The past four weeks were busy with renovating my new studio
and with moving, and writing parts of my paper, but I also got to do / am
working on the following:
My video
I have good news,
I had submitted my video for the
Future Imperfect conference at Plymouth University and I was just notified that
is has been selected to be shown there in the cinema at the symposium and I have been invited to
speak about my work and to contextualize the video.
I am just about to edit the video from 18:30 min to 15 min
Interview with Fred Terna
In the past two weeks I wrote a 13 page transcript of the
interview I had done with Holocaust survivor Fred Terna in Brooklyn on my last
day in New York. The visit with Fred was very inspiring and the time we spent
on that sunny cold afternoon in his house in Brooklyn was just wonderful. Raul
Barcelona had kindly offered to do the filming of the interview since I did not
have any filming equipment with me in New York.
Fred is a painter (!) and he kindly showed us all his work. He
paints fire!! His work (which we also saw in an exhibition in Brooklyn before
we met Fred) is fantastic. We spent a wonderful time and it was really great to
meet and get to know Fred, what a very interesting man. I selected three
excerpts that I will be putting together as one video for my installation of my
first year project (together with the 3 other videos which I will create out of
my Black Milk of Daybreak Video).
Here are the three excerpts which I will put together to one
video (overlaying parts of it with his paintings) during the next weeks:
Out of the time and one hour interview
with Fred, for me this sentence stands out the most:
(My question : Fred, If you think about your legacy, Fred, if you had a chance to talk to the coming generations… to the people that come after us, what message would you like to give to them?)
Fred Terna :
Be involved. Be involved.
The lessons that I have learned, during the war and of – since the war is, what counts - to live in a sensible, fair and open community where we are all responsible for each other. Be involved. That is what I would tell them.
I am not telling them how to do what. But you cannot just stand back and say, it’s them. I have nothing to do with it. In a sense, saying, this is what is accused of Central Europeans, Germans, Austrians, they weren’t involved.
So, that is the message I would try to convey to them. And say, is this paid for? It is difficult. It means a lot of introspection. And learning.
Essay for Art Avenue
I was asked by the Federation of Canadian Artists art
magazine ART AVENUE if I could please write an article about my current
paintings, so I wrote the following essay: (which they edited and shortened a
little bit, but it will now look like this now): I also mentioned Transart Institute!
Painting in the Life of…
A recurring article chronicling the life of a painting
By Ira Hoffecker
I was born in
Germany, and my work talks about the experiences of those living there, and the
different identities that locations in that country take on over a period of
time. Maps, therefore, have been a prominent influence.
With the four new
paintings shown here, I have started to move away from my usual method of
overlaying two or more maps. And in addition to demonstrating how one place can
have two different identities, I have become very interested in exploring the
process of abstract painting. Therefore, my compositions are looser, which
offers an element of ambiguity. I am attempting to add either “structure to the
chaos” or “chaos to the order” of the maps and new structural elements that are
used.
I had begun these
painting with several layers of paint and a map as I usually do, but now,
instead of overlaying only the map, I include a structure such as a building.
The building image unfolding here depicts the factory that now stands where the
forced labour camp, Lager Moschendorf, once was. During WWII, the camp was
located in the Moschendorf district of the town of Hof (Saale), which is the
subject matter in my recent work.
The viewer can still
recognize the original map underneath, but there is an additional element in
the work. Before, my concern was merely about the meaning of the work. But now
this new series of large paintings are also about the process of painting, the
rules and elements of abstraction, and about composition, eye movement and
colour.
My work has always
been informed by the urban environment; I have always been interested
in how different societies transform and change city spaces over the course of
centuries. My work examines the relationships between people and cities that
respond to constant change, reconstruction and restoration within the urban
landscape.
More recently, however, I have wanted to examine our
German past — both personally remembering and collective memory. I want to work
against forgetting and against suppressing the memory of the past. For example,
in a recent photographic series about genocide, I asked, “What would I have
done if I had lived under the National Socialist regime?” I feel that this is
still a relevant theme of our time, and it is important to remember to “stand
up and speak up,” and not simply be a bystander.
Other exciting changes are occurring within my art work.
I recently began working on my Master of Fine Art degree at the Transart
Institute accredited through Plymouth University, England. And in addition to
painting, I am working with video, photography and sound. For my written work,
I am researching contemporary artists who investigated identity after WWII and
after the wall came down in 1989: Christian Boltanski, Susan Hiller and Shimon
Attie.
Ira Hoffecker, AFC, has had recent solo
exhibitions in Oxford, England, Berlin and Hof, Germany, Vancouver and
Edmonton. Ira was one of 20 UK graduates whose work was shortlisted for the
Graduate Art Prize 2015 in London. She won first prize in the “Abstract Show
2015” in Vancouver with her painting Alexanderplatz VIII. Her Camp Moschendorf
II painting has been shortlisted for the John Moore Painting Prize 2016, and
has been exhibited at the 2016 Liverpool Biennial. Ira resides in Victoria.
·
Structure I (36 x36), Acrylic on canvas
and wood panel
·
Structure III (40 by 60), Acrylic on
birch wood panel
·
Structure V (40 by 60), Arcrylic on
birch wood panel
·
Structure V (46 x 46), Acrylic on
canvas
Donation/ Raising Funds for MS
A couple of times a year I am donating a
painting to raise money. I am proud to say that my painting Lightness of Being raised $3500 at the recent Vigsa MS Event here in Victoria. You can tell that the painting is not recent. I created it about 3 years ago.
Drawings
Since I was unable to paint for the past 4
weeks I have been doing some drawings and sketchbook doodles. I am
experimenting to draw with my left hand, combining text and maps : figuring out possible compositions for paintings
Crit group/ Skype
Yes, I am taking an 8 week break from
the crit group, I am working extremely hard, but I also had to renovate
studios and write the transcript of the interview with Fred and write my paper
and felt I would not be a good member of the group if I cannot dedicate at
least a day each to respond to other people's work, just missing the first
round of feedbacks. I just want it to be fair to the others too. I still look
at other peoples work and have given some individual feedback. Also I very much
prefer to Skype with people than to write and write feedback, so I have skyped
with Bill and Andrea last week, we are thinking about collaborations.
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