ |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed
