Covid Nation & Beyond Art Show at Sun River Health Foundation in Peekskill, NY (S3, E16)

Not As Crazy As You Think Podcast

In the episode "Covid Nation & Beyond Art Show at Sun River Health Foundation (S3, E16)", I wrap up Season 3 by first sharing why I've been absent from podcasting for a month, telling of some successes and changes in my life, and then I share the talk I gave at my latest art show at Sun River Health Foundation in Peekskill, NY. The following is my artist statement for my exhibit "Covid Nation & Beyond:"
I’ve always been a painter, but for over the last decade I centered my work on my face and bodypainting, making my main art medium bodypaint, which is actually colored makeup. Because the very therapeutic nature of how I created art brought me in close contact with people, when the Covid-19 crisis hit, this avenue of expression was annihilated due to social distancing. At the time, I was profoundly saddened by my loss, and I felt as though I was losing a special identity that I worked so hard at creating. But my art still needed to be expressed and the nation’s story recorded. I needed to switch gears and apply paint to something other than skin. So I rekindled my interest in painting on 2D surfaces, and since I had plenty of bodypaint hanging around, I started the series with gessoing some sign boards I had used for my face painting tent and slapped on the bodypaint. The medium is beautifully fluid and helps me keep my painterly and illustrative style sharp and drawing-like, very unlike acrylic paint. The result is a liquid makeup paint, which dries like sturdy pastel chalk.
This art exhibit titled “Covid Nation & Beyond” is a pop-art, heavily textured and stylized commentary about our world during the Covid pandemic covering various subjects inspired by 2020-2021, such as NY’s death numbers on the rise in April and May, the nation’s inability to work during lockdown, the mental health concerns related to quarantining and social distancing, the tension of opposites politically in response to the public health crisis, the PPE shortage, the airline industry bailout, and the attempted insurrection on the US Capitol, and the legalization of marijuana in NY.
#bipolarartist #manic #depression #covidnation #lockdown #quarantine2020 #ageofcovid #covidart #notascrazyasyouthink #mentalillness #mentalhealth #storytelling #PPE #insurrection2021 #frontlineworkers
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