LA Art Documents is exploring the pandemic’s impact on the way artists operate and engage with their practice in a new series of artist profiles we’re aptly calling BREAK OUT! Here’s a sampling of responses for Series 5: Connection with Nature, featuring works by: Jason Jenn (of LAAD), Liz Miller-Kovacs, Elizabeth Shull, and more ongoing.
Liz Miller-Kovacs @miller.kovacs http://miller-kovacs.art/
In March, on the eve of Los Angeles’ city wide stay-at-home orders, I drove out to the desert to stay in a friend’s empty cabin and focus on my work in isolation. One of the main challenges of working in solitude is that I cannot recruit others to assist on photo and video shoots. The current pandemic has revealed to me just how important community and collaboration is to any artist’s work. Another obstacle is the inability to source props and other essential materials in person, so I’ve instead been relying on sourcing minimal supplies online. Like many so many others right now my financial situation is also precarious, so I’ve been figuring out ways to produce work on a shoestring budget.
The “Future Artifacts” series was further developed under quarantine, and seem more relevant now than ever before.
The series envisions a possible future where humanity contemplates the loss of culture and the industrialized world as we know it. In these images I attempt to reconfigure my body in various ways that integrate with extreme environments. I try to reconnect with nature at a moment in history where our lifestyle is increasingly at odds with ecology and we must maintain distance from each other. The work is also a way for me to honor the cycle of life and reflect upon mortality.
Liz Miller-Kovacs, Future Artifacts Series, 2020
Elizabeth Shull @elizabethshullart
Disaster has given me the impetus to share my work in a larger way. In the past I have quietly gone about art making and exploring things that interest me. With the double hit of the Covid 19 pandemic and the Woolsey Fire before it, I have felt more urgency in documenting and sharing my work.These pieces exemplify what I think about regularly:
Social distancing-protecting ourselves and others as well as keeping our dwellings “safe.”
Looking closer at the beauty and amazing gifts from the natural world…right in front of us…constant new beginnings and many metaphors to what is going on with C19.
Finally, yearning to get back to what we did before the pandemic, dreaming about the activities while remaining hopeful and patient.
Jason Jenn @jasonjennartist jasonjenn.com
home is a circular notion
Our home is planet earth, are we collectively capable of taking care and keeping life sustainable for all creatures great and small? Shelter at Home takes on a new meaning…when you are a snail, home is always where you are. Can we apply the same concept as a human? Can we feel safe and secure wherever we go in life? Can we make a connection and see ourselves in alignment with the circle of life?
While responding to stay at home orders early in the pandemic, I made discoveries of the “wildlife” in the surrounding neighborhood where I live. A simple investigation into a grove of trees at a nearby park area, I made a surprising find of almost a hundred or so snails that have spread themselves out in the small area and cluster together on several of the trees.