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Untitled (Hunger 3), Tim Lowly © 1996, tempera on ceramic bowl, 7" x 7" x 4"
This painting is from a series of 21 paintings on the bottom surface of traditional Korean bowls - done for an exhibition I had in Seoul, Korea in 1997. Recently, as I was writing some thoughts on my work to a colleague, it occurred that I had not explained publicly my thinking about and reason for making this work. This seems pretty important given the problematic territory that this work wanders into. What follows is an excerpt from my correspondence:
Around 1995 the “special needs” school that our daughter Temma had been attending for 6 years – Lakeview Learning Center – was preparing to close. I was working at the school on a large painting (titled Big Picture) of the classroom for “severely and profoundly disabled” children that Temma was part of. While working on this large painting I was given a collection of miscellaneous photographs documenting the students in their daily life at the school. Also around this time I was offered an exhibition with a gallery in South Korea, the country where I grew up (my parents were medical missionaries). I decided to make work for this show based on the photographs that I had been given of students from Lakeview Learning Center as a way of making present a population that was largely invisible / marginalized in Korea at that time. My goal in making these paintings was to select photographs that (for me) most powerfully expressed the humanity of these children. In making the paintings my intent was to try to represent them as best as I could in accordance to how I perceived them via the photographs: that is, as completely and compellingly human. Despite my ambivalence about using other people’s photographs as sources for paintings, these photographs – apparently taken by the staff of the school - offered a kind of “objective” perspective on the children somewhat fitting for my relative distance from them personally. That said, to the extent that these children were part of a community of which my daughter was a part I felt it was appropriate to make paintings based representing them.
This latter point is important in relation to the fundamental intent of this project. While I was attempting to portray the children in all their individuality evident in the photographic sources, I was doing so with the primary goal of presenting them as a community: a community as evidently diverse and complex (in various respects) as any other.
There is a well-known (in Korea) poem by the Korean Catholic “Minjung” writer Kim Chi Ha that has an essentially Eucharistic refrain: “God is rice”. In allusion to that poem I decided to do a series of 21 paintings on Korean rice bowls (a very commonly used kind of bowl). More specifically, as an allusion to the marginalization of this population I made the paintings on the bottom / underside (typically unseen) surface of the bowls. In using the rice bowl I not only wanted to draw a connection to Kim Chi Ha’s poem, but further to the movement of Minjung Art that had grown in vitality at the ending period of Korea’s long dictatorship (the early ‘80s). The Minjung Art movement (which, especially in the person of the artist Im Ok Sang, had been very influential for me) made the empowerment of the poor and the marginalized their priority. My hope was to situate the subject of the work I was making – at that time still a largely marginalized community - in the context of the Minjung political imperative.
In this work I was attempting to represent these children as faithfully as I could. It might be helpful to unpack my thinking “representation” a bit: Painting, particularly realistic / representational painting is frequently thought of / received in relation to the convention of “mastery”. That is, when one makes a realistic painting it might be understood as an artists’ claim of mastery and, implicitly, as their claim to an authority over the subject represented. I do not have any interest in that way of approaching painting. I am interested in painting that is a kind of conversation with the material used to make it (as opposed to painting as about control or domination of the material). No less importantly, I’m interested in painting as a regarding of the subject in humility: an attempt to represent the subject as honestly, accurately and respectfully as possible. Put another way: painting for me is learning how to make this painting in relation to trying to understand and represent this subject.
Taking that word representation a bit further: it is of course a reasonable question to ask whether one has the right to represent (make or take a picture of) another person – particularly someone who is not able to give consent. And it is reasonable to question whether I – even as the parent of a member of that community and trusted by the staff of that community – have the right to represent the students. But no less important is the other side of this question: the right of each person to be represented (both literally, in the sense of being pictured, and - via metaphoric implication - politically). In the case of this particular population and the particular context in which these paintings were being shown my intention was to make and show these representational paintings of these children as a claim to their right (authority) to be represented: Particularly towards the goal of advocating the presence of members of this population as they existed in that country at that time.
