From the Curator:
Dear Viewer,
Welcome to Imprints: Past & Present! Below you will find a collection of works which reflect on the passing of time and the paradoxes of our current reality. Your journey down this page will allow opportunity to pause, dwell, and consider experiences both foreign and familiar. While our title for this exhibition announces a stark juxtaposition, this curated selection of works accomplishes the exact opposite. What happens to our perspectives when we blur the line between past and present?
As we transition into a new year, consider that many marks of the past might be left over, imprinted on our world. In time, they may fade, or be maintained for the sake of reflection, or transformed into something greater. The past may always be imprinted on our present, but as we merge with the future, perhaps we can change the way we choose to feel its impact.
This collection below features over 45 spectacular pieces by artists around the world. As we complete our second year in operation, we must express our deepest gratitude for all of the amazing participants and supporters of the Vacant Museum. It’s a privilege to be passing through linear time with wonderful people like you.
Wishing all Vacant artists and viewers a bright and warm 2021, see you soon!
– S
Nicole Wassall
London, UK
Well, what did you expect?
Embroidery on 100% cotton handkerchief and wooden hand. 35 x 20 x 25 cm
The handkerchief is held in a position of surrender, comforter & farewell. Whilst history predicts the inevitability of how 2020 panned out on a personal & societal level
Ayesha Shaikh
Pakistan
1.Obscure 2. A Letter to Memory
1.12″ x 18″ mixed media, 2020 2. 11.5″ x 16″ mixed media, 2020
The body of my work is solely centered on memories as how it affects me through out my life. They may be filled with the gaps of time but they live within us along with our very breaths and steps, whether its a painting, a place or a letter, buried in our subconscious, faint and blurred. Materials and letters will be there in my practice to emphasize and portraying the conceptual themes and colours of memories , a scent will be there that will be familiar to all those who have roamed through the archways of memories. You may belong somewhere along the way
Anna Calleja
Malta
Alone in Quarantine
Oil on canvas, 40x60cm
This is a self-portrait I painted during my time in mandatory quarantine after a two-day journey from Cornwall to my home country Malta in April this year.
Hannah K Alvaro
Minneapolis, MN, USA
Freedom & Sunlight
oil and glitter on wood panel / 4ft. x 3.5ft.
Freedom & Sunlight is the first completed painting in my upcoming series, Scarecrows and Unicorns, that challenges past cultural learned behaviors and unsustainable binary iconography, while celebrating the deconstruction of established gender roles not only within our current society but also within the conventional narratives found in the tradition of figurative oil painting. As an assumed woman who identifies as non-binary and gender fluid, I prefer to use models who have complex relationships with their own gender identity in an attempt to bring a more comprehensive inclusivity to the future of this withstanding form of storytelling in art making.
Julie Lee
Alabama
Untitled
Video. 1920 x 1080
I am performing the tradition of bojagi by wrapping my mother’s dream of America with her scarves. As these fragments are stored away, her desires become material, alive.”
Tosobuafo Bardi
Benin City, Nigeria
Red Basalm
Charcoal and gouache 24×16 inches
My work is a combination of the old African religion and old romans.
The laurel which Caesar wore in the old time signifies in my art royalty and the expression “Sitting on your Laurel”
Hope Ezcurra
Long Beach, CA, USA
1.Las Tete De Mort 2. Everything Was Beautiful
1.Digital Photograph/Variable 2.IndiaInk on Watercolor Paper/8×8″
Hope Ezcurra is a self taught artist, part time nihilist, and all around lover of art. The vast majority of her artwork is memento mori (Latin: remember you must die)
Anja Jovičić
Novi Sad, Serbia
Ghosts
Photographs/multiple dimensions
Ghosts is a collection of interventions on old family photos, connecting their lives in past and the way i digest them in present.
Arief Maulana
Jakarta, Indonesia
The Last Dancing
Ink on Paper 210 x 297 mm
Artist Statement: A work created with the theme Past & Present, inspired by the situation of early 2020, namely the covid 19 pandemic. We used to be sad, and now we have to wake up.
Ally Zlatar
Glasgow, UK
I scream into the darkness
acrylic on print
I scream into the darkness challenges our perception of the present. The past and present co-exist in this piece. We are an accumulation of our history.
Brian Eaton
Chicago, IL, USA
My Anxiety
Cinder block and Quartz crystal 8″ x 8″ x 8″
Friends & Fiends focuses on creating work that brings together the most disparate elements. The artist believes that creating something inherently beautiful is almost too easy, and finding unity among materials never intended to coincide is a more worthwhile challenge. Work created from this process is intended to meld the world of the representational with the abstract, leaving the viewer to derive their own meaning as they fixate over the piece.
