Tracey and Jon Stewart and Farm Animal Rescue

article link: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jon-stewart-tracey-farm-sanctuary

I was at an event last Saturday where Tracey and Jon Stewart were being honored for opening up a new sanctuary for rescued farm animals. The new sanctuary will be an extension of the Farm Sanctuary in Watkins Glen, NY.

The video below says far more than I can about the extraordinary work that the Farm Sanctuary and other NY sanctuaries (ie, Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary). Warning: the video below shows the horrid conditions that these 200 animals were rescued from.

William Hogarth and his "Four Stages of Cruelty"

“The Reward of Cruelty” by William Hogarth

There is a great post up over at Our Hen House about William Hogarth's prints (engravings) as protest against cruelty. His series, Four Stages of Cruelty, depicts the connection of cruelty towards non-humans to cruelty towards fellow humans in societal problems and norms.

The post considers activism within the artistic community both historically and contemporarily. This interests me greatly as I am guided by my own morals and activism when creating my artwork, as returning visitors to this blog must surely know.

Upcoming shows

Dark Side of the Road
Aquatint Etching, © Elana Goren

My etchings will be in a couple of upcoming shows in October and November:

October 26 - November 8, 2014
NY Society of Etchers
Intaglio Prints New York/Melbourne
Reception: October 30, 6-8 PM
National Arts Club
15 Gramercy Park South
New York, NY

October 29 - December 10, 2014
SIPMA Juried Exhibition
"I Live Here"
Reception: October 29, 4:30-7:30 pm
Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery
New Jersey City University, NJ

See the calendar side bar on the right for more info.

Animalia Print Exchange

Car Number 29
Reductive Linocut
©2012, Elana Goren

The above print was submitted for a print exchange organized by Printmaking Sisters in Australia. The Animalia International Print Exchange will be exhibited in Australia in August, then Italy and the U.S. in 2014.

I decided to do a linocut because I hadn't done one in a while and I wanted to create the print as quickly as possible with the deadline approaching and the need for extra time to ship the prints to Australia from New York.

I have been working for a while with the subject of cattle trucks that I see on the highway. They contain animals who are not fed or given water for the duration of the trip which might last days. I am pretty obsessed with the subject since I saw a calf one hot summer day in one of these death mobiles.

I was behind such a truck on an extremely hot day while driving on Interstate 84 that runs through New York. I saw a calf try to stick it's nose through one of the container's holes and stick his tongue out, desperately trying to get relief from thirst by "licking" the air rushing by the truck. It made me sick to think of those poor desperate animals, cruelly neglected as they were sped off to their deaths.

University of Wisconsin-Not In Our Name

Vivisection Victims, ©2009 Elana Goren
Aquatint Etching

One of my etchings was used in an article about horrible experiments being done at the University of Wisconsin. Here's the link to the article and a call-to-action: Maternal Deprivation at UW-Madison Today.

Art of Democracy Show coming up

Detail from "Sweet Land of Liberty"
Monotype, © 2012 Elana Goren

In November, Sacred Galley NYC will exhibit "Art of Democracy," a show curated by Marshall Arisman, a very well-known illustrator and printmaker who heads the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program at the School of Visual Arts in NY. Marshall was one of the first contemporary illustrators to blur the line between illustration and fine art, succeeding in bringing a fine art aesthetic to alot of his illustration work. He is an artist that I have looked up to since my early college years and have been inspired by since. I am honored to have my work included in an exhibition that he is curating.

The work pictured above is a detail of the monotype that will be included in the show. Please stop by the Sacred Gallery for the opening on November 3, 8pm - 11pm. "Art of Democracy" runs from November 3 until November 30.

For show info, visit the Sacred Gallery website.

New Explorations in Etching

Detail: Through Humans' Scope
Aquatint Etching, ©2012, Elana Goren

Through Humans' Scope
Chin Colle Aquatint Etching, ©2012, Elana Goren

I had been experimenting with different ways to create explosive, violent images using aquatint etching techniques and this piece is a result of those explorations.

My goal was to use 12 to 16 plates (all 9" x 6") to print in a brick pattern on large (44" x 30") paper in order to create a kind of wall of explosive imagery that one could see from a distance. As the viewer came closer to the piece, images would emerge from the dark, splattered areas and the experience would be more complete.

Technically, the difficulty lay in inking and wiping that many plates at once and printing them with the hopes that there was enough consistency in the color tone and richness through all the images. I also needed to see that their arrangement would be visually balanced throughout the entire piece.                         

I started by printing them on Unryu paper which is very thin and has fibers in it that I hoped would add to the chaos of the imagery. I layed these prints out on top of the big sheet of Rives BFK to figure out my composition and get a sense of how the prints were all working together. During this process I realized that chin colle was the way to go as I saw the piece come together.

My description of Through Humans' Scope for an upcoming show is as follows:

Animals are simple caricatures in most humans’ minds, not existing in our reality unless they are being utilized for some selfish purpose or another. This concept was the driving force behind my etching piece, Through Humans’ Scope, where animals are depicted in outline form, almost not there, until their image crosses into the dark realm of violence and exploitation where they turn into actual flesh. The explosive, dark fields, almost reminiscent of gunshots, bring each of the twelve subjects into a more modeled and fleshed out version of themselves. Only through violence do they become real to humans.

Through Humans' Scope, can be seen at the Theo Ganz Gallery in Beacon, NY from July 14 until September 2, 2012.

UPDATE: This piece was mentioned in a NY Times article.

Dealing with Vivisection

 "Vivisection Victims #809,689,432 & 3"

Plate size: 18" x 24"

Aquatint Etching

Keeping with themes that define my work and that mean the most to me, I am working with an issue that invariably cuts to the heart of how misguided and immoral we can be as humans. I am specifically referring to vivisection, torture of animals in the name of science. The word "vivisection" literally means "the action of cutting into or dissecting a living body."

Non-human animals are so completely at our mercy that they become easy victims of a multi-billion dollar industry that profits from and justifies its horrific practices by using the defense that it is all done for the good of humanity. I find it ironic that one of the practices that turns humans into monsters, vivisection, is referred by some as necessary and good, proclaimed as something done in service to all.

I have nightmares after seeing hidden videos of what goes on behind closed doors in animal laboratories. It's amazing that we're into the 21st century and these barbaric practices that date back to ancient times still exist and constitute a profitable business for corporations, universities, animal dealers, cage and food manufacturers, animal breeders and transporters and scientists receiving grants.

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that "crush videos" are legal. I am compelled to make a declaration of my own. Cruelty in all its forms needs to be prohibited and not promoted in any civilized society of humans.

You may be familiar with the quote by Gandhi:
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." 
Or this quote by George Bernard Shaw:
"The Anti-Vivisector does not deny that physiologists must make experiments and even take chances with new methods. He says that they must not seek knowledge by criminal methods, just as they must not make money by criminal methods. He does not object to Galileo dropping cannon balls from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa; but he would object to shoving off two dogs or American tourists."
I just couldn't have said it better myself.

New Etching

Typical Day at the Circus
plate size: 18" x 24"
aquatint etching on Rives BFK

This is one of the latest etchings I've done. It was a big plate and a bit more difficult to aquatint and get the tonality that I was trying to achieve in some areas but after a few etching states, I finally got the depth and atmospheric tone I was going for.