2024-10-03
Artist Statement
v The
artist’s role in society, and the making of our work, can ~ at times bring joy;
other times, other occasions the work produced may be disturbing. It is my goal
to prod the viewer to reflect upon what is before them. The foundation for the
illuminated text focus on more potent matters. The objective is to have an
impact.
v When I was a child, a third grade instructor, Mr. Abel, taught the basics of poster layout and design. A junior high art instructor, Fannie Bufarlie, taught art theory and history while encouraging me to depict what I “… damned well please …” when making art. My mother ~ Mary Selma Evans ~ made certain I was able to visit great museum collections, where docents and security guards would caution against me standing too close while studying brush strokes.
v I learned the craft of typography from a father/son instructor team, the Bonkempers, who made clear that words, as well as images, were key parts to developing a visual oeveur. In college, after studying grainy pictures of air bases, open pit mines, glacial deposits, urbanized sprawl ~ I created maps of NY Finger Lakes region drumlin fields. Afterwards, I managed prepress operations for commercial web press printing and publishing firms; designed and developed materials for music festival, posters and booklets for theatre festival performances’ handouts, interpretive maps, illustrations, creating print materials for concert performances and the production of regional publications. Worked for Northern New York regional planning agencies with mapping, graphs, and typography.
v Some influences that have trained my eye and how I think about making images:
v Freida Kahlo ~ for her strong sense of vision, use of color and composition … and for her tenacity.
v Rockwell Kent, N C Wyeth, Kent Monkman ~ for scale, massing, vibrant color use and visual story telling.
v Herb Lubilan and the magazine U&lc ~ to understand creative use of type, lettering and calligraphy.
v William Blake, Alfred Waud ~ for exquisite detail illustrating narratives, and working in ink and prints.
v Robert Rauschenberg, Bette Saar, Philip VanBrunt ~ instilled a love of making collage and combines.
v David Wojnarowicz, Soviet Era collage artists and others ~ helped to capture social protest on paper.
v I’m also a human rights advocate, further affirming that we are all responsible to convey critical ideals with and between one another, to the obligation to speak out about economic, cultural and social injustices, and to identify paths to just resolution.
v I want to thank the staff at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health [PRCH], for the opportunity to exhibit examples of my work here ~ including social issues pieces and landscapes ~ intermixed amidst display from the agency’s permanent collection of works of other artists already gracing these walls.
2024-09-29
watercolor: Fully Involved
 |
| Watercolor ~ a challenge doing a painting of a night scene, and showing water and fire |
2024-08-31
ESSAY: Economic Treason
ECONOMIC
TREASON
AN ACT CONCERNING THE BREACH OF PUBLIC TRUST
BY MANAGERS OF GLOBAL RESOURCES, WEALTH AND
PROPERTIES
v The premise
is straightforward; when parties entrusted with wise management of the
planet’s resources conduct their efforts disproportionately benefiting
themselves while jeopardizing the wellbeing of the rest of the global community
then they have endangered the “life of the Polity” (the People) to whom they
serve they have then committed Economic
Treason.
v When
legislators act in concert with those managers
people who have laid claim to protecting the public trust they too, are culpable.
v There
are precedents, however unsavory, that through history have
been employed for these kinds of crimes; and specific methods and tools on how
to punish the worst of the Transgressors.
v We
do not have to be beholden to past methods to address those
miscreants for what they have done to the rest of the global citizenry, It
would be more thoughtful to take consideration the level and degrees of
involvement of the perpetrators in order to best come to some equitable
resolve.
v Seizure
of Assets and equitable redistribution of ill-gotten assets;
mandatory remediation, reimbursement and reparations due of stolen goods,
lands, titles are in order to correct economic, social and personal injustices
perpetrated by those guilty of such Crimes,.
v The
penalty of Death would be more compassionate a response than
what the most aggressive violators deserve. Being mandated to see
their exalted positions stripped from them, may actually be a more brutal,
though appropriate, beginning at compensating
others for their malfeasances.
v Leave the perpetrators without protections, maintaining a very public address without any interventions or resources to ensure their safety or security. Bar them from titles, licenses, remove certifications and authority. Silence their voices and strip them of any influence they may have. Subject them to as grinding a poverty as can be imagined. Let forces they created prior take their course. The malefactors, no longer powerful, shall have to deal with their foes, opponents and enemies uninsulated.
v MEANWHILE,
allocate those once tightly held assets in a more equitable manner so the rest
of humankind shall benefit and prosper.
2024-07-16
2024-07-11
2024-06-02
Exhibition: Pretty Pictures & Social Issues Season two ~ JULY 2024
Connecticut artist Will Brady's upcoming exhibit, "Pretty Pictures & Social Issues", on display in July 2024, at Gallery at the Wauregan, 200 Main Street, Norwich CT, promises to be both visually, and intellectually, stunning.
The show's flyer grabs attention, too. A vibrant night scene of an historic building overlooks illuminated text that reads "SLAVERY" as the opening line.
Social and cultural matters: tragedies, prejudice, environmental decay, inequality; displayed in illuminated texts, akin to ancient manuscripts and scrolls, beaconing reflection on matters of import while simultaneously allowing our eyes the comfort of exquisite, detailed, collage and painted renderings.
The exhibit is on display from the end of June 2024 through end of July. A reception with the artist to be held First Friday, July 5 between 4 pm and 8 pm. Gallery hours 1:00 pm to 4:45 pm every day of the week.
For more information: https://willbradyvisualarts.blogspot.com
2024-04-14
2024-02-01
collage:The Unconventional Queen
Collage made from objects provided to participants in a poetry writing group.
After we completed our collages, everyone in the group was asked to provide single words for what they saw in one another's finished work.
Once the lists were gathered, a poem was to be composed using all the descriptors provided.
The unconventional Queen
Sought colorful, creative adventure
Music, light, sparkle, joy
a ticket to a gem of the inner child
unique, fun, fair and quotidian.
It was a Gem, mystic, circular
Spotted with heart.
Had we but seen
the outcome
There was no surprise
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