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? et cetera ad infinitum...
Of course there are questions, and therein lies complexity. Attempting to explain any of this carries 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's statement, I wish not to be misrepresented. Work - this 'art' which was made - had often been 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 just 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 global art world and market stands for? How are you to carry idealism as personal convictions come at odds with 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 cultural commodity? Is anything radical anymore, and to what ends should the radical be pursued? What compromises do you want to (or can you) make whilst pursuing radical modes of thought, action, living, and resistance? 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. 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. Attempting to explain any of this carries 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's statement, I wish not to be misrepresented. Work - this 'art' which was made - had often been 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 just 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 global art world and market stands for? How are you to carry idealism as personal convictions come at odds with 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 cultural commodity? Is anything radical anymore, and to what ends should the radical be pursued? What compromises do you want to (or can you) make whilst pursuing radical modes of thought, action, living, and resistance? 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. 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.
