https://artarchivelaurafair-schulz.weebly.com/
https://greetingsfromtherevolutionaryfront.weebly.com
IMAGES
Identification
Dramatis Personae are roles, like in theatre, like in life.
These close-up portraits grapple with
something inherent to "identity"
and/or something imposed upon "identification,"
-- like the external expectations of gender, class, political, and societal norms, etc.
I make photos, I make drawings, and paintings and I put them together.
They are therapeutic, not the main aim of "art" in the marketplace.
With childhood-onslaught PTSD, and whatever other labels I've been given, I have struggled my entire life
-- not only with it, but with people's reactions to it: --
the precariousness of systemic alienation and poverty.
Something of WWII followed the generation, before me, home to their families
where it festered and crippled,
out of sight and out of the mind of onlookers,
of the mainstream, where little is understood about ptsd in families.
For that to change,
one must consciously enter the struggle,
and the people with it need to be more visible,
entering into dialogue with the existing narratives around them,
however hostile and dismissive and blinded.
I live in the psychological aftermath of so many wars.
-----
Tales from the Anthropo, or rather, Capitalo-cene
We live in an ecological aftermath:
in the Anthropo-cene, or more aptly the Capitalo-cene,
because surely not everyone has contributed to our current ecological disaster.
The tribes of New Guinea, the Surma, the people in the Amazon,
did not contribute to the type of Anthropos
that is killing this planet.
We are casualties of a metabolic rift inherent to imperialism, exploitation, capitalism,
where the world and everything in it are being cannibalized by the illogic of "profit-first,"
with little real regard to social and ecological sustainability.
It is part of a large web of intersecting ills
that can be traced back to the privilege of the few trumping the needs of all.
Another world is necessary; systemic change is necessary.
We can more easily grasp the 'end of life on the planet
than an end to capitalistic exploitation.'
Where in the World?
Where is a safe place for anyone with disabilities to exist:
in a world that sees people primarily
in terms of how to squeeze surplus value out of their labor?
Those for whom work is complicated, are not valuable to society.
They exist for charity, the vertical top-down trickle.
But if we are the "wrong species to make socialism work"
socialism: reworking the system to benefit all
the fading of the state in favor of bottom-up democracy as the end goal
then we are really the wrong species for
charity to fix our ills,
because it certainly doesn't.
All people need a place to be useful and valued.
What Do You See?
What you see in a person with ptsd, are slices of dissociative characteristics.
That may or may not sound very different from how most people experience themselves around others
-- are we ever completely ourselves around others?, --
but it is part of a debilitating and inescapable reality of suppressing un-surppressable pain,
in order to function in the short term.
Society is most unforgiving of what it does not understand.
Portraiture?
The portraits that you see on this site, are therapeutic for me,
my alienation is both systemically familiar and individually unfamiliar.
My images range from understandable to not.
That's ok.
Sometimes I can agitate, wanting to change the world,
and sometimes I can just barely keep afloat.
Figurative Art Work
In my other 2-d projects,
I've drawn and painted the figure,
and that work is motivated by similar concerns.
Being naked is a trigger,
so, ironically, I draw the figure.
Mirrors
The images are like mirrors,
hence they are "Dramatis Personae" (performing an identity/narrative) --
they speak to associations. We all own our associations, we appropriate meanings.
They are also like mirrors for the viewer
(into their own storage of associations),
who visually process the images
or not,
because we see with our brains.
These images are and are not familiar and translatable,
that's ok.
Process
The submitted images have gone through a multi-layered process, including:
- the sitter, perform-morphing
("selfies" for convenience, as I am the only sitter I can rely on 24/7)
- photography
- selection process responding to associations and discovering narratives
- digital tinkering
- and in some cases the inclusion of digital copies of my own material drawings and/or paintings
when they sometimes seem to need each other
I use only my own imagery throughout.
The malleability of the images, via the computer, presents welcome steps in my own processes,
as I have always layered and repurposed my work irl.
Originals?
Of interest to me, in the evolution of mediums,
is how these images that you see on your screen
are as original as the copies I have on my computer.
Only a signature would somehow make them more "original"
and that wends its way into debates about authorship and the market,
-- where art intersects with capitalism
and how value and class intersect and change meaning.
For the sake of pure appreciation,*
these images are available to any
who have access to a computer and printer,
(acknowledging that we live in a world where many do not).
These images are somehow less directly-material than the scrapings of a brush and pigment and not,
we forget the ink, but it's there,
more dependent on a literal web.
Sight Belongs to You
Art is first**
a sight.
The first time you see yourself in a reflection
you are and are not familiar.
You are art.
Your sight belongs to you.
But the sight of you also belongs to everyone else.
That can be both a terrifying and delightful place
(and everything in between).
