A website named after a person. Strange notion, don't you think? Presumably you have come here to look at 'art' this person had made. Perhaps you may think it 'good', or perhaps 'bad'. Godwin, person in question, had graduated from working on getting to having gotten a BA fine arts degree at Lasalle College of the Arts. This somehow qualifies him to be and call himself a professional artist. Yeah, whatever that means. Artists, who do they think they are? Who do we think we are? Why is any of this worth your attention? Why do you want to look at art? What should it look like? Where is it found, even?
Of course there are questions, and therein lies complexity. Any attempt at explaining carries with it an ironic burden of futility; do I want to open that can of worms? But this is here because even as I hesitate to produce an all-encompassing artist statement, I wish not to be misrepresented. Work - this 'art' which was made - could simply be a matter of necessity. We all have our own questions that need asking, and I suppose when we speak of art and the artist, these are the most pertinent lines of inquiry for me. Just how much and how should you promote yourself, if at all, given your opposition to what the globalised market art world stands for? How are you to carry idealism as personal convictions come at odds to social and political realities? Can you remain autonomous, or fight for some semblance of autonomy, in the face of authoritarianism? How can you make work which may operate as art and draw on the legacy of its history, yet still resists subsumption into the contemporary 'creative economy' as commodified culture? What compromises do you want to (or can you) make whilst pursuing radical modes of thought, action, living, and resistance? Is anything radical anymore, and to what ends should the radical be pursued? By and large, this is where passing through the academy has brought me, and for that I am thankful.
There are multifarious ways of seeing, thinking, feeling, and doing, but without discernment and criticality, they might as well be empty movements. I see work as about being; about sharing, and it may take on varying forms and purposes; it may be flawed and imcomplete. Work exists as noun and verb. Praxis is an ongoing struggle where work turns into, and is taken from, everything one tries to do. And this is the thing that art can do for the journey - provide the space and means for contemplation and inquiry, in addition to action and connection.
Of course there are questions, and therein lies complexity. Any attempt at explaining carries with it an ironic burden of futility; do I want to open that can of worms? But this is here because even as I hesitate to produce an all-encompassing artist statement, I wish not to be misrepresented. Work - this 'art' which was made - could simply be a matter of necessity. We all have our own questions that need asking, and I suppose when we speak of art and the artist, these are the most pertinent lines of inquiry for me. Just how much and how should you promote yourself, if at all, given your opposition to what the globalised market art world stands for? How are you to carry idealism as personal convictions come at odds to social and political realities? Can you remain autonomous, or fight for some semblance of autonomy, in the face of authoritarianism? How can you make work which may operate as art and draw on the legacy of its history, yet still resists subsumption into the contemporary 'creative economy' as commodified culture? What compromises do you want to (or can you) make whilst pursuing radical modes of thought, action, living, and resistance? Is anything radical anymore, and to what ends should the radical be pursued? By and large, this is where passing through the academy has brought me, and for that I am thankful.
There are multifarious ways of seeing, thinking, feeling, and doing, but without discernment and criticality, they might as well be empty movements. I see work as about being; about sharing, and it may take on varying forms and purposes; it may be flawed and imcomplete. Work exists as noun and verb. Praxis is an ongoing struggle where work turns into, and is taken from, everything one tries to do. And this is the thing that art can do for the journey - provide the space and means for contemplation and inquiry, in addition to action and connection.