For Toy Sunday Theme: Extreme Sports
This idea came to me when I heard my granddaughter, Eleanor, singing this verse she wrote:
I blew up the force field
I am lost in the confusion
Currently my home is District 13
Bad things are happening
In Chapter Twelve
Now Watch Out
now NOW N O W
Cuz WAR is coming DOWN
Peeta, Katniss, Rue played by Lalaloopsies
Force field: by Food Service Wrap
Cave cannon: by Playmobil
Weapons, back packs: Playmobil, Furryville
Our nation plays....does yours???
is the name of the dance. It was created some years ago for the children of Biafra but sadly is still a contemporary issue. A professional dancer performing today in Dunedin about a mother watching her child starve and die. Makes me realise I don't do enough to help those in need :(
My thoughts this Sunday.
An Amur Tiger eyeing up what it thinks may well be a tasty child sized snack, unfortunately beyond the fence.
Flowers are blooming, some butterflies flying around. Spring 2016 is a fact! The bugs are flying around, hungry for food. This dance fly is lucky; he has a delicious meal at a well-stocked table!
DanceFly.
Zwarte dansvlieg.
*Empis ciliata*
Youngster getting a bit impatient with the delay in serving lunch in the Mangueiras community, Marajó Island, Pará, Brazil.
If you happen to visit Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand, try Ristr8to Coffee (www.ristr8to-coffee-chiangmai.com/)
Hunger, Dortmund Aplerbeck, 2019
(Checkout my captures at S T R E E T)
Hier gibt's Gerichte zum Mitnehmen.
* * * * *
Here are takeaway dishes.
Hunger: Do You Know The Facts?
It is estimated that one billion people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition. That's roughly 100 times as many as those who actually die from these causes each year.
About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. This is down from 35,000 ten years ago, and 41,000 twenty years ago. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five.
Famine and wars cause about 10% of hunger deaths, although these tend to be the ones you hear about most often. The majority of hunger deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. Families facing extreme poverty are simply unable to get enough food to eat.
Exacerbated ritual mouths
Ace habit or screamed request
Black lips
Hunger is all
Resolution roulette
Nothing spoken of a
White habits final curtain...
(Man, that was pretty sombre, wasn't it? Blame Jason, he sent me a buncha cut-out words, with instructions to use 'em to create my own poetry-based image... I feel like I oughta be adding lines about scat and wamming and sh*t... ;) )
Collaboration with Jason Novak. Original montage: Luis Drayton; early 1994. Completed using cut-out words sent by Jason Novak; 08/03/11.
Lothian 723 is currently carrying a side advert for The Hunger Games Mockingjay part one. 723 is seen here on service 25 to Riccarton. 26th November 2014.
This piece was made in observance of world hunger. It breaks my heart to see children & adults who live in hunger.
You will notice the stamp. In my eyes I see this as actually saying Peace For Food. Because it is when you are fed that you can feel comfort and peace from the hunger and suffering.
Therefore I pray not only for peace but also for awareness that there is hunger in the world. I pray that each person suffering may be filled to comfort and well-being and live in peace and harmony.
©Tonya Ashe
At this point, the hunger artist endured everything. His head lay on his chest - - it was as if it had inexplicably rolled around and just stopped there - - his body was arched back, his legs, in an impulse of self - preservation, pressed themselves together at the knees, but scraped the ground, as if they were not really on the floor but were looking for the real ground, and the entire weight of his body, admittedly very small, lay against one of the women, who appealed for help with flustered breath, for she had not imagined her post of honour would be like this, and then stretched her neck as far as possible, to keep her face from the least contact with the hunger artist, but then, when she couldn’t manage this and her more fortunate companion didn’t come to her assistance but trembled and remained content to hold in front of her the hunger artist’s hand, that small bundle of knuckles, she broke into tears, to the delighted laughter of the auditorium, and had to be relieved by an attendant who had been standing ready for some time. - Franz Kafka
Untitled (Hunger 20), Tim Lowly © 1996, tempera on ceramic bowl, 7" x 7" x 4". Private collection.
