12/7/2017 0 Comments FInal Project ProposalThe artist I will be using as inspiration for my final project is named Joel Bergner (aka Joel Artista). Joel is an artist, an educator, and an organizer of community public art initiatives with youth and families around the world. Growing up in Bloomington, Illinois, Joel had a strong passion for art even at a young age. As a descendant of Jewish refugees who endured serious ethnic-based persecution, Joel was instilled with compassion for suffering peoples early on in his life. As a teenager, Joel experienced some difficult years during which he became a teen father. Although the relationship with his son's mother did not work out, he has striven to maintain a relationship with his son and be a present figure in his life. His challenges during his teenage years and during his young fatherhood have greatly impacted his community work with youth, allowing him to empathize with their struggles and help give them hope for their future. For some time, Joel lived in Chicago in the Mexican-American culture, which greatly impacted his calling as an artist. For awhile, he spent time creating his own personal art and dabbling in graffiti, and then he finally was able to paint his first public mural at a cafe. After that, he pursued his passion and has been travelling around the world creating public murals, teaching art and English, and doing educational public art projects with youth through a local church in Rio de Janeiro. He earned his BA in Sociology from the University of Illinois Chicago and has taught in juvenile detention centers, worked with troubled youth and refugees, and has counseled the mentally ill and the disabled. He has also led community mural projects in India, Israel and Palestine, Brazil, Kenya, South Africa, Poland, Sweden, Mozambique, El Salvador, the UK, Mexico, Cape Verde, Peru, Belgium, Germany, the Za’atari Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, and has participated in three international art festivals in Cuba. I am choosing this artist as my inspiration for my final project because I want to continue advocating for refugees through my work, but I also want to branch out and try new styles of work. Joel's work is intriguing, and his style is something that I have never tried before. I want to challenge myself and explore a new artist. However, although Joel's artwork is incredible, it is the purpose behind his work that truly excites me. The plight of refugees fleeing their countries has been on my heart a lot recently, and as I have learned about the work Joel does in refugee camps is incredible to me. In his work with the refugees in the Za’atari Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, he has added color to those drab camps by creating large murals. These murals are oftentimes bright and eccentric, and he allows the refugees within the camp to participate in the painting. So, each mural is personalized by the refugees. Essentially, Joel is doing art therapy with them, providing them with a way to cope with the struggles they are facing. It gives the people some source of joy and hope, enjoying the simple act of creating something that will allow them to better understand themselves and better handle their current situation. Joel's work and his position as an advocate for displaced people around the world is inspiring to me, and my dream is to have an impact on the world just like him, creating artwork while helping people to find true hope and direction for their futures. For my project, I hope to use the same medium that Joel Bergner works with. He most commonly uses acrylic paint and aerosol, which is spray paint. I will probably mainly be working with acrylic, adding parts of it in spray paint for overall effect. For the size of my painting, I obviously cannot do a mural of the size and parameter that Joel uses. However, I would like to do my piece rather large. I plan on using a canvas around the size 18x24, give or take. This will give me room to to create a rather large portrait and add the elements of the piece that I hope to include. Overall, I am very excited to start this project. My vision is to use an image of a refugee from Somolia that I met on a missions trip this summer. For her safety, I have changed her name to "Aamiina," which means "feel safe" in Somalian. Her face will be the focus of the piece, and she will have her hands held out as if she is receiving love. Behind her will be outstretched beautiful wings. This idea is based on a poem written by Emily Dickinson titled, "Hope is the Thing with Feathers." It personifies hope as a bird, singing in even the darkest of times. These wings will represent the hope that Aamiina and all refugees can have, expressed through art and vibrant color. Throughout my piece, my goal will be to emulate Joel Bergner's style, yet putting my own personal touch on it. I believe that through art, hope shines through, and that is my goal through this project. Photos from https://www.artolution.org/global-refugee-crisis
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