Art Talks

DeepARTment's Art Talks program is been developing under the umbrella of the "Art With an Accent" movement under the title of "My Accentricate Art" and is an evolution of our partner Vitart-Info's YouTube interview show, where artists share their expertise in various fields of art, discuss the business of making art or explain the creative visions behind their recent projects. You can check out a few examples of the original YouTube show here:

 
 

PB: Let me now tell what this work was in its essence. It was an assignment that I got at film school as a part of the education process. We were given the assignment to pick one certain emotion and to make a series of pictures which would represent this emotion. I wasn't really sure of what I wanted to present out of the blue, so I decided, well... pretty much as I usually do, to go out to streets and to see what the environment around me could propose. I come from a country with a poor governmental management. There's lots of abundant factories and residential buildings which are in a very poor condition. When you go out to the streets of Minsk (my hometown), you may pretty quickly get depressive feelings because of the abundance of gray colors and broken pavements. So, when I went out to a street and looked around searching for the details that could help me express something, I felt the anger and the protest towards that poor management that made the surrounding, my hometown look like a depressing pit.At that point I decided that my emotion would be anger and I just started walking along the streets and once in a while I took out my tripod, set the camera and picked items from the surrounding, and used them to build up a scene, to build up an idea, some sort of a story. I always used the natural environment around me to express my feelings in photography or to write this environment "into the stories" that I wrote as a film director, as a scriptwriter while studying at the film school. The natural world around me was always an inspiration, the medium that I used in the process of creation.

 
 

VI: When you work, do you try to tell some story, some patterns with your objects, which people may understand with their mind, or are you trying to influence their emotions so they related themselves to the food you promote?
DS: First, I'm trying to satisfy my client. If I see them using my image, that means I have a success because they like it. I'm really trying to bring out emotions: the emotion of hunger or the emotion of "that looks like something I want to eat". Which is difficult. I mean there are many times I'll see an ad for a food company and the food just doesn't look appealing. It's my job to make something that's unappealing - appealing. There was a time when I was shooting close-ups of produce and in my head it was: "How does this smell when I look at it?" So, I have a stem. I'm doing a close-up how does it smell before it goes in my mouth. How can I make this look that it smells good? I'm trying to make it as appealing as I can. When people are going to look at my portfolio, I tell them look at my portfolio before you eat lunch because then you're going to be hungry and lunch is going to be better for you.

 
 

This episode of Art Talks by the Vitart.Gallery lets Kristine Schomaker speak the truth how her project Perceive Me was born and what she was going through working on it. This is the first part of Kristine Schomaker on Art Talks.

Developing the "My Accentricate Art" talks, we collaborate with artists who are members of the 'Creators United - Solstice Meet-Ups' or participants in the Art Spa groups. We assist them in crafting their narrative stage presentations, exploring nuances of their cultural backgrounds and sharing their dreams and creative goals in the USA. Our partner and parent non-profit, RimoVision Group (Creative Theater for All), provides training in stage technique. This groundwork will culminate in a series of Art Talks Stand-Up shows, set to launch publicly in 2025. The goal of the program is to help underrepresented artists rediscover their voices in front of a new audience and foster a deeper connections between talented immigrants and American art enthusiasts. These shows will also be video recorded and distributed for the national audience outreach.