Eugenio Espinosa - 2003 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
In June 2020 I created a collaborative artwork with 15 fellow artists. The piece was part of Prayers for the Pandemic, Prayers for Progress, an exhibition organized by Drawing Rooms.
My design was simple - a string of paper masks linked together. Each mask provides a format for text and/or visual image. The most important part for me was to join with others in creating something together. I asked artists to reflect creatively on the perfect storm of pandemic, social uprising, and climate change that we are living in now. For many reasons the inequities and abuses that our society has thoughtlessly stood upon are more visible to more people around the world. We are in an historical moment with seismic opportunities for eliminating oppressions, if we can help each other think and act.
And ironically, as we do social distancing, this is the time to come together like never before.
My design was simple - a string of paper masks linked together. Each mask provides a format for text and/or visual image. The most important part for me was to join with others in creating something together. I asked artists to reflect creatively on the perfect storm of pandemic, social uprising, and climate change that we are living in now. For many reasons the inequities and abuses that our society has thoughtlessly stood upon are more visible to more people around the world. We are in an historical moment with seismic opportunities for eliminating oppressions, if we can help each other think and act.
And ironically, as we do social distancing, this is the time to come together like never before.
Sarah Faragher - 2008 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
During the pandemic, painting has been a welcome and needed source of joy and renewal. Working outside with nature lifts my spirits. As a painter who works on-site outside, I will continue to do so with renewed appreciation and gratitude for the rewards of close looking. The pandemic brought life’s important things into focus. With the threat of mortality looming, elements of the landscape appear more poignant. I do not take my time for granted, and each day I am able to spend painting is a great day. In 2020 I let go of a lot of plans and painted in solitary locations close to home. I also attended a residency nearby. One body of work I have underway is a series of portraits of natural forms, as individuals at home in their surroundings, and as beings of inherent worth and dignity. The paintings below are from this series.
Paul Farinacci - 2003 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
During the pandemic, I found myself contemplating and reminiscing about my life while examining my studio practices. I had strange cravings for the spell of oil paint, my former medium of choice. With oil paint brush in hand, my recent works examine the events and current state of our global and local communities during these unprecedented times. The house as a metaphor or symbol for society, provided the visual foundation for much of my pre-pandemic imagery. This theme became more vital and relevant after being homebound and quarantined these past months. My newest narratives expose the effects from social isolation and remote learning to toilet paper hoarding in this time of COVID. In the future, I plan to continue to investigate our educational, political, religious and social institutions and its standards for living.
Like a child whose inquisitive nature constantly reaches for answers, my work will also explore the whys?
Like a child whose inquisitive nature constantly reaches for answers, my work will also explore the whys?
Joan Fitzsimmons - 1999 & 2001 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
Life under Covid19 has been complicated. I am both an artist and educator. Sheltering in place has provided brief periods of intense creativity, disrupted by the learning-curve of teaching online.
A few years ago, I began a series, “Art History”, reflecting on my own; gathering materials and photographing them as evidence of persistence, my own art history. Gloves have been a recurring theme, magical, gestural, their dance is a surreal puppet theater evidencing the labor of art and life. Now I think about their role in the pandemic, the gloved hands of caretakers. As we move through habitual activities, they are the barrier between life and disease. With the death of George Floyd, I recall the forceful fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos in their gloved protest at the ’68 Olympics, an iconic image reimagined by the Black Lives Matter movement.
I cannot anticipate how their meaning will evolve.
A few years ago, I began a series, “Art History”, reflecting on my own; gathering materials and photographing them as evidence of persistence, my own art history. Gloves have been a recurring theme, magical, gestural, their dance is a surreal puppet theater evidencing the labor of art and life. Now I think about their role in the pandemic, the gloved hands of caretakers. As we move through habitual activities, they are the barrier between life and disease. With the death of George Floyd, I recall the forceful fists of Tommie Smith and John Carlos in their gloved protest at the ’68 Olympics, an iconic image reimagined by the Black Lives Matter movement.
I cannot anticipate how their meaning will evolve.
Blair Folts - 1998 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
While aware of a “new virus” in February, it wasn’t until I boarded a plane for California on March 5, the day they declared a state of emergency that it really hit home. I was headed to the desert to paint for two weeks. Over that time, life changed completely. By time I flew home, I was armed with mask, Purell and spare toilet paper. Back home, I found it impossible to be in the studio—it felt too surreal from a place of “why bother.”
I remembered when I had had personal struggles that sketching helped guide me back to the studio. In late March, I began a quest to find creativity again through sketching outside. Six months and six sketchbooks later, I was finally back in the studio working on large abstract landscapes. Once again, sketching had opened the creative door and taught me how to see again.
I remembered when I had had personal struggles that sketching helped guide me back to the studio. In late March, I began a quest to find creativity again through sketching outside. Six months and six sketchbooks later, I was finally back in the studio working on large abstract landscapes. Once again, sketching had opened the creative door and taught me how to see again.