*Except for reasons of individual appreciation, they may not be reproduced without my permission.
** for the sighted.
Dramatis Personae are roles, like in theatre, like in life.
These close-up portraits grapple with
something inherent to "identity"
and/or something imposed upon "identification,"
-- like the external expectations of gender, class, political, and societal norms, etc.
I make photos, I make drawings, and paintings and I put them together.
They are therapeutic, not the main aim of "art" in the marketplace.
With childhood-onslaught PTSD, and whatever other labels I've been given, I have struggled my entire life
-- not only with it, but with people's reactions to it: --
the precariousness of systemic alienation and poverty.
Something of WWII followed the generation, before me, home to their families
where it festered and crippled,
out of sight and out of the mind of onlookers,
of the mainstream, where little is understood about ptsd in families.
For that to change,
one must consciously enter the struggle,
and the people with it need to be more visible,
entering into dialogue with the existing narratives around them,
however hostile and dismissive and blinded.
I live in the psychological aftermath of so many wars.
-----
Tales from the Anthropo, or rather, Capitalo-cene
We live in an ecological aftermath:
in the Anthropo-cene, or more aptly the Capitalo-cene,
because surely not everyone has contributed to our current ecological disaster.
The tribes of New Guinea, the Surma, the people in the Amazon,
did not contribute to the type of Anthropos
that is killing this planet.
We are casualties of a metabolic rift inherent to imperialism, exploitation, capitalism,
where the world and everything in it are being cannibalized by the illogic of "profit-first,"
with little real regard to social and ecological sustainability.
It is part of a large web of intersecting ills
that can be traced back to the privilege of the few trumping the needs of all.
Another world is necessary; systemic change is necessary.
We can more easily grasp the 'end of life on the planet
than an end to capitalistic exploitation.'
Where in the World?
Where is a safe place for anyone with disabilities to exist:
in a world that sees people primarily
in terms of how to squeeze surplus value out of their labor?
Those for whom work is complicated, are not valuable to society.
They exist for charity, the vertical top-down trickle.
But if we are the "wrong species to make socialism work"
socialism: reworking the system to benefit all
the fading of the state in favor of bottom-up democracy as the end goal
then we are really the wrong species for
charity to fix our ills,
because it certainly doesn't.
All people need a place to be useful and valued.
What Do You See?
What you see in a person with ptsd, are slices of dissociative characteristics.
That may or may not sound very different from how most people experience themselves around others
-- are we ever completely ourselves around others?, --
but it is part of a debilitating and inescapable reality of suppressing un-surppressable pain,
in order to function in the short term.
Society is most unforgiving of what it does not understand.
Portraiture?
The portraits that you see on this site, are therapeutic for me,
my alienation is both systemically familiar and individually unfamiliar.
My images range from understandable to not.
That's ok.
Sometimes I can agitate, wanting to change the world,
and sometimes I can just barely keep afloat.
Figurative Art Work
In my other 2-d projects,
I've drawn and painted the figure,
and that work is motivated by similar concerns.
Being naked is a trigger,
so, ironically, I draw the figure.
Mirrors
The images are like mirrors,
hence they are "Dramatis Personae" (performing an identity/narrative) --
they speak to associations. We all own our associations, we appropriate meanings.
They are also like mirrors for the viewer
(into their own storage of associations),
who visually process the images
or not,
because we see with our brains.
These images are and are not familiar and translatable,
that's ok.
Process
The submitted images have gone through a multi-layered process, including:
- the sitter, perform-morphing
("selfies" for convenience, as I am the only sitter I can rely on 24/7)
- photography
- selection process responding to associations and discovering narratives
- digital tinkering
- and in some cases the inclusion of digital copies of my own material drawings and/or paintings
when they sometimes seem to need each other
I use only my own imagery throughout.
The malleability of the images, via the computer, presents welcome steps in my own processes,
as I have always layered and repurposed my work irl.
Originals?
Of interest to me, in the evolution of mediums,
is how these images that you see on your screen
are as original as the copies I have on my computer.
Only a signature would somehow make them more "original"
and that wends its way into debates about authorship and the market,
-- where art intersects with capitalism
and how value and class intersect and change meaning.
For the sake of pure appreciation,*
these images are available to any
who have access to a computer and printer,
(acknowledging that we live in a world where many do not).
These images are somehow less directly-material than the scrapings of a brush and pigment and not,
we forget the ink, but it's there,
more dependent on a literal web.
Sight Belongs to You
Art is first**
a sight.
The first time you see yourself in a reflection
you are and are not familiar.
You are art.
Your sight belongs to you.
But the sight of you also belongs to everyone else.
That can be both a terrifying and delightful place
(and everything in between).
*Except for reasons of individual appreciation, they may not be reproduced without my permission.
** for the sighted.