Artwork / 2019
Most years, I average around thirty new individual artworks, but 2019 took me down a different path. Besides a handful of independent pieces, I created three mini-series and started a fourth full series, which is also a book.
One of the smaller collections addressed my anxiety: how I try to deal with it along with its main sources—the twin crises of the environment and misogyny. Another consisted of mixed media paintings on paper inspired by my time at the Camp Stomping Ground artist residency. Those images are scattered throughout the group shown above, while below is the most formal of the three mini-series.
These eleven portraits represent workers and labor organizers from across the US who are featured in The Future We Need, a book about collective bargaining and how it can be used by more than just labor unions!
Along with all this new work, some of my older art also came back into focus in 2019. For one thing, my 2017 series Empathetic Magic was exhibited in April at Lyceum Hall in Burlington, New Jersey, with the addition of two new portraits.
For another, one of my paintings of Trump made headlines in April when it was removed from a group exhibition at the Montclair Public Library in New Jersey and then later reinstalled.
“Our studio found itself much like a traffic jam, everyone gathering around to stare, mouths open, at [Seemel]’s work.”