The Cyberscope Wizards present their latest work in video. Their works range from abstract animations to the political, “How to Love Your Enemy,” which expresses the torture felt by sensitive people forced to live under the present Bush regime.
Artwork created by members of the Illinois Art Therapy Association (IATA) explore the concept of art as action. These images expressed include art as social action, as an act of will/emotion, as an act of spiritual expression, as a gesture, as a political statement, kinesthetically, and as depicting movement and/or it’s illusion.
Nancy Bechtol’s new installation, “~streetwired~” is the joining of art and social issues, aiming to direct the viewer to think about things and people we discard/disregard in society and our daily lives. The installation juxtaposes a collection of discarded “street-found wires,” art, video, images/text and a live person, aStreetWise vendor. This installation also gives visitors and vendors a new way to see each other, bringing what is usually seen “outside” in an urban setting (or the streets) to the “inside”—a gallery presentation. A donation to the StreetWise Organization will be made from any art sales from this installation–their mission being “…to empower men and women who are homeless or at risk of being so, as they work towards gainful employment and self-sufficiency.”
These paintings move away from the more stylized expressionistic paintings of my last show, to ones that (while they still have a narrative quality and still locate a figure in some imagined emotional space) now employ aspects of portraiture and utilize real women (usually my daughters, sometimes a sister, or myself) as models. I think of these paintings as mostly fictional….culled memories, familiar people and objects—juxtaposed to create something compelling and separate from the model and her reality. But I like to imagine also that the images contain a “meta-reality”—an essential emotional truth that attaches, not just to the girl/woman of each painting, but to the small epiphanies of awareness that come sometimes when you really look at someone you love…the everyday muses in our lives.
Klairmont’s landscapes manifest the immediacy of nature’s variety in a perspective which is close and intimate, as a reminder of the surpassing value of each blade of grass, and the unimaginable treasure of the whole.
Inspired by Chicago landscape architect Jens Jensen’s effort to promote the inclusion of nature, he termed “breathing spaces,” in urban settings, Klairmont’s paintings depict many of Jensen’s architectural structures, incorporating his landscape designs of ravines parks and forest preserves.
In her paintings, Klairmont aims to preserve in paint one of the Midwest’s most beautiful yet fragile resources — ravines and bluffs of the North Shore in the continuously evolving cycle of nature, a cycle that with increased public support for preservation, will never have to end.
Emma Alexandra’s love of nature, local green spaces, and music inspire her poetry. Landscapes become her ‘musescapes.’
“This installation of art and poetry is focusing on preservation of our natural environment — the highest art form that feeds the body and soul.”
“I do not wish to make a statement at this time…”