Our fifty-fourth post of the series, Artists in the Time of Coronavirus includes Norman Dolph, Susie Olczak, Margaret Pezalla-Granlund, Jane Wright, and David Levy! Thank you for sharing with us and the Philly art community!
We have gotten over 300 submissions, and we are so grateful to all participants. Submissions are closed as of July 29, 2020 at 11:59 PM, but we still have 2 posts coming! Stay safe and stay positive, and come back in the days to come for more “Artists in the Time of Coronavirus.” We have a wonderful community and are so proud of being able to share everyone’s art.
Norman Dolph
In these times…. Everything seems FINITE. Will the marks you make on the wall be there when you can’t look up from the ground to see them? How long till the very wall itself crumbles?
To the artist, the hand must scratch the itch of the mind. The idea of the image must be spanked-alive and swaddled in canvas. When a person creates an “offspring” – either corporeal or artistic – he/she is saying: “Well this probably won’t live forever either… but at least it will outlive me.”
Outliving… seems to be the order of the day. As it was in other days:
- Tournai Citizens Burying the Dead During the Black Death, 14th century
- Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa Gros 1804.
- Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu Edvard Munch 1919
Seems like every hundred years or so, an artist will rise to the occasion to commemorate their own existence as well as to wag a how-could-you-have-let-this-happen finger at the viewer.
… which ultimately is about all an artist can do…So, here are two attempts: “DyR” and “BZY”
(Ink and Digital Airbrush, on raw canvas.)
They seem to fit the theme.May we all be blessed. All best,
Norman Dolph
nedolph@aol.com
Susie Olczak
With my work, I aim to make people more aware of the spaces around them by framing the details that are often overlooked when moving through transitory spaces. For example, the way that light flickers in-between railings when you move past them. I focus on those points where there is a discrepancy between what we think we see and what we are actually seeing. I use architectural materials – neon, stone, glass, concrete and steel – combining these in my works to consider urban spaces as systems of balance, weight, and fragility. Recently I have begun combining materials found in the artist’s studio such as paint and silicone alongside printed media to create sculptures using layers of material. I layer and collage together to investigate our relationship with the built environment, how this is changing and how we are caught between altering states of flux and stability. I do this by creating works that are layers upon layers of print, precariously or imposingly balanced on one point, by using more fragile materials to prop up heavier masses, or by unusual combinations of materials such as the submersion of neon into water. My research is interested in the idea of adaptation. I consider the way we intuitively wrap, stack, tie and slot materials together around us and the way that nature creeps back into every part of urban space.
Margaret Pezalla-Granlund
Since the pandemic started, and I stopped going to work and my kids stopped going to school, or, really, anywhere else, I started making work about seeing from a distance — spatial distance, or across time, or through series of reproductions. Both of these images come from the circumstance of distance: the gouache painting on paper is from a photograph of a pile of photos of artwork that i photographed from a magazine viewed at the library. The photographic image is a (very rough) recreation of a reproduction of a photograph Brancusi made of his studio. I’m interested in how artists documented their work and shared it through reproduction and publication, and how this circulation continues, despite removes of time and space, and even in quarantine.
Website: www.mpezalla.com
Insta: mpezalla
Jane Wright
Covid19 has been a hazy, cloudy, wash of days. The monotony and lack of human interaction have broken and rebuilt my heart time and time again. It has felt never ending and dull at the worst of times and relaxing and healing at the best of them. I’ve felt waves of understanding as I’ve had to slow down and look at my life. For that I am grateful for this pandemic. But I can’t wait for it to be over. I would love to connect with you virtually and be reminded that I’m not alone in this fight. You can reach me on instagram at @creativejanewright or on my website at https://www.janewrightcreative.com/
Love to you.
*both works are 100% original, ink on paper, illustration art
David Levy
My studio has become my salvation and new best friend. I am a full time conceptual abstract. Before C19, I took my studio for granted. Now I report for duty at 6:30 and close up shop around 5P to jump on my elliptical (another aspect of salvation) and drift away with ideas and solving art issues.
We have all been re-shaped in some way having to deal with the need to hide away from the virus to preserve our lives. That is some very heavy stuff that none of us could have imagined just 6 months ago.
So fortunately as artists, we can express our fears, gratitude or just stay in the moment and think about and appreciate being an artist and having the luxury to make that such a big part of our lives.
The two paintings I submitted sum up two very specific sensations I dealt with during this terrible time. “Before Covid I Used To Sing In The Shower” is more of a wall hung sculpture depicting my shower. It reflects the experience which is now suspended and now seems to be a place where my fears and concerns for our world seems to overtake what was once my personal recording studio. I shot a short video of this work that really gets the point across.
The other painting(s) are simply representing the need for a simple game of dominos to help pass our time and forget for that moment.
My Instagram is davidlevyartist or my work can be seen at https://www.singulart.com/en/artist/david-levy-6807
