ARTIST STATEMENT: ALICE GEORGE
The Creative Accelerator grant would provide support during a critical time in my career! I’m semi-retired and devoting myself more intensely to artmaking. I’m receiving commissions for large paintings and exhibiting at places like ARC Gallery. However, rent, materials and framing of my large pieces are barriers in moving forward.
I was born in Kentucky, from a family of free-thinkers, teachers, and farmers. I started writing poetry early because I hated to forget, and then I kept on writing even after I realized writing doesn’t precisely solve that particular tragedy. Poetry was my path, and I take great pride in my book of poetry: This Must Be The Place (Mayapple Press 2008). My home is in Evanston where I am an active member of the arts community (a recent artist talk drew 70+ people).
I started merging text and image during my studies at the School of the Art Institute and haven’t looked back. My body of 2D work includes large works on paper, panel and print series. I have also discovered the time-based storytelling and lyrical singing available in the films of William Kentridge, and I am working on developing a style and visual vocabulary that works on a screen. Vimeo showcase here
The direction of my work continues to be loosely autobiographical, though I often adopt ‘personas’ that allow me to lie in ways that uncover truth. My pathway to film—via the compression of poetry, the mastery of layering required for printmaking, and the extravagant saturation of color held by a paintbrush—has resulted in a style perhaps one-part essay, one-part song, one-part investigation.
My strategies when painting, drawing and composing short shorts include:
· A new interest in weaving together my new Buddhist practice into my artmaking.
· Physical experimentation with cyanotypes, bringing not just plants but the body also, using this technique to activate my paintings and drawings.
· Working large: inspired by a few recent commissions, I’m developing vocabulary and techniques that work on 12-foot canvases!
· A dogged inquiry into how words and images can live together, including a fascination with diagramming sentences.
· Collaboration with musicians and other artists, resulting in better work and increased connection. I formed and led a collaborative collective Four Hands which met and exhibited throughout the pandemic.
· Site-specific installation, most notably the redbud tree in front of our Evanston house, which has inspired and most housed installations.
· Sequences, such as my series Last Words (a series of collagraph prints and a short-short film) which captured deathbed words
· Bringing my 2-D practice into my short-short films, whether that looks like artist book pages collapsing and expanding, a print illuminated by a roving light, or the intimacy of handwriting.