Natalie Bradford
Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
1.You Are Very, Very Dear To Me Tonite 2. Happy Birthday, Sadie! 3. Perhaps We Should Have Stayed
1.: Xerox transfer, tracing paper colored pencil, hand sewing on paper (4″ x 6″) 2.Xerox transfer, hand sewing on paper (5.5″ x 7″) 3.Gel medium transfer, paper, hand sewing on paper (8″ x 10″)
My work is autobiographical and oftentimes deal with themes of absence, memory, temporality, the passage of time, and loss. My artistic process starts with identifying my sources; I pull my inspiration from family photo albums dating back to the 1930’s through present day. I then makes photocopies of the pictures and physically cut out pieces of the image to strip it of it’s details, which speaks to absence, the mortality of people/places, and the fleetingness of memories. With some prints, I incorporate excerpts from old family letters through using ink pen or hand sewing. I end my process by transferring the scraps onto a new piece of paper using lacquer thinner, or gel medium. By doing this process, the prints become immensely abstracted from their original start as a photograph, which show the inconsistent but ephemeral side of our memories, while still honoring the past.
Chun Wang
New York, NY, USA
In The Spirit of The 21st Century
Drawing inspiration from current news and sociology research, Chun’s paintings develop narratives about contemporary life and provide critical insight into it.
Anum Lasharie
Lahore, Pakistan
Free Mind Doing Time
Oil on Canvas / 5 x 4 Feet
In the past, brief moments of clarifying realization and overwhelming anxiety only occurred when one had the time to sit and strip from our mundane routines all the prejudices, preordained logic and learned assumptions about the world that society presents. Not always did we have the time to sit and realize just how absurd the world is when we peel back layers of surface normality and could discover that nothing is to be taken for granted. This past year has forcibly separated the word “normal” from its definition. This sudden halt in customary routine mockingly reminded us of how we have failed to capture the true essence of being alive. Once we realize that all our traditions, culture, taboos, manners and etiquettes are man-made we become overwhelmed by the fact that things don’t need to be the way they are. But still continue to crave the world we used to live in. We only know that our future cannot look like our present and definitely not like our past.
Hannah Aguinaldo
Philippines
Bug Brain
Oil on 12×14 in. canvas
Big bugs in dreams are interpreted as symbols of worry and fear. For the artist, the past as well as dreams help us learn and avoid threats that may come in our way.
Hazel Florez
London, UK
Mnemosyne
Gold leaf, mixed media on board (125 x 84 cm)
2020 was the year the world was brought to a standstill. For many people around the globe, normal everyday life was put on “ice”. With the absence of everyday “events”, a retreat into the world of memory and a reconnection with nature, provided solace for people wishing to escape from the outer world of turmoil and destruction that the epidemic left in its wake. This painting depicts Mnemosyne the Greek goddess of memory, drawing on neo-pagan and anthroposophical outlooks. Her body is made up of the four elements, earth, fire, air and water. She represents a collective memory and the idea that the memory of different natural landscapes are woven into the fabric of our bodies. This painting reminds us that our cells are composed of particles that are made up of atoms that were previously found in the earth’s environment including dust, rocks, water, and the earth and heat energy.
Yalda
Brooklyn, NY, USA
These paintings reference traditional Iranian art and personal imagery to visualise a confrontation between my past and present selves as well as myself and the viewer.
Sarah Tompkins
Ottawa, Canada
1. Breather No. 10 2.Breather No. 6 3.Breather No. 7
1.oil on panel, 11” x 14”, 2020 2.oil on panel, 11” x 14”, 2020 3.oil on panel, 8” x 10”, 2020
The Breather series evolved as an experiment in using art as therapy, both in its creation and its consideration. I have been specifically focused on producing work that addresses our pressing need for equilibrium by offering reliable visual moments of harmony, balance, and simplicity. The collection found a clear shape in the early months of the pandemic, when fear and isolation had set in for many. Each of these paintings are meant to serve as a sort of talisman – warding off the bad of the present, and reminding us of the hope and safety of the past
Mathieu V. Staelens
It’s all about the glasses
ballpoint and colour pencil on polymer, 9,6×8,2cm
This work alludes on the notion of perspectivism. Glasses as a symbol of reference frames that will have to be more flexible then ever in self-taught drawing technique on polymer.
Sofía Hurtado Montes
Bogotá, Colombia
My hair grew in knots
ink on paper / 108.5 x 58 cm
As part of a larger project, this artwork was created based on a poem written by me. Its about my hair and how my mothers death affected that relationship when I was 15.
Sally de Courcy
Woking, UK
Precarious Lives
Cast objects in jesmonite. 250cm diameter
Inspired by the artist’s experience of working with refugees and the concept that some people are treated as less than human. The refugee crisis continues today.
