Phantasm - Patrick Willocq

Patrick Willocq
By Morgan Ondrejka 

Patrick Willocq is a self-taught photographer who is passionate about traveling and becoming knowledgeable of other cultures. After a trip to the Congo in 2012, he fully dedicated himself to photography.  Willocq has a body of work titled “The Art of Survival” which captures Syrian and Burundi child refugees in these re-created scenes from their lives. An organization called Save The Children was looking for an artist to really capture what its like to be a child refuge and Willocq was their choice and it couldn’t have worked better.

“Walaa, 11, left Syria with her pregnant mother because airstrikes had blown up all the hospitals, schools and supermarkets in the area. They had no access to food, water or health services - everything they needed to survive. One day, as she was walking home, Walaa saw her school explode before her eyes, as shells landed on the buildings. She could smell burning and heard the sound of plane engines as they flew low overhead.

This image uses an original drawing created by Walaa to tell the story of the moment her school was bombed. Walaa's drawing has been re-created and enlarged into a 3D tableau, using props made by children in the camp. Walaa says, "the aircraft targeted the school with rockets. I thought my uncles had been killed and I cried." Many Syrian refugee children experience first-hand the devastating impact of airstrikes on homes and schools.”

As artists, we always need to be aware of appropriation and exploitation, as those are two ideas that are easily linked to photographic work. When it comes to Willocq’s way of presenting and representing these children, I don’t see exploitation. I see empowerment of children, kids smiling for the first time in too long because they had something productive and fun to help build and be a part of, something to take their mind off of the cruel world right around the corner. In an interview with Roads & Kingdoms Willocq talks about the process of creating these images and the effect it had on some of the children.

“Willocq: Yes. The shooting process lasts around 45 minutes, let’s say, but it takes hours of working together, of building together, of exchanging, painting, drawing, etc. It’s a whole process. It was very hard to leave at the end, both for them and for us, because we had created something together. Sometimes I say that their life in a refugee camp is in black and white, and suddenly their life became color. And you could see it on their faces. One dad came to see me and said that us working with his child was making a huge difference. He said he was happy, like before back at home. It was very rewarding for everyone.”

Landscape - Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez
By Morgan Ondrejka 

Anthony Hernandez is a landscape photographer in Los Angeles, California. His images really push the boundary of what you think of when you hear the words “landscape photographs”. He abstracts many of his landscapes, weather those be grass and dirt, poles and trees, city streets, or empty spaces. He truly works outside the assumed box of landscape.

                   

 

He also works in street photography, my personal preference of his work. These images capture the grit and reality of the not-so-fabulous areas of LA. An article written by Carolina A. Miranda of the Los Angeles Times puts Hernandez’s work perfectly by starting the article with:

“They are images in which Los Angeles can see itself, the side that doesn’t make it onto the picture postcards: Broken-down trucks in wide empty lots, the improvised architecture of freeway-side homeless encampments and municipal spaces that seem to offer their residents little more than disdain.”

Event Review - What Ever Happened To Passion

Passion

Raven Mrozek

I recently attended an artist lecture given by two artists out of New York. I will say that If I have learned anything from this lecture, I have learned how not to give a presentation, especially about my own artwork. 

While the first artist's style of painting wasn't necessarily a style I particularly spend time viewing, I did]  somewhat connect to the paintings she  and their descriptions on feeling stuck in a space due to a traumatic event. I respected this  and understood that for her, she was expressing being stuck in an interior space while I connected in being stuck in a mental space. The second "painter" I struggled with most. I put painter in quotations because I felt as though he didn't defend his style of work which was one issue I had with the lecture given. I feel that when you are working in art, defend what you do and be able to explain your choices in a logical sense. He called himself a painter when presenting some of his more recent works. He says paintings and I say paper cut outs, collage, and sculpture. I struggled wrapping my head around the idea that the works he presented were paintings, and I was waiting for an explanation on his process so I could try and understand why he called him self over and over again, a painter. While he spent so much time calling himself a painter and convincing us of his work, when asked a question at the end of his lecture on his work, he told the audience that he "would not call himself a painter."

