A well-known national artist will be visiting a Buffalo Public high school today. Abstract artist Mark Bradford will be speaking to students at Buffalo Academy for Visual and Performing Arts. WBFO's Senior Reporter Eileen Buckley says students created art work in preparation for his visit.
Rachel Lyons is an art teacher at Performing Arts. She guided her students through the creation of an intrinsic abstraction of artwork. It mimics the style of Bradford, an African American artist from Los Angles.
In collaboration with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the school will welcome Bradford as a guest speaker. Just about every art student at Performing Arts has been involved in this major art project inspired Bradford's work. They’ve made large panels featuring social justice, Buffalo's environmental and socioeconomic issues.
"There's one panel that is kind of the quality of life in Buffalo -- looking at both students personal experiences and statistical information about poverty levels and housing issues, and those kind of things,” explained Lyons.
The classroom it was buzzing with 9th and 10th graders. These art students parried up on various aspects of the project.
“Paste and gluing string to the main rows that are red,” said Nicholas Stokes. In one corner we found Stokes and Kayla Riley working together on 'hope panel'. The smell of glue filled the air as they tried to create this section featuring information on Buffalo.
“Because we’re doing like information on it – the amount of pollution, the asthma cases,” explained Stokes.
“We also learned about how many famous people have been here, like Mark Twain and the assassination of a president and how we were like one of the main people during the Underground Railroad and how big Buffalo is compared to other cities around New York,” said Reilly.
Students built layers of collages using various methods to reveal what was underneath.
“Once we finished this, we’ve got to paper Mache another layer over that and once we are done with that we peel off the string to signify all the roads and all the designs of hope around Buffalo,” said Reilly.
Eric Jones is the Albright's Public Art Projects Coordinator. “Just the layering of this, in and of itself, with the concept of they’re also un-layering all these types of things happening in Buffalo,” said Jones.
Jones observed as students created this Bradford-inspired piece. Jones tells WBFO News he believes Bradford will be ‘blown away’ with the students work.
“So to continually add those layers, but then to dig back into it, Mark Bradford style – he typically sees it as this uncovering, archeological excavation of sorts in his work and that also bring up new things that you really didn’t know that were going to be there, so for them to be working in this style, such a large scale, and have such really great support from the teachers has been amazing,” remarked Jones.
“This idea of collaging layer and layers of things and then re-exposing them – kind of that whole technique is different for them. The idea that looking at abstract art, but really understanding the content that goes into it, even though it is an abstract piece, so much information is embedded within this project and that idea, for them, is really important too,” said Lyons.
Art teacher Lyons describing how Bradford's ‘abstraction power’ -- layers of collages - made of paint and materials, describing deep socio economic and social justice issues in a community The concept of Bradford's work is to provide society driven reality. The students created real life topics.
“And this young lady here, her whole map was about where sex offenders live in her neighborhood, so she looked at the data about registered sex offenders, pulled that map. We’ve searched a lot of crime statistics and stuff too,” noted Lyons.
Tori O'Connor worked on a large piece of artwork spread out across the classroom floor with other students.
“It was really startling to see how many sex offenders were actually in Buffalo,” said O’Connor.
O’Connor said this project really gives students a sense of some of the difficult lives and areas citizens live.
“Downtown – it seems really nice and built up down there, but if you ask someone from the east side what their life is like, it’s completely different and it’s not nice at all,” O’Connor stated.
“As we’re adding where all the killings is going on, all the violence, sex offenders that were in the different places,” described Dereke McDade, art student.
McDade was asked to provide written thoughts for the project about aspirations about life in Buffalo. Initially he wrote some positive notes about his own dream of becoming a professional basketball player, but then wrote a negative reflection
“I said there’s really no hope for the future. I don’t believe there’s hope for our youth much now a days,” said McDade.
A map of the city of Buffalo was also created by students where the entire student body from Performing Arts was asked place a pin displaying where they currently live and where they lived in the past.
The project brought students to work together.
“Especially now with contemporary art is so much more of a collaborative experience and in my experience teaching, that when you get kids collaborating you get such a higher quality of work,” described Elizabeth Larrabee, BAVPA Art Teacher. “The kids shine through and there is a respect for the difference and strength of each individual.”
McDade said this artwork is a deep commentary of what some are experiencing.
“It shows all the different things we are allowing in Buffalo and what we can’t change and what we are not allowing ourselves to change,” McDade remarked.
Artist Bradford's works, “Shade: Clyfford Still / Mark Bradford”, will be on view at the Albright from May 26th through October 2nd. First Niagara is sponsoring the event which includes free admission for Erie County art teachers and students in K-through 12 during July and August.