Irina Novikova
Belarus, Minsk
Apple saved a dream jav
60х40
Our dreams and our reality, what is the truth here? I don’t know and I don’t have an answer to this question and what will happen I will not be able to show you even…
Ankur Yadav
Behror, Rajasthan , India
explosion
Oil on canvas, 6feet by 4 feet
My painting displays explosion and destruction. The way the objects in the painting are suspended and juxtaposed within the frame.
Mel Lonley
Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States
Kitchen Basement Composite
Mixed Media/ 78in x 40in
By rewriting a modernist vision of an archive, I am attempting to develop a truthful understanding of myself free from patriarchal historical systems.
Remal Arif
Pakistan
Empowerment
Digital
My art is a poem without words. An awake call for change. For betterment for society, for self. My art enabled me in finding self and losing self at the same time.
Parvathi Kumar
Bridgewater, NJ, USA
Marches 2020
Photography
With the right to protest (which wasn’t always the case), the words in the images also speak to the past and the present, and in some cases to the eternal.
Lisa Foster
West Brookfield, MA, USA
1.The Future Belongs to those who believe on the beauty of their dreams. 2.Picking Fruit and Counting Stars
reproduction quilting fabrics and acrylic
The path to a better future for our species and our planet is within us, I believe it is rooted in feminism. My art is intended to help us find our way to better.
Ellen VanderMyde
Kalamazoo, MI, USA
Under the Moon / Walking Through
Acrylic paint on electric guitar / Digital painting
Created a decade apart, I see a clear connection between these two paintings. I’m still dreaming of women exploring their environments empowered and without fear.
Debbie Vowden Aminian
Leeds, Yorkshire UK
Momento Mori
approx 100cms X 150cms
Feathers were collected on walks – which became significant for me during lockdown, when very little was permitted. Thoughts were of learning lessons of the past.
Michael Kwan
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Somewhere, Screaming
Photography
As we dwell in this seemingly endless period of isolation, the past is catching up to us in what feels like a moment of stagnance. Truth and revelations about ourselves and the world are seeping into current realities that lockdown is unable to contain. Instead, it’s almost as if it encourages a sort of clarity over the present, but while some of us have been granted vision of the undeniable injustice that is and has been occurring, others are being plagued with deceitful misinformation and an immense division has taken place.
I’ve witnessed so much love and compassion, but I’ve also witnessed what feels like double the hate, spite, and handfuls of empty promises that feel impossible to overcome. As such, here lies a manifestation of my frustrations and feelings of hopelessness for a future of harmony and compassion as we revert to and rely on old patterns despite their dysfunction in the present.
Laz
Connecticut, USA
1.It’s Me 2. Halal Stigmata
1.2160 x 2160 px 2.2160 x 2160 px
My aim is to identify and understand myself and my intentions by documenting my life in various mediums; painting and writing being the most accessible at the moment. In doing so, when others engage with what I make, I want to hold space for them to do the same for themselves.
I am a strong believer in the idea that the ability to move freely through space is something every single human being yearns to do. In other cultures, this is referred to as “breaking generational curses”, “reprogramming one’s machinery”, “evolving”, etc. The common ground between all of these terms is movement.
Jia Hao
China
The surreal still life
Mixed Media / 11.7 x 16.5 inches
My studio practice uses photography and an abundant supply of magazines as a means of exploring how color and pattern are used on the body to express human identity.
Holly Bazley
London, UK
1.Swings and fairground summers 2. My Father and Me
1.0x21x24cm watercolour 2.0x21x21cm
2020 Reflections: Therapy has guided me to recreate childhood memories of the person I used to be. Should we ever revisit our past selves or should we keep moving forward?
Gabriel Soto
Chicago, Illinois
Our Condition Today
Oil on Canvas
This painting is a diagram of how institutions have become entities of their own, and the struggle of working people that share this world with these new hyper-objects.
Susan Lerner
New York, NY USA
Americana
Hand-cut, hand-colored collage Series ranges from 9″ x 12″ to 17″ x 14″
When one says “you can’t make this shit up”, they must have been talking about 2020. Starting with the wildfires in Australia, Covid-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter, death of RBG and everything leading up to the US Election, 2020 is one for the books. So much is at stake! Sequestered away, my daily collage practice seemed mundane. I spent hours and hours cutting images from vintage magazines and books instead of creating my usual surreal stories. As life continued imploding, I decided to express my frustration and rage concerning our country’s lack of empathy and division during this crisis. Using vintage imagery in red, white, blue and black, and adding ink, colored-pencil and acrylic paint, the political collage series, “Americana” was born. This series brings together vintage imagery in the context of today’s issues. The work uses the collage technique of hand-cutting and hand-coloring which I find both cathartic and meditative. It has been a relief to express my feelings about our current state and document this period of time.
