Engage Art | Artist to Artist, In the Know, Reflection & Growth | September 23, 2021
In our “Art Appreciation for Everybody” series, we consider ways to look closer at artworks we may not fully grasp at first. We are not art historians—but we are longtime art appreciators who have spent many years engaging art both personally and professionally. In our last installment, we discussed Jared Boechler’s Soft Sounds and explored the hidden richness and layers of mystery in artworks that may look “obvious” at first. Today we want to take a closer look at a collage, part of a collection of collages created by artist Kathy Bruce during the pandemic. As always, before we dive in, spend some time considering Kathy Bruce’s Conquering the Darkness, a Visual Art Finalist in the 2020 Engage Art Contest. Ask some preliminary questions, like: Conquering the Darkness is a collage that appears to be created from magazine clippings. The centered image constructed from all those various clips is a mysterious human figure. The man is stepping out of a field of stars to walk on water. His upper body is distorted and contorted, head back, eyes closed, hands raised, perhaps in surrender, fear, or warning. Upright but flailing against the dark background, his shadow appears against a bold slash of red in an otherwise muted color palette. The location is off-kilter, the trees askew, like we’re looking at a scene in a movie and the director wants us to understand that something is wrong here. In this article, we’ll look more closely at Conquering the Darkness through the following lenses: Kathy Bruce begins her artist statement by saying that Conquering Darkness “is about HOPE and the human spirit surviving the isolation, fear, and distancing we are all living with as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.” The COVID-19 pandemic has touched every corner of the world. We can all too easily remember the unprecedented “isolation, fear, and distancing” that started coloring our world in the 2nd quarter of 2020 and have been present in differing amounts ever since. However, Kathy is taking a rare global universal experience, not flinching at the challenges it brings, and reframing the event as an opportunity for “resilience of the human spirit.” So, first of all, bravo, and thank you for sharing your optimism with the rest of us! With Conquering Darkness, Kathy lands squarely in the camp of artists who respond to the realities of their times with politically and socially engaged art. Often this type of art is created in collaboration with the audience, or it seeks to influence behavior or policy. This work is seems to be trying, instead, to evoke a personal feeling—of being off balance and out of sorts—that is also a fairly universal feeling during this time. The overriding characteristic of this art genre is that it can only be understood if you also understand the context it was created in. Most graffiti and street artists today create art that is politically and socially engaged. Artists may choose to generate work from a particular point of view (even one they don’t hold) as protest or as satire. Sometimes art is used as propaganda, as well. Here are some historical examples of artists who worked, at least some of the time, in this vein: Kathy’s choice to create artwork in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic holds space for her viewers, who share her context, to reflect on their unique moment in history. Her description of this work infers that she wants to encourage thought, conversation, and healing. We need to consider the significance of isolation to understand this artwork. Kathy works in the US, where many nonessential businesses were closed for months, and people were earnestly discouraged from leaving home. We all have probably experienced some degree of this unnatural isolation in the recent past. We all know that the COVID-19 pandemic has also created a time of significant insecurity—job insecurity, food insecurity, and not finding goods that are typically readily available. Kathy has been working in collage, among other media, for decades, but I wonder if the sense of not knowing what was going to happen next, what could be afforded, or what would be available influenced her choice to use collage so extensively during this time? In any case, collage is an excellent example of how you can make fine art with whatever materials are at hand. The artist working alone—whether by choice or circumstance—is a time-honored trope. But why? There are, of course, many artists who have worked alone and uninterrupted for many reasons. Some examples: Many artists experienced a burst of inspired creativity in 2020. From YouTube to Taylor Swift’s recording studio, artists were drawn to create during this enforced pause from daily life. About a year before this artwork was created, a blog on SkillShare investigated the value of solitude for artists. The conclusion—that “alone art time can boost creativity and efficiency” will sound familiar to those who hang out in the Engage Art space. We agree with the author that engaging art, much like engaging Scripture, requires “time for introspection and reflection.” This collage is one in a collection. Kathy writes, “Since February 2020, I have been sheltering-in-place working on collages as a response to the pandemic. Conquering Darkness is one of 60 collages I have made over this time period.” There is a long history of artists working in series or collections. It is an excellent way to gain skill or experiment with a technique or medium, explore one subject (think of Van Gogh’s sunflowers and Monet’s water lilies), or underline that a collection of things are the same in some way. Any aspect of art can characterize a series. For visual art, think of color, texture, line, edges, subject, emotions, media, genre, etc. On stage or screen, consider prequels, sequels, and work that fleshes out a minor character. Musicians will sometimes weave the same (or a similar) musical phrase into multiple songs to reference a character or feeling. This is called a lietmotif. German composer Richard Wagner used lietmotif to build the stories in his operas—introducing them with characters or during emotional moments and then referencing them later to help the audience remember and connect the dots. Other composers followed suit. Can we count an opera—a musical with no dialog, only songs—as a series of sorts? A well known contemporary example of lietmotif is the music for the Star Wars movies by John Williams. The “Luke Skywalker” music lets you know when the