b. 1976 Location: Poland
Pawel Kuczynski graduated Fine Arts Academy in Poznan has been rewarded with more than 140 prizes and distinctions creating thought-provoking illustrations that comment on social, economic, and political issues through satire.
Location: U.S.
“I wanted to let my forebears know — as I recalled those Armenians whose tongues and teeth were torn out and feet cut off — that we, the grandchildren of survivors, mindfully use our tongues to speak our native language, our voices to sing the folk songs of our elders, and our feet to perform the dances of our native villages.” – Lucine Kasbarian from her interview with Artists at War
Lucine Kasbarian is a second generation-born American-Armenian descendant of Armenian Genocide survivors. She was brought up in an Armenian-speaking home where humor, politics and the arts shared equal stage.
Lucine first began drawing political cartoons in response to the assassination of Armenian journalist and free-speech advocate Hrant Dink by a Turkish ultra-nationalist and as a way to constructively express her concerns about social injustice and réalpolitik.
As a cartoonist, Lucine’s intention is to spotlight realities and hypocrisies that do not receive adequate coverage in mainstream media; to see her work appear in media outlets that reflect the traditions of a truly free press; and to drive the points home in absurdist, paradoxical ways by drawing from history, popular culture and personal experience.
Lucine’s speach at the 50th Anniversary of Hamazkayin Educational and Cultural Society, NY Chapter (please advance to 33:52 if video doesn’t automatically do so):
Other Armenian Genocide resources:
Location: San Francisco, U.S.
Mark Harris is a mixed media artist who combines his passions for social justice, activism and art making to create a unique visual vocabulary that he uses to engage his audience on some of the most critical issues facing society today. He has expanded his practice to include mentoring at-risk youth through art education programs. Harris is currently teaching youth at the Beacon Center, the African American Art & Culture Complex and is also working with the ArtSpan Youth Open Studios program as an Artist Mentor for youth artists in San Francisco.
“My artwork expresses the real visceral outrage that a lot of African Americans have about the violence we’re still subjected to in the 21st century. For centuries, we have been told not to speak out about it. You don’t have to like it. It’s not only my history. This is American history.” – Mark Harris
What better place to have this dialog begin than with high school students, right? Administrators at East Side Union High School in San Francisco disagree…
Bay Area Artist Says His Black History Art Exhibit is being Censored:
Artists on San Francisco’s gentrification problem…
Uprooted: Artists respond to San Francisco’s Black Exodus:
Location: Brooklyn, U.S.
Patricia Watwood combines classical figures with a contemporary, dystopian urban landscape.
“I use narrative structures like symbols and myth to explore meaning in our common experience and to evoke a spiritual presence. My work prioritizes aesthetic principles, technical rigor, craft, perception and design. My principle subject is the sacred feminine, which for me is an enduring vessel for the exploration of the human condition.
There’s a new concept in ecology called “The Great Turning.” It’s an idea that our whole society is a the beginning of a paradigm shift away from late model capitalism to a sustainable culture that can live in balance with the planet. I’m very inspired by this concept, and want in my own way to contribute to it through art. I want to create a body of work that expresses both my feeling of vulnerability to our current world of change, and also points toward the human potential for hope and transformation.” – Patricia Watwood
Kenneth explores the nature of digital communication while touching on issues such as identity, politics, sexuality and power. Kenneth’s interactive animations are best viewed through his website.
Jan Monstaert c.1535
From Rijksmuseum:
“Painted almost 40 years after the discovery of ‘America’ (by Columbus in 1492), this work of art was one of the earliest attempts by an artist to give an impression of the new continent. One striking detail is that the procession of indigenous people is depicted completely naked. There is fairly conclusive evidence that the indigenous people did not live naked at all, but that Mostaert portrayed them as such to contrast the violent Spaniards and the peaceful, heavenly landscape with its ‘unadulterated’ inhabitants. The landscape was drawn entirely from the artist’s imagination, but to convey its exotic location, Mostaert added some local details (animals and birds).”
b. 1950 location: U.S. – California
Mark Bryan is a social satirist and subconscious explorer using oil paint.
“I believe all of us have endless landscapes to explore within ourselves. Probably artists are more inclined to go to these places and remember what they see. We take our sketchbooks with us and bring back pictures to show our friends. Hopefully these pictures say something about all of us.
Despite our imperfections and all the trouble we cause ourselves I still have affection and hope for our species. At times I try to overcome my cynical tendencies and create work that explores the positive and mysterious aspects of the human experience.” – Mark Bryan
b.1915 – d.2012 Location: America, Mexico
“Her work revolved around themes such as social injustice, the human condition, historical figures, women and the relationship between mother and child.
Much of her career was spent teaching, as her original intention was to be an art teacher. After receiving her undergraduate degree, her first teaching position was in the Durham, NC school system. However she became very dissatisfied with the fact that black teachers were paid less and, she participated in an unsuccessful campaign, along with Thurgood Marshall, to gain equal pay.[8] After graduate school, she accepted a position at Dillard University in New Orleans in the 1940s. There she arranged a special trip to the Delgado Museum of Art to see the Picassoexhibit. As the museum was closed to blacks at the time, the group went on a day it was closed to the public.[2] She eventually went on to chair the art department.”[5] -Wikipedia
Location: France
Illustrator and video designer using 100% free and open-source software on Linux since 2009
Born: 1974 Location: Spain
Integrating contemporary art with the conservation of marine life and exploring the impact humans have had on the planet’s ecosystems.
“Over the last 20 years, our generation has encountered rapid change; technologically, culturally and geographically. I feel this has left us with an underlying sense of loss. My work tries to record some of those moments.”