Sam Tahmassebi
London, UK
History Is Our Lost Referential 2.0
140 X 100 CM
History is cyclical. The antagonisms in the piece are reoccurring but reappear reinvigorated, colonialism now appears as debt-trap diplomacy to name a few. Where now?
Vasu Deva Naidu
India
2 Fold Present
Fabric, acrylic on paper/ ‘Coffin’ (30″x42″), ‘Fence’ (44″x 31″)
History is a 2 fold present which shouldn’t repeat itself. Protests against the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB and NRC) in India are an effort to stay true to history.
Nuohan Jiang
New York City, NY, USA
The Shadow of a Lost City
Sterling Silver and Acrylic Paints 3.1*4*0.4 inches
My work is inspired by a disappeared old city. I take it as an opportunity to use creativity to bring the past into the present, and find new meanings in lost places.
Claire Kiester
Chicago, IL
CMYK for Dinner
Ink on muslin. 5′ x 10′
This piece features images of food textures I gathered while cooking. Many of my recipes have been passed down though family members. I am trying to recreate the past.
Kiki Jia Qi Zhen
1.Mahjong 2.Scaffold Heads
Through performance, sculpture, and site-specific installation I reflect on my experiences of immigration, trauma, memory, and story-telling.
Tania
Rivne, Ukraine
Bakota. Ukrainian Atlantis. Flooded village under the water
slime, bas-relief on canvas/ 0,8 x 2,8 m
Ukrainian Atlantis is located in an extremely picturesque place called Bakota, Podilsky Tovtry, Khmelnytsky region. Bakota was once a large, strong border village, but its history ended in 1981, when the village was completely flooded during the construction of a hydroelectric power plant. Now there is a wide and deep river Dniester, 42 meters deep. There in the rocks is one of the oldest monasteries “Rock Monastery”. This place is called the place of power, and indeed, having been there you feel that you are on top of the world and full of energy. There are no routes or buses in Bakota, you can only get there by your own transport on a difficult road.
In the artwork I depicted the river Dniester under which is the past village, the nature that surrounds this beautiful place, here you feel alone with nature. I wanted to convey the grandeur, the power of the water element, this picture radiates power and makes the viewer think about how strong nature is and we must protect it.
Jaclyn Hudak
Portland, OR, USA
1.Waking Up From A Tangled Dream 2.Waking Up From A Tangled Dream
1.Cyanotype with gouache on watercolor paper 11.75 x10 inches (paper) 13.25 x 15 inches (frame) 2020 2. Cyanotype with gouache on watercolor paper 9 x 7 inches (paper) 12 x 10 inches (frame) 2020
My paintings form a bridge between past and present, embellishing on memories that have long been lost from our collective minds. Once printed, paint is laid out carefully and deliberately—layered onto large volumes shapes that reflect the fluidity of memory and personal narrative.
Carolina Saidenberg
São Paulo, Brazil
Connections of the soul
Mixed technique on Fabriano paper, 40x5cm
I realized this series called “Soul connections”, during an art residency in pandemic times. This is about how we connect to our souls, and what is soul.
Annette Womack
CT, USA
1.Caught in Decay 2. Our Technology has Exceeded our Humanity
1.Oil, acrylic, and cold wax on hardboard, 30×30” 2.Acrylic and oil on hardboard
We can’t move on without change. Sometimes I think we’ve reached a tipping point, a point of no return, or at the very least we are on the wrong side of history.
I remember the past and using our brains. Now its all screens. I worry that we need to use it or loose it. I worry we are becoming a different entity all together.
Noelle Yongwei Barr
Santa Barbara
1.Claire 2.The Beethoven Trio
Oil on Canvas: 11 x 13″; 8 x 10″; 8 x 10″
I go to museums & play violin – the pandemic hindered these engagements, but home allowed my musical memories of performance & art-driven mind to intersect on canvas.
Emily Yurkevicz
United States
re·collections / noun
installation 10′ x 2′ x 4″ plaster, gold leaf, (indigo dyed cotton, madder dyed cotton, iron mordant, thread, cotton batting)
re·collections, recall, repress. re-press. Press into, leave traces. Feminine labor weaves time into cloth and binds cloth into quilt. The bodily object, family heirloom; leaves its mark in the construction of a secular spirituality. The quilt binds the family. A lingering connection to that which is absent. A moment in time frozen into infinite silence.
Good exhibition with great number of artists! The introduction was also quite inspiring! I even wrote down on my sketchbook some of the curator’s quotes.