Artist spotlight: Anne Drew Potter

You may learn about this artist by clicking on the link to her website:

Artist website

Artist statement: “Despite a dim awareness of our own subjectivity, the individual reality that belongs to each of us is experienced as concrete and self-evident. I am interested in the moment when the self-evidence of our own experiences is challenged by confrontation with the other, the infinity of realities that exist outside of our own. I attempt to make performative objects that address the ways in which social meaning is projected onto the forms of the body. I manipulate anatomical signifiers of gender, race, age, and other identity characteristics to encourage viewers to confront their feelings about normalcy, difference, and what defines human. By creating a tension between the intellectual reality of the static object and the emotional drama of exaggerated expressions I hope to imply the self-consciousness and artifice that are present both in formal theatre/cinema and in our everyday projections of our selves”.

Artist spotlight: Kate MacDowell

An excerpt from the artist statement from the  artist’s website: 

“In my work this romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment.  These pieces are in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops.  They also borrow from myth, art history, figures of speech and other cultural touchstones.  In some pieces aspects of the human figure stand-in for ourselves and act out sometimes harrowing, sometimes humorous transformations which illustrate our current relationship with the natural world.  In others, animals take on anthropomorphic qualities when they are given safety equipment to attempt to protect them from man-made environmental threats.  In each case the union between man and nature is shown to be one of friction and discomfort with the disturbing implication that we too are vulnerable to being victimized by our destructive practice”

(All artwork copyright of Kate MacDowell).

Please visit her website to learn more about her and the work.

Artist spotlight: Herakut

“The German artists Hera and Akut, both with roots in the graffiti scene, joined forces in 2004 and began creating collaborative work under the name of Herakut. The duo has shown around the world, including in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, London, and Bristol. They have published two books, The Perfect Merge published in 2009 and 2011’s After the Laughter, to great success.

Herakut’s paintings are sensuous, savage, and always remarkable for their powerful dualism. Akut’s photorealistic details play out against Hera’s expressive, more gestural, line-work in canvases that seem poised to articulate stories of triumph and hardship. Humor and text are weaved their way into the work effortlessly. …”

Jennifer Goff on Herakut; press release excerpt from “Don´t Look At Me” solo show at Shooting Gallery, San Francisco, November 2013

Here is a link to a video showing the duo working on the street.