THE RIGHT TO VOTE
100 years of Women’s Suffrage – A Worldwide Pandemic –
Social Justice – the 2020 Election
Beginning on September 29th, GARNER Arts Center will present a series of virtual exhibitions and artist talks. Join us as we careen through the ongoing pandemic toward the presidential election on November 3rd with these artists’ search for the heart and soul of our American Democracy.
A new exhibition will open every Tuesday.
This exhibition series is presented in partnership with SuffrageForward.
This Week’s Featured Artist: Ed Kirkland
A Look Back
Works by Ed Kirkland
The short montage above gives us a portrait of the artist and a closer look at the individual works.
This exhibition is presented in loving memory of our friend Ed Kirkland.
Artworks courtesy of the Kirkland Family.
All works are untitled.
Artist Statement:
“My paintings are conversations. The images state a position or a feeling that I define with color, shades, and shadows. Sometimes I use a single focal point, other times I employ multiple images. Recently, I’ve added words and phrases to ignite a call and response between me and the viewer.” – Ed Kirkland
Curator’s Statement:
“Ed Kirkland was not a famous artist, but he was nonetheless a great artist. In his work, he often spoke about racial injustice in America. He spoke from personal experience. He spoke honestly. He spoke from his heart. As a curator I was always excited to see his newest paintings. He is a friend that will be missed.”
James Tyler, Curatorial Director, GARNER Arts Center
This documentary film about GARNER (formerly GAGA) Arts Center, outsider art and other Rockland County arts enclaves was produced in 2007 by Cherie Raglin and features Ed Kirkland and other local artists.
Remembering Hillary A series by Cristina Biaggi
Artist Statement:
During my 50 or so years as an artist, I have gone through several different periods of art creating. In the early eighties I took part in actions and protests at Seneca Falls, Greenham Common (in England) and Comiso (in Italy). As a result of these actions, I created several significant works including two large collages – CUTTING THE RED TAPE (which is now in an exhibition at Smack Mellon in Dumbo, Brooklyn and THE WEB which is on exhibit at ROCA.)
Cutting the Red Tape is a very large triptych (10 feet by 7 Feet). The contents consist of women’s protest actions, protests and marches beginning with the suffragists in the early 20th century and continuing through the actions of the eighties. Images from women’s movements all over the world are represented: The Abolitionists, the Suffragists, the Civil Rights movements, the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, feminist movements in Europe and the US for abortion rights and the E.R.A.
The culmination of this period of actions demonstrations and creation of pieces expressing this period is THE WEB. This is a double sided black and white collage on cloth consisting of 15 panels connected with red ropes – our collective blood; it is 45 feet in diameter and is like a large mandala. The content of the piece consists of women’s movements throughout the ages and throughout the world. In the center is the Great Goddess, who started it all – on one side she is black and on the other she is white.
All of the other pieces I am displaying in this virtual exhibition are the precursors of these two major pieces or relate to them in one way or another. 52% is my response to my attendance of the 3rd Women’s World Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, where most of the participants were black delegates from various African nations, some there (especially the South African delegates/activists) participating at the cost of their lives.
I created the Hillary collages during the presidential campaign of 2008 when Hillary ran against Obama and then in 2016 when she ran against Trump. I, as well as countless other women of my generation and younger, were wildly dedicated to making sure that Hillary became the first WOMAN president of the United States. We had lived through the fifties when gender bias was acute, we fought for the second wave of feminism, the sexual revolution, the final defeat of the ERA and other innumerable contests. We wanted to finally be validated by electing, for the first time in the history of our country, a WOMAN president. I vigorously campaigned for this and was totally committed to it.
These collages are meant to have an order in their trajectory to show that Hillary had been involved in a feat akin to climbing Mount Everest, swimming 100 miles while dealing with extreme expressions of misogyny, or running a super marathon. Her energy and perseverance were legendary, her dedication to duty was beyond compare and she was totally ready to be the first woman commander in chief.
Let us hope and pray that the election of 2020 will re-establish some normal times in this abnormal time. It is ABSOLUTELY IMPORTANT TO VOTE like never before.
Visit: http://cristinabiaggi.com/
Living Blue in a Red State A series by Aubrey Roemer
Artist Statement:
The series Living Blue in a Red State reflects artist Aubrey Roemer’s one year tenure of living, working, and traveling throughout the American South, after a lifetime as a Yankee. Roemer relocated to Tennessee to pursue her doctorate in Anthropology, focusing on the archaeology of prehistoric cave art in the Southeast. The intersection of art and science is apparent in this work: it documents trash and dying foliage that decorates a family lawn in Florida. This generational detritus is largely agricultural: pitchforks, hoe heads, antique Coke bottles, palms, etc. These modern-day relics and future artifacts were immortalized into a world that is symbolic of the socio-political discord and economic division currently ravaging the fabric of the United States of America. The images are hysterical in their color and constrained in their tightly stitched borders, effectively creating a quilted altarpiece of American chaos: rampant wildfires, protests, riots, a new plague, and contemporary demagoguery abound.
Living Blue in a Red State is a collection of cyanotypes that are painted with ink and pure pigment then embroidered. Roemer is drawing directly from Anna Atkins, famed cyanotype artist and botanist, but choosing to focus on detritus and ground finds rather than only foliage. The prints are then painted into a technicolor world, paying homage to the women who colored black and white film, before color photography was invented. Roemer is looking to cautionary colors—those that repel and attract—the neons and hues of hunting, construction palettes, seductive markings in nature, the toxic sublime of wildfires and explosions. The quilting of the images serves to encase them into frames, serving as borders and boundaries, isolating each object as if it is an individual level in an archaeological dig. The act of puncturing the paper repeatedly serves as a small violence, warping and beautifying the work at the same time.
Artist, Aubrey Roemer takes us on a virtual tour of her studio in Tennessee to discuss this exhibition, Living Blue in a Red State.
Women Are All The Thing a Video montage by Susan Stava
Artist Statement:
In celebration of 100 years since women won the right to vote, NYC based photographer Susan Stava, presents a video montage focusing on women finding understanding, awareness, action and change. As she hones her voice visually – she witnesses the inner beauty, strength and light of women.