Ellen C. Caldwell | ECLAIRE.me

Painter Ria Brodell has gained fame in the way they disrupt and update both the artistic cannon and history itself. In their painted series “Butch Heroes,” Brodell takes the form of traditional Catholic Holy cards depicting saints and martyrs, and instead paints “butch heroes” on a reinterpretation of the cards. Brodell highlights queer heroes from across the world and ages, showcasing and celebrating lesser-known, “butch” (female assigned, but masculine presenting) historical figures.

Given the current political climate in the U.S. and abroad, as well as this age of post-truths and alternative facts, Durant’s work is both appropriate and necessary. The Hammer Museum even recently put his famous piece, End White Supremacy, back on view because of its timely nature. I caught up with Durant to discuss his process, motivations, and upcoming plans.

Featuring prints from U.S. newspapers that quite physically depict the faces of the casualties of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Emily L. R. Adams ties in the medium of the motor oil as an underlying commentary on both the human cost of and monetary investment in war.

Taking items as mundane as daily desktop calendar pages, museum wall labels, and stickers, artist Alex Gingrow transforms them all into powerful agents with important social messages.

Tom Pazderka’s (NAP #117) work is quietly disturbing. His mixed media and wood installations have a haunting presence, suggesting isolated cabins in the woods, lone wolves, and ideas or dreams gone astray.

David E. Peterson takes industrial design as his inspiration and turns it into art for your wall. Moved by the bold colors, layout, and rhythms of storeroom floors and wall displays, Peterson set out to mimic and recreate those aesthetic triggers in his wall sculptures.

Skylar Fein combines text and paint to create powerful imagery on paper, aluminum, and wood. With a burst of dry verbal wit and starkly contrasted style, his works bite you subtlety and leave you thinking.

Kenny Cole is about one quarter of the way through creating a 450-panel series called “Flood.” His medium is gouache, paper, and verbiage, taken from both the Bible and the comments section from an online article. With humor and a keen intelligence, Cole’s work challenges viewers to consider the flood of imagery, verbose interactions, and daily struggles to find humanity in this growing digital age.

As many of us in creative fields know, artistic inspiration is always something of a process. As artists, we are constantly pursuing new creative styles, mediums, subjects, narratives, and voices. Through this process of searching for ourselves, we get used to the circle of finding our grounding, losing our footing, and continuously rebuilding our foundations.

Caroline Sharpless: I have always been interested in the built environment and its psychological implications. Where we live, where we have lived, where we want to live is so entwined in our “reality.” Architectural spaces shape the reality of events, the territory of our longings, the memories that we rely on. I look at my empty rooms as liminal spaces, pregnant with possibility, empty and full at the same time.