This painting is from a series of 21 paintings on the bottom surface of traditional Korean bowls - done for an exhibition I had in Seoul, Korea in 1997. Recently, as I was writing some thoughts on my work to a colleague, it occurred that I had not explained publicly my thinking about and reason for making this work. This seems pretty important given the problematic territory that this work wanders into. What follows is an excerpt from my correspondence:
Around 1995 the “special needs” school that our daughter Temma had been attending for 6 years – Lakeview Learning Center – was preparing to close. I was working at the school on a large painting (titled Big Picture) of the classroom for “severely and profoundly disabled” children that Temma was part of. While working on this large painting I was given a collection of miscellaneous photographs documenting the students in their daily life at the school. Also around this time I was offered an exhibition with a gallery in South Korea, the country where I grew up (my parents were medical missionaries). I decided to make work for this show based on the photographs that I had been given of students from Lakeview Learning Center as a way of making present a population that was largely invisible / marginalized in Korea at that time. My goal in making these paintings was to select photographs that (for me) most powerfully expressed the humanity of these children. In making the paintings my intent was to try to represent them as best as I could in accordance to how I perceived them via the photographs: that is, as completely and compellingly human. Despite my ambivalence about using other people’s photographs as sources for paintings, these photographs – apparently taken by the staff of the school - offered a kind of “objective” perspective on the children somewhat fitting for my relative distance from them personally. That said, to the extent that these children were part of a community of which my daughter was a part I felt it was appropriate to make paintings based representing them.
This latter point is important in relation to the fundamental intent of this project. While I was attempting to portray the children in all their individuality evident in the photographic sources, I was doing so with the primary goal of presenting them as a community: a community as evidently diverse and complex (in various respects) as any other.
There is a well-known (in Korea) poem by the Korean Catholic “Minjung” writer Kim Chi Ha that has an essentially Eucharistic refrain: “God is rice”. In allusion to that poem I decided to do a series of 21 paintings on Korean rice bowls (a very commonly used kind of bowl). More specifically, as an allusion to the marginalization of this population I made the paintings on the bottom / underside (typically unseen) surface of the bowls. In using the rice bowl I not only wanted to draw a connection to Kim Chi Ha’s poem, but further to the movement of Minjung Art that had grown in vitality at the ending period of Korea’s long dictatorship (the early ‘80s). The Minjung Art movement (which, especially in the person of the artist Im Ok Sang, had been very influential for me) made the empowerment of the poor and the marginalized their priority. My hope was to situate the subject of the work I was making – at that time still a largely marginalized community - in the context of the Minjung political imperative.
In this work I was attempting to represent these children as faithfully as I could. It might be helpful to unpack my thinking “representation” a bit: Painting, particularly realistic / representational painting is frequently thought of / received in relation to the convention of “mastery”. That is, when one makes a realistic painting it might be understood as an artists’ claim of mastery and, implicitly, as their claim to an authority over the subject represented. I do not have any interest in that way of approaching painting. I am interested in painting that is a kind of conversation with the material used to make it (as opposed to painting as about control or domination of the material). No less importantly, I’m interested in painting as a regarding of the subject in humility: an attempt to represent the subject as honestly, accurately and respectfully as possible. Put another way: painting for me is learning how to make this painting in relation to trying to understand and represent this subject.
Taking that word representation a bit further: it is of course a reasonable question to ask whether one has the right to represent (make or take a picture of) another person – particularly someone who is not able to give consent. And it is reasonable to question whether I – even as the parent of a member of that community and trusted by the staff of that community – have the right to represent the students. But no less important is the other side of this question: the right of each person to be represented (both literally, in the sense of being pictured, and - via metaphoric implication - politically). In the case of this particular population and the particular context in which these paintings were being shown my intention was to make and show these representational paintings of these children as a claim to their right (authority) to be represented: Particularly towards the goal of advocating the presence of members of this population as they existed in that country at that time.