Contemporary Art

Bryan Charnley's 17 Self Portrait Series TW: Suicide  Bryan Charnley was a British artist who suffered from paranoid Schizophrenia who created surrealist artworks up until his eventual suicide. The most notable of his works that are more often spoken about are his 17 final self portraits, meant to accompany diary entries that would explain the imagery. A video about it can be found here in  The Disturbing Final Self Portraits of Bryan Charnley His very first painting was a simple self portrait, nothing too notable. It would be the beginning of an eventual decline in his mental health.  Portrait 1 Self Portrait Series 19th July 1991 "Conventional portrait painted in two sittings. Is it a good likeness? Drug dosage was two 3 mg. tablets of Depixol daily plus two 25 mg. Tryptisol. I was sleeping a lot. 11th to 16th April 1991." For this painting, there isn't too much to note. It was just a simple self portrait and a note of how much medication he had been taking at the t

 Sara Garzón specializes in modern and contemporary Latin American art, specifically focusing on issues that consist of decoloniality, temporality, and ingenious ecocriticism. Alan Poma is a sound artist who has worked on site-specific projects, and Kiyo Gutiérrez is a Mexican performance artist and Historian whose work explores issues affecting society.  One of Poma's musical works,  Dancing Across Stars , is a video depicting how the Incas, Aztecs, and Maya were able to gain astronomical knowledge from the stars to predict natural phenomena without having all of the fancy technology of telescopes and other scientific equipment.  Gutiérrez work Afloat had the aim to show the notion of adaptability in terms of climate change, which is still a problem that we are facing today. The work was performed in an area in the Pacific Ocean where there is a lot of plastic floating around. After she cleaned the beach, she made a sort of costume using the plastic she had collected and used that

 People's kitchen's collective is a political project based in Oakland founded by  co-founders Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, Jocelyn Jackson, and Saqib Keval. This project implements art, food, and activism in its practice, somewhere in the center of the three , not quite belonging in just one of them. This project is about the experiences of people of color. People's Kitchen Collective believes in radical hospitality. The recipes they use belonged to their elders and ancestors, to which they passed down and share with the community. They say that their recipes dismantle white supremacy, the rules at the dinner table being justice, equity, and overall freedom. Everyone deserves to be free, no matter the color of their skin and no matter their ethnic background. Everyone deserves to be treated equally.   I think it is a very cool event that I would love to participate in one day! 

 Dave Thomas is a storyboard artist who has worked on shows such as El Tigre, The Fairly Odd Parents, Wander Over Yonder and more. Warner Bros cartoons had inspired him to become interested in animation. His big break was when he got an internship for Pixar, the start of his career. He has come across obstacles in his career of animation and story boarding, but he has never let that bring him down. Instead, he asks himself or those who are on another level how he could get better, and he makes sure that he makes those necessary changes for improvement. I believe a mindset like that is truly inspiring. A strong mindset to be able to improve what you can change, and to listen to criticism and take it into consideration. I've actually watched a few of the shows he's worked on myself, especially El Tigre and the Fairly Odd Parents. El Tigre was one of my favorite cartoons growing up, and to hear someone who has worked on it speak about their career is extra cool to me.

  Chelsea Thompto is a transdisciplinary artist and educator. Her artwork is heavily revolved around her life as a transgender woman, working with a variety of media that includes video, computer code, digital fabrication, writing, photography, printmaking, and even bookbinding.  One project she is currently working on is an artist book series called Transaction , which will contain the works of contemporary trans artists, scholars, and activists. The mission of this book series is is to provide a platform for trans experience. Landmarks, 2021 (Ongoing) One of her artworks that she's done in the past is called Landmarks , which shows the ways artificial intelligence (AI) misgenders trans bodies due to the facial recognition. As technology becomes more prevalent in our daily lives, it is important for something like an AI to be able to recognize transgender bodies and recognize them as they're supposed to, and not misgender them.  Her entire video portfolio of her artworks can b

 Surrealism was a 20th-century movement that looked to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, resulting in very weird and bizarre imagery. It developed in the aftermath of World War I in Europe and has been around even in modern times ever since. Surrealism has even been linked to a famous murder dubbed the Black Dahlia, sparking much speculation and conspiracies about this mystery that still is unsolved to this day. Elizabeth Short Considering some surrealist artists fascination with the art of crime, surrealism art has been linked to the infamous Black Dahlia murder. The Black Dahlia was the murder of a woman named Elizabeth Short on January 15, 1947, whose corpse was mutilated and severed at the waist to be left in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. The murder was said to have been inspired by some of Man Ray’s pieces of surrealist art including the Minotaur and Observatory Time: The Lovers . Minotaur, Man Ray, Date: 1934 Observatory Time: The Lovers, 19