Research task: Contemporary Concerns

For this research task, I have to look into a collection of artists and pick two out of the few or choose my own to look into the creative approaches and visual elements that reflect my own.

Jennifer Argo

Jennifer Argo works in many mediums such as photography, sculpture and illustration. She is inspired by "natural structures", and in partially looking into the connectivity between foundations, characteristics and formations that naturally occur and change in nature. 1

Her work is reflecting the "current economic and sociopolitical climate", she describes her work as "themes of chaos, order space and time" with her adaptative ability to change mediums through large and small projects that parrels to the world we live in. 2

Molly Crabapple

Molly Crabapple is an artist and journalist that is willing to tackle any topic with her art, she isn't afraid to speak up on topics that affect people and does so with conviction. 3

Her art and journalism has taken her across the world and has allowed her to work on many projects, like a mural for the "Salam School for refugee kids". The focus on Molly's work is to crate discussion and action of the social and political issues. 4 Molly combines the powers of writing and illustration to create a larger image of what's going on around the world, rather than a direct image we get atmosphere and feeling from art.

Demiak

Demiak creates his artworks with mixed media, sculptures and paintings, and his art focuses on the topic of environmental disasters. 5

The pieces that drew to me specifically was his sculptures and diorama of the houses being submerged under water. Expanding further, he also creates surrealism landscape paintings that project "fantasy pictures or post-apocalyptic landscapes". 6

It wasn't until his daughter was born that he realised the danger we were in of a climate crisis, and wanted to bring awareness to what was happening, with his daughter being born a new direction came along for him. 7

He hopes that his artwork will educate people on the devastation that is happening to our Earth.

Madjeen Isaac

Madjeen Isaac creates paintings, sculptures and installations that are inspired by her upbringing and her heritage of family legacy of Haiti. 8

It was her exploration of culture that brought her to explore her culture and identity, which has evolved into "community-driven ecosystems", and seeing how each part of her culture would interact with their surroundings and the people within them. 9

Her storytelling strives for community and the environment, she pushes to creates a warm spotlight on the "Black immigrant communities". Isaac work paints a vision of what the world could look like "where access and autonomy are reclaimed"; a peek into a world filled with love, acceptance and care. 10

Rebecca Lee Kunz

An illustrator who creates her work in "watercolour, gouache, printmaking, collage and digital", with these mixed media mediums she created 'Chooch helped'; which tells the story of family traditions. 11

Each part of the book would be filled with beautiful symbolisms and culture and the idea came from both her and the writer Andrea L. Rodgers, and has taken inspiration and life from "the signing of the 1939 Cherokee National Constitution". 12

The children's book has been celebrated for its raw and fascinating blend of work and visualisation, and the story portray as "universal" culture-- people could see this book and see their own culture within in it without it directly having anything related.; he interactions and the character resemble that of family. 13

Joe Sacco

A name I'm familiar with and recognised for his graphic novels about the lives and the brutality coming out from Palestine (I've currently got his book son my wish list right now).His graphic novels tells the stories of the lives of Palestinians and what his research finds him as he observes the events unfold. 14

He has covered other topics as well as Palestine, such as the "Canada's Northwest Territories", talking and highlighting "effects of colonialism and genocide, residential school and land claims".

His graphic novels would take time to develop into the journalistic-style genre, taking several years per collection of graphic novels; which originally started out as a climate change piece but evolved into conflicts and genocide. 15

Two Artists

Looking through their works, and research a little about them, I found myself drawn to Demiak and Rebecca Lee Kunz-- however I'm really interested in Joe Sacco and his work.

For Demiak, I was instantly drawn to the way he creates his dioramas, I've worked (as a hobby) making buildings and making them look post-apocalyptic and found a bit of inspiration from the way he takes what he sees going on around the world, reducing its size and making a scene for people to see in 3D format. There is a sick side of me that finds nature taking over buildings and landscapes really interesting, seeing just how out of control we are.

Rebecca Lee Kunz has a similar working technique to me, she uses multiple mediums to achieve the desire she wants and tells stories of life (which is something I also find very appealing). She is much more dynamic in illustrating out scenes and stories than me, and is very delicate and confident in her ability to pick and choose what she wants to apply to her illustration (such as the symbolisms).

