Galleries have been closed and shows have been cancelled or delayed but many of us artists are still creating. Our materials and processes may be changing, yet we still create. I like to have a physical manifestation of myself around me. Creating artwork is a life affirming event for me and the pandemic has not changed that. Please enjoy what my friends and I have created with regards to our current thoughts and conditions.
“The Screen and Beyond is an online project originating from an open call conceived by Nick West for the Art Byte Critique collective. The world is changing rapidly due to COVID-19 pandemic. The artists participating in this e-book explore the theme of “Screen” from their perspectives. Through creating artworks, they try to find hints for surviving a world where the future is uncertain. July 2020″
To watch the complete show, please click the image above or the title: The Screen and Beyond (it will open a new window)
My biggest impression from the prompt “Screens” is that my life that used to be riding the trains to visit friends in a more sporadic fashion is now regularly sitting at my desk to see them in my screens. Set times each week to see them is comforting for me.
This very meta idea I had to stitch myself as others saw me on their screens was prompted by our friend, and fellow Art Byte member, Janette Maxey. Telling it best in my artist statement:
“Once each week several friends and I power up Skype for a fun sketch session to stay connected as Covid-19 moves around the world. During one of the sessions, Janette Maxey chose to sketch each of us as she saw us in her screen. She held up her sketch of me as I took a photo.
Studio Deanna
From this photo I have stitched how she and the others see me on their screens via Skype including a fiber art piece I created which hangs on my wall in the background.
We continue to nurture each other’s creativity, comfort each other, and listen while we each continue to move forward in this new world.
21st century penpals, we are distanced. We are connected.”
Skype Sketch Stitch is an embroidered image on an old oxford cloth work shirt which I used to create several masks for our household. Done in an easy, quick stitch style I like how it looks on the textile however I didn’t take into account how difficult it is for the grid to be replicated by a computer screen. It really is an excellent photograph, but the computers just can’t show it properly, so it looks blurry. I specifically edited it into the screen of a laptop to immediately get a sense of “Screen.”
Skype Sketch Stitch
by Deanna Gabiga
15cm x 24cm
Cotton textile, fiber
Additional Artists featured in “The Screen and Beyond”
Arthur Huang
Bix Fife
Caitlin Brutger
Eva Li
Michelle Zacharias
Patty Hudak
yukaotani – Special Thank You to yukaotani for putting in the extra work collating the final presentation together. We really appreciate it <3