Artist Statement:
“I make art to record dreams and experiences. I make art to create dreams and experiences.”
The process of bringing an idea from the inner space of imagination and feelings to an outer manifestation has fascinated me since childhood. I thought of art as play at its most sacred. I understand it now as the essence of what is often referred to as ritual. Often, that young me ruminated on the thought that this capacity to create must be part of our function in the evolution of life in the universe. Over the years I have become keenly interested in the fact of how we also become entrained by our own creations. Art imitates life, and then our lives return the favor.
I aim to use art as a social medicine, to stimulate the imaginative capacity within my audiences and myself, to prompt questions about the parameters of our assumed sense of reality. I see art as a connective cultural technology. It is ritual, magic, medicine, social alchemy. I often feel that the real art is the experience of being created by the act of creating, and so I am passionate about facilitating creative experiences for people of all ages. I am interested in using art to explore ideas of connectedness and distance, sovereignty and slavery, authenticity and zombification, and what it means to be a part of nature in this human form. This inner exploration is also what I aim to bring to my workshops, and community art activity. By engaging the creator within, we connect to the flow of life around us and our awareness heightens bringing benefits to our lives, our relationships, and nature itself.
Bio:
I am a Baltimore based visual and performing artist, and community arts facilitator. I am a dreamer, a dream, a father, a gardener, a neighbor, a black man in America, and a being transcendent of these labels. I am indigenous to a soil that I am always walking barefoot through despite any appearances to the contrary. I was born in Trinidad, grew up in NY, and have called Baltimore home since 2002. I have been working in the public school system, with homeschool networks, the public library system, and partner with community organizations as an art teacher, and community arts facilitator.
Artiscally, I have been primarily a visual artist, specifically a painter and sculptor. In the last decade I have been developing a sculpting technique using a clay derived from wood and recycled paper fiber to create low relief wall sculptures. I also work as an illustrator, muralist, film-maker, and animator. In 2016 I founded String Theory Theater, a small puppetry troupe composed of myself and my two daughters. We have been performing for adults, families, and children at various venues around Baltimore and have performed on the road in DC, PA, and CT. Our puppetry formats include marionettes, hand and rod puppets, shadow puppets, crankies, large parade style puppets, video productions, and more.
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Instagram: dirkjart
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