I know it said two artists, however, I was really drawn to Joe Sacco, I have seen his work in book stores and they are vast in knowledge, story-telling and visually beautiful in that graphic style; to be able to balance story and emotion without distorting truth makes the book very compelling.

Reflection

For this research task, I found myself feeling intrigued at how different artists engaged with different issues of the world, through environment, war, poverty, migration and conflict.

When it came to trying to research, I found myself quite overwhelmed with how much to read from and picking apart what was intended for this research task. As a result of that, I feel like I didn't do very well for this research task, or do as well as I could have for this task.

1 U/A, Future Positive 'Jennifer Argo', U/A. https://www.thefuturepositive.com/blog/jennifer-argo/ Accessed May 22, 2025.

2 U/A, HOT TUB ASTRONAUT 'Three drawings by Jennifer Argo', U/A. https://hottubastronaut.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/three-drawings-by-jennifer-argo/ Accessed May 22, 2025.

3 T Essmaker, THE GREAT DISCONTENT 'Molly Crabapple', Aug 19, 2014. https://thegreatdiscontent.com/interview/molly-crabapple/ Accessed May 22, 2025.

4 A. F. Honigman, ARTnews ''You Have to Do Your Art Yourself': Molly Crabapple on Art-World Hypocrisy Spurning Name-Brand Schools, and Much More.

5 R. Golden-McNerney, Temporary Art Review 'Trouble the Water at Legion Arts', Jun 25, 2013. https://temporaryartreview.com/trouble-the-water-at-legion-arts/ Accessed May 22, 2025.

6 U/A, Wikiwand ' Demiak 'Biography', U/A. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Demiak Accessed May 22, 2025.

7 U/A, Ynsect '#Ÿnspire – How Demiak uses art to inspire environmental change', Apr 4, 2022. https://www.ynsect.com/2022/05/04/ynspire-how-demiak-uses-art-to-inspire-environmental-change/#:~:text=Nature%20is%20the%20heart%20of,'t)%20have%20in%20Nature. Accessed May 22, 2025.

8 U/A, NYU + EDUCATION COMMUNITY PRACTICE 'Interview with Madjeen Isaac' U/A. https://wp.nyu.edu/nyuarteducationcommunitypractice/2024/11/18/interview-with-madjeen-isaac/ Accessed May 22, 2025.

9 U/A, The Laundromat Project 'Creative Conversations | Reimagining a Black Utopia for the Black Immigrant Communities', U/A. https://laundromatproject.org/creative-conversations-reimagining-a-black-utopia-for-the-black-immigrant-communities/ Accessed May 22, 2025.

10 U/A, Madjeen Isaac 'Bio', U/A. https://www.madjeenisaac.com/bio Accessed May 22, 2025.

11 Team LQ, LEVINE QUERIDO 'Rebecca Lee Kunz wins the Caldecott Medal for 'Cooch Helped' Jan 27, 2025. https://www.levinequerido.com/updates/debut-illustrator-rebecca-lee-kunz-wins-the-caldecott-medal-for-chooch-helped?srsltid=AfmBOors0YwGW-qJf6tm9YZPdvKrVT5noNlwiiju_qLEBNiTeiBfFx-I Accessed May 22, 2025.

12 P Makhijani, Publishers Weekly 'Rebecca Lee Kunz's Caldecott Win: 'Beyond Grateful'', Jan 28, 2025. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-authors/article/96955-rebecca-lee-kunz-s-caldecott-win-beyond-grateful.html Accessed May 22, 2025.

13 S Balaban, NPR ''Chooch Helped' this author and illustrator win the 2025 Caldecott Medal', Apr 26, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/26/nx-s1-5287786/chooch-helped-andrea-rogers-rebecca-kunz Accessed May 22, 2025.

14 A MacDonald, Middle East Eye 'Cartoonist Joe Sacco on Gaza: is this land ground zero for the apocalypse?', Feb 16, 2025. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/joe-sacco-interview-gaza-genocide-history Accessed May 22, 2025.

15 A Dueben, The Comics Journal '"THIS WAS CUTURAL GENOCIDE": AN INTERVIEW WITH JOE SACCO', August 4, 2020. https://www.tcj.com/this-was-cultural-genocide-an-interview-with-joe-sacco/ Accessed May 22, 2025.