pARTners, 2014, Stacks,Trader Joe's paper bags, acrylic, wood 18x18
pARTners, 2014, Portrait Against Lanscape2014, mixed media, 30x25
Look at the artwork and love the colors!
What were you expecting?
Trendiness?
Expressiveness?
Inklings?
I am an artist. What am I after?
Filling up the blanks in the puzzle handled me down by
society?You are a part of society; you already know the right answer.
Have I entered a contest with you as a jury?
Am I trying to please your taste presenting you with what
you already know and like?
I am an artist working with individuals with intellectual
disabilities.
I have worked out a few techniques that allow me to engage
my counterparts in the process of art making. These techniques are specifically
designed to absorb unpredictable outcomes on certain stages of overall processes
given that people with intellectual disabilities cannot follow the rules. These
techniques allow some predictable randomness, but I still get to lead the
processes towards the preconceived results. Meanwhile, I treat my partners in
the art-making with smiles and praises, but I don’t engage with them equally. Knowing
the answer to the puzzle beforehand, I am superior and regard them as objects
whose free will should be harnessed to fulfill my expectations. How do I get out of this predicament?
I am an artist, I repeat
An artist as in the receiver of inspirations from the unconscious
Seeking nothing but unknown
An artist as in the market creature
Seeking nothing but public approval
Pulled apart by perpetual dichotomy I turn for help to individuals with intellectual disabilities. Their mind is a mystery for me, and so is mine, when I am not grooming it according to the public expectations. This alone makes their company stimulating, and I am grateful for their intellect resisting advanced standardization.
Helpless in the face of perpetual dichotomy I turn for help to people who I lead. I think of the projects where my preconceptions don’t have to block the freedom of their will. I am creating a milieu for individuals with intellectual disabilities to engage in art activities, widely defined, on their authentic impulses and terms, and then follow easy participatory steps to assemble the traces of their involvement into art samples.
We want to avoid the conforming captivity of the market.
We want to initiate a new nonconformist commerce, the mutual exchange of visions, participation and personal identifications through sharing art processes and their results. It means inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in society and opening the doors for them to public discourse.
Look at the artwork and love the colors!
