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Saturday 14 November 2020

 

 Covid-19 Art Exhibition

Day 1 Artists

Lily Abramhttps://lilyabram.co.uk       http://bookshelf.lilyabram.co.uk

An Expanding Bookshelf documents an archive of experiments exploring the use of the scanner as a generative, content-creating tool. An Expanding Bookshelf subverts the traditional relationship between books and scanners and uses my library to create new imagery and meaning rather than reproducing existing content.

An Expanding Bookshelf also acts as a self-portrait. Whilst being restricted to my home for longer than ever before, my books became an increasingly important part of my environment, allowing me a break from the constant interaction with screens. Words I have read before take on a new significance as I use my books to explore the new thoughts and feelings I’m experiencing during this crisis. My bookshelf and scanner became my tools to personally reflect on my experiences.

    An Expanding Bookshelf 1                  An Expanding Bookshelf 2            An Expanding Bookshelf 3

Kate Aries - https://katearies.wixsite.com/kate-aries-fine-art/lockdown-series

Inspired by these unprecedented times, with many of us physically isolated from friends and family, Kate has depicted imagery that represents a communal longing for touch and connection. Though Kate's work typically revolves around a personal female narrative, she has also tried to consider differing experiences and perspectives. The flowers are from her daily allowed walks at the start of lockdown, Kate was drawn to the comfort in the blooming spring flowers, juxtaposed to the general sense of fear and gloom. Through Pride the rainbow has come to stand for something hopeful and positive as well as now paying tribute to the medic personnel. The series features bright multi-coloured backgrounds in reference to this, as a documentation of this extraordinary time where now, more than ever, we need art to enhance our connections with others and mutual understanding in our differences.

Lockdown Series

Pam Armstrong 

This is my new, small series of simple comic book illustrative style work in response to my husband’s front line NHS job as a hospital maintenance electrician in this time of Covid 19. Each illustration shows a problem and resolve scenario in the hospital, with the character on the left needing a piece of electrical equipment repairing and the character on the right fixing it. This character on the right portrays my husband.

My husband’s job contributes to the health and well-being of our community by helping to keep systems running efficiently at the hospital. But with Covid 19, his NHS front line role has put him at great risk of catching the deadly virus and passing it on to me. In my illustrations, I’ve used stick figures to represent the staffs’ physical and emotional vulnerability of Covid 19. In retrospect, in the earlier scary months of the pandemic, he just got on with the job and he and myself did not think he was a hero, rather cynically, he needed to work to pay the bills, but he was nervous of Covid 19 and I was afraid. He was not bothered about receiving thank you gifts from the public or the weekly clap for NHS, merely to dodge the virus at work.

However, in creating this artwork, I can see he is appreciated. I’ve included the hearts, not for biological reasons, but as a notion of love and support. The light bulb features in each piece and is symbolically associated with light and darkness. The darkness is the shadow of Covid 19, whilst the light is optimism that one day the virus will be controlled, and we can say, “It’s fixed now”.


 
    It's Fixed Now 1                        It's Fixed Now 2                           It's Fixed Now 3


Lewis Andrews www.lewisandrewsartwork.com


The quarantined light series of photographs document moments where even when it seems that we’re all separated and isolated, we’re still connected to the delicate cycles of nature and the cosmos.

Every day, photons of light strike the earth. After traveling roughly 92,955,934 miles in just over 8 minutes from the surface of the sun, this new light streams down onto my front garden and through my windows and touches down on our walls, floors, plants or ourselves. Providing life-giving light and heat to nourish our souls and thoughts during a time of great uncertainty. We’re all connected to each other through these beams of light.

Through our dear sun, unaffected by the current situation playing out on our planet, we are still deeply connected to each other and nature. Re-establishing a deep connection which everyone in these times can feel at different points across the globe.


‘My friend less than a mile away can feel the same light and heat from the same sun’.


Ariel Chavarro Avila - www.arielchavarroavila@outlook.es

During this pandemic I have been working on a project called The Mona Lisa Project. Leonardo Da Vinci painted it in isolation because the Bubonic Plague and even after a stroke he kept creating it, sadly he died in Francis I king of France arms more than 500 years ago. La Gioconda has been in quarantine for long time and she has been wearing an invisible mask called security glass. I have been attracted and inspired by this master piece since I was a child and this is my tribute to Da Vinci and to Mona Lisa.


Who is looking at you?


Christian Alexander Bailey https://cabailey-art.com/

Covid has had such a blunt and violent effect on any number of our social and intellectual constructs. As if someone had thrown a brick at it all and then absconded leaving the mess for us all to deal with. Only to have more bricks thrown at the near tidied mess, while we are still trying to deal with it all.

Brick


Beth Barlowwww.bethbarlow.com

I asked people on social media to contribute a photo of themself in response to the theme "Covid Face". They were asked to send a photo which most expressed their face during covid. This face was from a friend who was home educating. Even as a teacher she was finding it a challenge sometimes. I asked her if it got better after this photo and she said "Yes It did, we adapted and learnt how to get along". As the photos came in I drew them in pencil. They were a mixed bag, some stoical but most funny or optimistic.


Covid Face Number 8 -Home Education



Jonathon Beaverwww.jonathonbeaver.com  www.instagram.com/jonnyxstitch/


During these uncertain times, we are all seeking protection, a barrier: a shield to keep us safe. A net curtain provides coverage, for a home, albeit ineffective for medical purposes but acts as unhealthy armour worn by 'curtain twitchers', to quarantine shame. As Liverpool enters new local lockdown measures and social media is rife with various opinions and blaming/shaming: I began thinking about the Stasi- the East German security services whose main task tasks was spying on the population, primarily through a vast network of citizens turned informants. Is this what we have come to: as humans, in 2020? Schild und Schwert der Partei.


Untitled (work under lockdown)



Darrell Urban Black, is an American visual artist presently living in Frankfurt, Germany. He works in a variety of formats that include Pen and Ink drawings acrylic paintings on canvas wood and Mixed media objects. His creative process is a mixture of works on paper, acrylic paint, found objects and non toxic hot glue which creates a three-dimensional effect on any surface that gives a sense of realism and presence in his artwork. Darrell, refers to this optical artistic illusion as “Definism” in his opinion, Definism, portrays various differences in human nature from life’s everyday dramas to humankind’s quest to under-standing self. “My artworks transport viewers from the doldrums of their daily reality to a visual interpretation of another reality.”


  

    Contact Zero             Self-Portrait in the Age of Coronavirus         The Virological Warrior


Paul Blenkhorn www.sensoryarthouse.com                                                
                            www.saatchiart.com/paulblenkhorn-digitalart

For many years Taxi Driver (1976) was my favourite film. The haunting music, the sense of isolation of Travis Bickle ... It echoed strongly with me at a time when I was living in a bed-sit in Birmingham in the mid 1970s. A similar isolation has been with us recently which resonated with my memories of that time. I am currently fortunate in that I am not isolated or lonely but am acutely aware that very many people are not so fortunate. This is a digital artwork that, in part, uses my neural style transfer system to manipulate images from the film.

          
                        You Lookin' At Me #3a                              You Lookin' At Me #4a


Daniele Bongiovannidanielebongiovanni.com

  
Exist (Omnia)                               Mood 1.2                              Mood 2.2

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