good guys are going to save the day, and you can count on your ears to know when Han, Leia, Anakin, Obi-Wan, or many other characters (or the things they value or represent) are on the scene. When artists work in series, they have the time and space to consider a subject more deeply and reveal connections that otherwise might not be evident. As we’ve said before, “who you really are always comes through in your artwork.” Often, a story or progression shows up, whether the artist put it there on purpose or not. In this case, we only have this one image—Conquering Darkness—to consider, so we don’t know the stories that come out of Kathy’s collection of collages from COVID (but that alliteration would make a good title if she ever exhibits them together!). How does this artwork change for you as you consider the artist creating in solitude, exploring her subject over an extended series? Does it cast any new light on the nuances of her artistic choices to know this is a “snapshot” in an “album” of 60 images? Can you relate to ruminating on circumstances you can’t control, exploring many variations on the theme? Many of us explored collage at a very young age, affixing macaroni, dried beans, buttons, and pieces of cloth or paper onto a piece of cardboard. The result may have hung on the family refrigerator until the bond gave way. However, collage (from the French word to glue) is an ancient genre of fine art, tracing its roots back to at least 10th-century Japanese calligraphers who would piece together fabrics and papers and then write on them. By the 1700s, decoupage (“to cut out” in French) was trendy among upper-crust European women who made useful flat objects (screens, a board to hide the fireplace opening in the summer, etc.) more pleasing with the technique. Cubists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso brought collage into the fine art realm by including pre-printed paper—from newspaper to wallpaper—into fine art paintings, shocking themselves at their audacity. This subversive act shifted the art world on its axis. It was the beginning of an era where the reigning questions included: Collage became part of the artistic language for a series of art movements: Several specific types of art fall under the collage category, depending on what materials are used, including: Collage has been a popular means of exploring biases and assumptions through art. The mass-produced materials artists have used in collages were mostly of their specific time and place, which infuses collages with the social and political conversations happening then and there. Part of the power of collage stems from humankind’s desire to find relationships and meaning in everything. How does Kathy’s medium, collage, contribute to the overall impact of her artwork? How might topics that are historically connected with collage—engaging with what is culturally relevant, questioning cultural norms, naming the absurdity in the world—add layers to Conquering Darkness? We discussed symbolism at some length in our analysis of Soft Sounds—including a look at the history of symbolism in general, and symbolism in Christian religious art more particularly—and that information is relevant for this piece, as well. To review, Symbolist art: Symbols in Conquering Darkness Kathy writes about how her collaged “spiritual warrior” displays “resilience” by “surviving against evil” while being buffeted by “invisible blind forces behind the deadly Coronavirus.” She labels him a “spiritual survivor.” From that introduction, the symbolism here may include: How much do you think Kathy is using personal symbolism? Why is the natural world depicted skewed from its typical orientation? Why would she create a “spiritual warrior” as such a fragile creature? Where is your eye drawn first in this composition? Are there aspects of the design that lead you from one element to the next? Does it change your perspective about the work when you look at individual elements—both the shapes of the cut paper and what is on them—instead of the entire composition? What might be implied in this diagonal composition? The spiritual world vs. the natural one? Our thoughts vs. our choices? What do you think? Kathy Bruce is a sculptor and collage artist from Ithaca, New York, who holds an MFA from Yale, a certificate from The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and was awarded two Fulbrights (three decades apart!), among other accolades. She has exhibited around the world. You can explore more of her artwork at her website, www.kathybruceartist.com. There is so much going on in this image that I am confident I am not doing it justice in this analysis—which has been more about questions than answers. I hope my thoughts can lead you to ask questions that will give you a better appreciation for collage art and this specific piece. What have you learned by looking at this artwork that you will take with you as you experience art in the future? Conquering the Darkness is the third installation in our Art Appreciation for Everybody series. If you want to read more, check out part 1 to look at Neo-Expressionism and Conceptualism and part 2 for a discussion on Trompe L’Oeil and Symbolism. We hope you’ll join us the next time we evaluate a piece from Engage Art’s Gallery. In the meantime, we encourage you to find works you would like to consider for yourself—and do it! Assessing other people’s work is a wonderful way to exercise your art thinking skills, expand your ability to enjoy more types of art, get your creative juices flowing, and bring new ideas into your art practice, art appreciation, and life. In any case, we hope you will continue to explore new types of creativity as you Engage Culture, Engage Scripture, and Engage Art. Teresa Cochran has been involved in various arts since she was 3. As an adult, she has been immersed in visual, literary, and performing arts for decades, over time developing a professional focus on public art, public participation, public space planning, and facilitating juries to choose artists and art. She’s also mother to two artists and wife to another, a permaculturist, 4-H leader, practiced chef for special diets, and a proponent of arts-integrated, Montessori, and International Baccalaureate education. Teresa is the Contest and Content Director at Engage Art and has been with the contest since its inception.Personal Context
Current Events—the COVID-19 Pandemic
Working in Isolation
Working in series
Art Genres, Styles & Techniques Referenced
Collage
Symbolism
Color Theory & Composition
The Artist
Conclusion