“Taylor’s sculptures change over time with the effects of their environment. These factors create a living aspect to the works, which would be impossible to reproduce artificially. As time passes and the works develop biological growth, they redefine the underwater landscape, evolving within the narrative of nature.
Taylor’s strategy of conserving reefs, opposes the “land as commodity” mentality of Capitalism. His creation of underwater sculpture parks attracts tourists away from natural reefs, allowing them to recover, and taps into tourism revenue, showing how activists might be able to use the system’s rapacious tendencies against itself.”
– Jim Buxton
Jason’s Ted Talk:
Museo Subaquatico de Arte:
b. 1929 d. 2006 Location: U.S.
Leonard Freed captured images of a segregated and racially-entrenched society.
“I wanted to force the viewer to make an active decision whether to approach photographs as subject matter or design. By confronting totally unexpected subject matter, presented as well done graphics, the viewer is shocked out of the usual passivity. ” – Leonard Freed, Village Voice, March 16, 1972.
b. 1982 Location: Brooklyn, US
Capturing shifting landscapes due to climate change using the medium of soft pastel on paper.
“I find it important with my art to represent the beauty in the landscape because I think that helps people fall in love with it more easily, but my challenge is to try to find that balance between the beauty of the landscape but also representing the negative aspects of what’s happening.”
On her Maldives series:
“Continuing the story of polar melt, which is the main cause of rising seas, I followed the meltwater from the Arctic to the equator. I spent September 2013 in the Maldives, the lowest and flattest country in the world, collecting material and inspiration to create a body of work celebrating and representing a nation that could be entirely underwater within this century.
During our month on the islands, we shared the concept of our project with children on the islands, inviting them to document their homeland as it transforms throughout their lives. The children can use their creativity to continue spreading awareness while inwardly processing the ecological transformations surrounding them.
I hope my drawings will raise awareness and invite viewers to share the urgency of the Maldivians’ predicament in a productive and hopeful way.”
b. 1975 Location: Paris, France
“It’s all about human expression, the movement of their bodies representing the struggle for individuality in social power politics.”
“I like to compare my paintings with how governments work. With the end of the American dynasty for example. One personage will fall for sure, but because of it’s selfishness and violence, it will push others to fall down with it. I want to provoke a reflection about this selfishness in human behavior. ”
“My confrontation is not a speaking confrontation, it’s inside my art. You have to fight some times – it is not my way of thinking, but sometimes if you want to be respected, you need to fight.”
-Shaka (from interview with Fernanda Hinke)
The Making of Onde De Choc by Sébastien Desmedt
location: Las Vegas, U.S.
“If a picture says 1,000 words, its potency for change is surely 1,000 times stronger. The power of the visual is compelling as well as highly ambiguous and is a potent catalyst for encouraging self-directed critical thought. Recycled Propaganda aims to subvert the black and white – fear and fact based rhetoric that we are so frequently plagued with, into a more colorful, complex and equivocal one that more accurately reflects reality. Life is confusing, complex and uncertain, to reduce these nuances to the lowest denominator is to reject our humanity and dilute it’s beauty.”
“Addie Wagenknecht is an American artist based in Austria, whose work explores the tension between expression and technology. She seeks to blend conceptual work with traditional forms of hacking and sculpture.”
b. 1983 Location: U.S.
Molly Crabapple, called “An emblem of the way art can break out of the gilded gallery” by the New Republic, she has drawn in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Dhabi’s migrant labor camps, and with rebels in Syria.
Location: Dubai (Syrian)
Syrian Artist, Tammam Azzam creates visual composites of the conflict that communicate the magnitude of devastation experienced across his native country.
Location: U.S.
“English coined the term POPaganda to describe his signature mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones, from superhero mythology to totems of art history, populated with his vast and constantly growing arsenal of original characters, including MC Supersized, the obese fast-food mascot featured in the hit movie ‘Supersize Me,’ and Abraham Obama, the fusion of America’s 16th and 44th Presidents, an image widely discussed in the media as directly impacting the 2008 election.”
Location: U.S.
D’Antuono’s provocative takes on racism, class warfare, the environment, corporate influence and other hot-button issues have made him the object of censorship and derision by those who want to protect the status-quo. Yet he continues to make art that speaks truth to power, perpetuating the historic role of the artist to spark social change.
b. 1942 Location:U.S.
“America will never change until there is a revolution in the Media”
“When activist photography appeared on the scene in the early 1960’s we assumed that a revolution was at hand. Here was a medium that was realistic, easily artistic, and democratically available to anyone that could afford the one dollar cost of a roll of bulk loaded Tri-X. The marriage of the B&W photograph with the offset printing press was a marriage made in heaven; for the realistic picture could be reproduced and available to thousands for a reasonable amount of cash. This happy marriage should have spawned dozens of picture magazines helping to radicalize America and putting the power of the press into thousands of individual hands. This did not happen. Instead the explosion of interest in photography spurned few magazines, but hundreds of art galleries instead. Today, galleries, not magazines, have become the major venue for exhibiting pictures. Photography itself has been distorted and changed from what it should have been, into many things it was never meant to be. Photography works best when it does what it is uniquely qualified to do as a medium: reproduce the real world.”
“The point is to replace the rotten, hysterical, fear and greed driven myths that have so much power, with our own myths. The good myths. The myths that are made out of courage, not out of fear. The myths we believe in: Truth, Justice, and the Beauty of this, our Mother Earth.”
-Danny Lyon
Danny Lyon’s Conversations With The Dead
Video of Danny Lyon in conversation with Julian Bond about their involvement in the early civil rights movement:
