Hyperlocal Shortlist 3: Finding the stories of our world
In these politically charged and difficult times, artists play an important role in telling the stories of our world. ArtPrize is a wonderful way for them to do what they are driven to do, and for us to take it all in.
Editor’s note about this series: We put a call out to ask one simple question: “Who do you like to listen to talk about art?” earlier this month, then asked those recommended local art lovers to form their own lists of finalists. A new collection of must-see work at ArtPrize 9 is added each day this week from another voice in our community. You can find them all here.
When the editor of Cultured.GR asked me to create a personal Top 10 of the works in ArtPrize Nine, my first thought was, Why me? I have no formal art education. But I have spent my life viewing art, talking about art, showing local artists at my salon, and living with art.
Everyone has their own feelings about art. You also don’t need a formal education to have great experiences with and thoughts about art. No one can — or should — take that from you.
My goal is not to encourage you to agree with me but rather to help you go out, hit the venues, enjoy a walk around town, and decide for yourself. See what moves you; pick your own favorites.
Here are mine.
10. “Portrait of the Artist As a Young Girl” by Leslie Adams
Located at Gerald R. Ford Museum
I love this piece. Not only is it a very skilled drawing but it also shows both confidence and innocence all in the same moment, as the subject looks directly at us while drawing a picture of Bambi. Adams, the adult artist, has cleverly cast her young and determined self in a portrait that reminds us of our shared dreams.
9. “You belong to me” by Liss LaFleur
Located at The Fed Galleries @KCAD
Onto curtains of pink fringe, LaFleur projects an image of a singer lip-synching the Duprees’ 1962 recording of the 1950s pop ballad “You Belong to Me,” though it takes a second to recognize the song at the slower speed at which the artist has it set. The effect is, she writes, “similar to a bird in a cage.”
The mixed media creates a distortion that I found beautiful and mesmerizing, as well as disquieting. LaFleur lures us in with a beautiful girl and haunting music, then fulfills the title of her work by holding us captive in their spell.
8. “Troubled Waters” by Shawn Michael Warren
Located at DeVos Place
Anyone who knows me knows I have a deep concern that our planet is quickly running out of clean water. Warren’s charcoal-and-graphite drawing is inspired by the Flint water crisis and the recent protest at Standing Rock.
The artist and I agree: until this crisis reaches the dominant population, it will not be addressed. Solid work.
7. “Elijah” by Tony Wright
Located at City Water Building by Richard App gallery
In this series of photographs, Wright documents his father’s diagnosis and three-year fight with stomach cancer. He captures how the disease changes his father not only in body but also in spirit.
These are strong and emotionally moving images. In several his father stares right into the camera, inviting us to come close and feel his pain.
6. “Bloodline” by Holly Wilson
Located at Monroe Community Church
Wilson is a Delaware Nation Cherokee who comes from a long line of storytellers. Like many who define themselves by their bloodline, she searches it in an attempt to better understand and represent herself.
In “Bloodline,” Wilson takes a childhood story that her mother told her about the stick people and transforms it into a line of figures that represents her own family.
As much as I love the piece itself, the way the installation itself casts shadows on the wall also holds part of the story.
“Like a shadow,” Wilson writes, “these memories cannot be held, and in the end, we are all only a shadow in history, shadows on earth.” It’s a deeply insightful work.
5. “Serenity in the Lilies” by Edward (Fr. Joachim) Lally
Located at Women’s City Club
I’m a sucker for a really good painting. I chose “Serenity in the Lilies” because it’s a calming, spiritual, and perfectly beautiful painting. I found myself going back to it three times as I walked through the venue. No gimmicks, no flash, just an honest little painting.
4. “Companions” by Deborah Rockman
Located at Fountain Street Church
With her ongoing “Companions” series, Rockman presents “low-tech digital drawings that explore inequity and injustice across the globe.”
As someone who has followed her art for more than 20 years, I’ve always been amazed by her passion for social justice — but her mad skills just leave me speechless! This series features some of her most passionate and masterful work.
3. “Crowns of Courage” by Burgess, Gilbert & Stone
Located at Devos Place Convention Center
“Crowns of Courage” challenges our traditional ideas of beauty by asking what happens when you take away a woman’s hair and parts of her body.
The women in these images are battling in a grueling, difficult, expensive, and excruciating fight for their lives. Yet here we see them in another light, bearing beautiful henna crowns that emphasize their strength and regal beauty. I can imagine that, for at least this moment in their journeys, they might feel empowered and proud to be a part of this exhibit.
Full disclosure: I know one of the woman included in “Crowns of Courage,” and I know others who have fought cancer. I’ve asked myself, Did that sway my opinion in choosing this work? Maybe, but I don’t care. I love this piece and feel proud of these women for allowing us in.
2. “Transitus” by Nick Reszetar
Located at Fountain Street Church
This is one of my favorite pieces, and it’s the hardest for me to write about. I’ve known people who have been transitioning, and it isn’t some feel-good reality-TV process. It’s painful, expensive, and often not pretty.
“This work represents the passage from a sort of death in essentially alien body to a life in another gender,” Reszetar says. Indeed. “Transitus” is a transfixing work of beauty and pain.
1 “El Sueno Americano (The American Dream)” by Tom Kiefer
Located at DeVos Place
With their cleverly placed bars of soap, tiny Bibles, rosary beads, stuffed animals, toys, water bottles and more, these wonderful images appear at first glance to be playful and whimsical.
In fact, these are the so-called “nonessential” items confiscated from men, women and children caught trying to cross the border from Mexico. Captured in trucks, in cars, or on foot, the people are processed through a holding facility, then bussed back from where they came, minus their belongings.
“El Sueno Americano” is a powerful exhibit that reveals yet another side of the heartlessness behind our immigration laws.
In these politically charged and difficult times, artists play an important role in telling the stories of our world. ArtPrize is a wonderful way for them to do what they are driven to do, and for us to take it all in. I hope my own list of discoveries inspires you to get out and view the art for yourself and share your favorites with the rest of us.
This article is the third in a series with local artists and art lovers revealing who they would be choosing as finalists in ArtPrize 9. Follow along here to see more throughout the week.