Leona Frank - 2012 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
During the pandemic, for a long time, my creative process simply stopped. Eventually, I felt the need to get back to work. Rather than work with paint on canvas, as I typically do, I decided to limit my materials to simple black and white drawing tools, as the use of color felt too celebratory to me. I focused on a project that was meaningful to me: my home garden. Fortunately, I have a collection of photographs of my garden flowers for reference. I took my time to carefully focus on each flower’s lights and darks, and made drawings using pencils, charcoal and ink on paper. The simplicity of materials, combined with the slow process of deliberate drawing seemed appropriately contemplative and calming, as an antidote for this unsettling time. I can envision that the technique of rhythmic mark making might infuse itself into my future paintings.
Richard Frank - 2012 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
The pandemic has created an unpredictably dangerous world. To take my mind off the dreadful impact of this threatening issue, I decided to concentrate on photographing flowers. I wanted to study the light on flowers, and observe their physical changes each day. Focusing on the growth of an amaryllis bulb, I discovered I could observe the various life stages of its flowers simultaneously, in a single image. For example, when a bulb consecutively produced four flowers, while one of them might be in bud, another was in full bloom, yet another started wilting, and the oldest had completed its life cycle and had expired.
In my mind, this became a metaphor for the universal cycle of life. Looking forward to the wonder of the formation of a new flower felt optimistic, just as I look forward, with optimism, to a new life, after we all receive the Covid-19 vaccine.
In my mind, this became a metaphor for the universal cycle of life. Looking forward to the wonder of the formation of a new flower felt optimistic, just as I look forward, with optimism, to a new life, after we all receive the Covid-19 vaccine.
Gregory Frux - 1999 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
There is no disguising how difficult 2020 was. My painting is generally done on-site. This year I have had to find alternatives. Creating is core to my wellbeing and not working was a bad option. When the Pandemic is over, I hope to work outdoors with renewed gratitude and a deep appreciation of nature’s light.
Gem 1 One of series of nocturnal views out my windows. The warm illumination amid the cold dark of late winter suggests islands of safety and comfort.
Abandoned Brownstone My peaceful, welcoming brownstone neighborhood has been the subject of numerous canvases. A first, I painted a boarded up, decaying building, suggesting that all is not well in America.
Norway V Unable to work from life I returned to 2009 sketchbook carried on an arctic winter voyage of coastal Norway. Using drawings as inspiration I remembered and imagined the unique light and atmosphere.
Gem 1 One of series of nocturnal views out my windows. The warm illumination amid the cold dark of late winter suggests islands of safety and comfort.
Abandoned Brownstone My peaceful, welcoming brownstone neighborhood has been the subject of numerous canvases. A first, I painted a boarded up, decaying building, suggesting that all is not well in America.
Norway V Unable to work from life I returned to 2009 sketchbook carried on an arctic winter voyage of coastal Norway. Using drawings as inspiration I remembered and imagined the unique light and atmosphere.
Rich Gombar - 2000 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
I am an American painter of my environment. Having to limit contact with others, being home has resulted in far more studio time than ever before. It has given me the opportunity to work in a more cohesive manner, with added and better concentration. I have been able to blend the work over fifty years, from minimal non-objective work through to landscape in a more in depth and painterly way. It has helped to free me while being isolated. My work now is in a dream state.
Jenny Graham-Hougah - 2020 Artist-In-Residence
Statement:
Quarantine brought anxiety and hardship but also the opportunity to connect with others. An Instagram challenge created by Felicia Forte (#ForteQChallenge) was simple and open-ended. One-word nouns were as a prompt for artists to interpret. Here are three of my paintings for the challenge.
Morning light is always pleasant, particularly when there’s no rush to run out the door each day. In this drawing, Shoes in the Time of Quarantine, I captured a moment that recurred for months at all times of the day: slippers connecting. In Dotted Socks, an unconventional subject, my polka-dot socks, are rolled and placed on two sheets of paper. The sunlight shines like a beam to create a topsy turvy composition, exemplifying the bizarre feeling of early quarantine. In Self-Portrait During Quarantine, this stationary moment is full of potential action. My simplified portrait reflects out from the rectangular mirror in the center of the painting.
Morning light is always pleasant, particularly when there’s no rush to run out the door each day. In this drawing, Shoes in the Time of Quarantine, I captured a moment that recurred for months at all times of the day: slippers connecting. In Dotted Socks, an unconventional subject, my polka-dot socks, are rolled and placed on two sheets of paper. The sunlight shines like a beam to create a topsy turvy composition, exemplifying the bizarre feeling of early quarantine. In Self-Portrait During Quarantine, this stationary moment is full of potential action. My simplified portrait reflects out from the rectangular mirror in the center of the painting.
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