Angela Meckley Art21 #2

For this assignment the first artist I researched was Doris Salcedo. Salcedo centers her work around worldwide political violence. To do this, she chooses to connect the thoughts/experiences of philosophers and victims of political power to objects. She finds objects that she can connect thoughts of violence to, for example a lot of her intervention to the objects is minimal, but through choosing objects that seem cast out or less eye catching she brings them new justice as pieces of art. She especially tries to surround herself with the struggles of the victims of violence through the artwork.

The second artist I researched was Maya Lin. Lin is a female architect who won the contest for designing a memorial for the Vietnam war. As a female artist/architect this was an extreme honor for her. It is inspiring to me as a female artist to see Lin succeed with this achievement. She makes it a very big deal to “never give up”, and always strive to succeed with your dreams.

The third artist I researched was Leonardo Drew. Drew believes in living within the same place that he makes his artwork. This makes it easy for him to attend to his artistic callings right when inspiration strikes him. I feel that as an artist this is important because when inspiration strikes it can be very important to act on that as soon as possible so you don’t lose your idea/momentum for your project. The process of his art is surrounded by natural materials that have been burned, decayed, or oxidized. His process is done by transforming objects into large sculptures, which is very intriguing to me.