Contributors to the Review speak with artists about what they’re working on and thinking about, how their work has changed with the pandemic and uprising, and how they imagine and plan for the future.
September 19, 2020
Imogen Greenhalgh
Imogen Greenhalgh: Aspects of lockdown behaved a bit like art does, in that they altered our sense of time and our attention to what is right in front of us.
Chantal Joffe: I’ve been painting my own mum a lot during lockdown, pictures of her now and when she was young. I love thinking that all of that isn’t lost—her youth, us little. It’s still present. You can hold on to the person she was. When I was painting it, I was there, in the picture: it was electric, like time travel.
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August 19, 2020
Emily Raboteau
Emily Raboteau: Your signs put me in mind of what theologian Walter Brueggemann has said about prophetic language working like a pickaxe. A fearless truth-telling joined with fierce hope conveyed by disarming language to reframe the social realities confronting us so that we can see them from a different angle.
Chloë Bass: I haven’t had cause to use a pickaxe yet in my life—what does that say about me? Insufficient mining and ice-fishing, I guess—but I have considered language in other similar contexts: the scalpel, the hammer, the needle.
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May 30, 2020
Marisa Mazria Katz
Marisa Mazria Katz: Your paintings feel very experiential, almost like walking through a landscape. And so much of your imagery seems to have been derived from the traveling you do. Is there a sense that if that stops, so will the inspiration for your art?
Yevgeniya Baras: I have so much mining to do because of the many chapters I’ve already lived that I’m not worried about running out of material to build meaning from. And being an immigrant ends up being a blessing in this case because I speak two languages fluently. So I’m reading in two, I’m watching in two. I’m talking on Skype with friends in two. I have this larger world.
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