While I was mildly confused by both painters, the one thing that bothered me most was the complete lack of passion for ones work. The first artist's lecture sounded like she was rushing through a script and breezed over her work, making me feel like I needed her to convince me she loved her work. Granted this is how I felt during the lecture, she did surprise me during her unscripted responses to questions asked by students. There she dug into her work and presented the passion in it, which I appreciated, and just blamed the rushed lecture on nerves. 

The second artist was another story. There was a complete disconnect with him and the audience. He spent the entire time staring at his computer, forgetting what the titles of his work even were then blowing them off, and trying to convince us who he was. Knowing how the first artist operated I gave him the benefit of the doubt which backfired. The entire time students were asking questions he was sitting back in the corner away from them and not even looking at or hardly acknowledging them. When a student addressed him then he would stand up and say "sorry what did you ask me?" He would then respond with maybe a couple sentence answer, but the majority being two words.

I don't mean to sound harsh, because both artists works were interesting in a wonderful way, but I learned exactly what not to do when discussing my work. Art is a tangible expression of human thought process which deserves passion to make it relatable, and if not relatable then thought provoking or powerful even if it is in the most subtle of way.

Event Review - Artist Now! Robert Grame

Robert Grame
Raven Mrozek

BUILD SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL!

Robert Grame gave a fantastic artist lecture, however the one concept her brought up that stuck with me was his statement "build something beautiful."In regards to design work, the thought of accessibility lacks due to the fact design is generally a form of art that us done for a specific reason to carry out a specific function. Even though it seems as if design lacks accessibility in some sense, it is the designers responsibility to "build something beautiful;" it is the designers responsibility to create something that will stand out and be remembered in order to be effective. This is necessary because of the fact design work is an ephemeral craft.

It was interesting being able to view this ephemerality through Robert Grame’s work. He showed such a variety of his designs, ones from years ago and ones more recent. This made it possible to see the design elements that over time became less prevalent in design work. This also more easily previewed how Grame utilized a theme throughout his works over the years, mainly with his design of text and how he utilized them in his works. Back to the idea of accessibility, designers work to persuade and entertain. It is important to think about how to use signifiers, and how to engage the mind especially in regards to shape and meaning. 

There was a second topic Robert Grame discussed that interested me, and that was his tangent on the subtractive process.He discussed that it was almost necessary to study the micro and macro in a work of design in order to create a sense of three dimensionality and space, giving more dynamic to the overall composition.I appreciate the simplicity provided by the subtractive process. In my opinion, any artist could be given a lump of material or an idea and do virtually anything to it; they can add, and add, and continue to add to this material or idea and turn it into a heavy space. Think about it this way however, maybe the key to creating a more effective visual whether it be design, photography, or anything else is to subtract.

I appreciated Robert Grame's artist lecture and really enjoyed how he spoke about his work.His work was fantastic and he really did show the ephemorality of art as well as the beauty behind it all.If anyone gets the chance to hear him speak, I highly recommend it.

Artist Lecture: Guerrilla Girls

Guerrilla Girls

by David Kieckhefer

We had the pleasure of seeing the Guerilla Girls speak at MIAD on February 22, 2017. When they first introduced themselves, they had one question they wanted us to ask ourselves and sit with for a while: “Has anything changed?” 

55 women have been members of the Guerilla Girls since they began 31 years ago in 1985.

One thing they are trying to educate others on, including those who already identify as feminists, is intersectional feminism.  Intersectional feminism shows us a more diverse feminist identity where women experience oppression and discrimination based on race, class, ethnicity religion and sexual orientation. For example, a white woman is penalized by her gender but has the advantage of race, while a black woman is disadvantaged by her gender and her race. A Latina lesbian experiences discrimination because of her ethnicity, her gender, and her sexual orientation.

Another question they had for us was “Where are women artists in the world? – Answer: Underneath the men.” The National Gallery of Art houses 98% male artist works and 99% of those artists are white.

One of their most well know works is a billboard they were commissioned to do in Manhattan. “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” Less than 5% of the artists are women, yet more than 85% of the nudes are of women.