Edward Burtynsky

Oxford Tire Pile #9b, 1999

Artist Statement: "Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire - a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our
consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times." http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/

I believe his urban mines of metal recycling and tires are his strongest works about impact of industries on the environment. His photographs create a feeling that makes unfortable and anxious to fix the problem therefore considered a eco-artist.

Nick Ut

Huynh Cong Ut is also known as 'Nick Ut' was born in 1951. He is a photographer and works in Los Angeles. His work involves war images in the Vietnam war and lately the pop culture of celebrities such as Paris Hilton. The photographs of war are images of children in caught up in the voilence of the war. Such as the image to the left. His images are strong and create a sense of fear.

Taken June 8, 1972, this photograph earned Ut the Pulitzer prize, and Kim Phuc, center, a great deal of attention for many years. (© Nick Ut/The Associated Press)

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0008/ng2.htm is a good site with more photographs of children in a war environment.

Social He(art) Blog

Socialheartblog.com

This website is a good resource about international artist dealing with different issues of social justice. It is easy to use because you can look up artist by name, continent, or issue. Some of the artist issues include: child soldiers, domestic violence, eating disorders, gender, mental health, self-harm, the environment, war crimes, etc.

I give this website 5 stars!!!!

Elizabeth Catlet

"(born April 15, 1915) is an African-American sculptor and printmaker.

Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which are seen as politicaly charged."

She focuses on African Americans as her focus for her artwork and the relation to the today's society. She uses the relationships between family members of African Americans and others, heros, and the work life.

http://www.mojoportfolio.com/artist_search/african_american/catlett.html

Henry Darger

(1892- 1973)

• worked as a custodian in Chicago, Illinois
• artwork is considered an example of "outsider art"
• also an American writer

"Darger's work contains many religious themes, albeit handled extremely idiosyncratically" and "child labor" issues with his work, In the Realms of the Unreal .

His work has changed "since his death in 1973 and the discovery of his massive opus, and especially since the 1990s, there have been many references in popculture and along with other artist to Darger's work".

http://www.hammergallery.com/Artists/darger/Darger.htm

I believe Henry Darger artwork has to do with social justice in the fact his work is about pop culture of his time. His work is colorful with childlike images of stories he either wrote himself from the life he lives or of stories of the past. An outsider artist is "described as art created outside the boundaries of official culture", out there. Although his stories were werid and out there, they are in relation to his history and about what people define as crazy or crazy people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsider_art

Mark Lawrence

http://www.marklawrencegallery.com/pages/about-mark

"The Christian art I create is not an attempt to depict a likeness, nor an image of anything to be worshipped here on earth, or in heaven above. My art is created to point all people to Jesus Christ who is worthy of all of our honor, glory and praise.” Mark Lawrence

Mark creates "contemporary Christian abstract paintings" to spread the word of God through images from the text of the Bible. I consider this a social justice artist due to the fact he is trying to pread the word of something he believes in. Using images to signify text from the bible is a good way to get a view interested in how that person decodes the bible. In today's society, it seems like religion is more questioned.

Robert Adams

Robert Adams, born in New Jersey in 1937, uses black and white photography to "document scenes of America, revealing the impact of human activity on the wilderness and open space". I would consider him to be a eco-artist because of his statement towards humans cutting down trees, deforestation, and what is left to the forest. His black and white photos of trees and stumps capture his feelings of nature and its beauty of what was once there.

He is an Art 21, contemporary artist. There is a good video of him talking about his work on Season 4: Ecology.

Ursula von Rydingsvard

Her work is in response to the oppression of Jewish people in Germany in concentration camps. They include large wooden cedar sculptures that express the artist's need to a way to feel safe. Her work seems chaotic in the fact she has no pre-plan to her work and she states it is a good way to let her anger out. During season 4, episode ecology from PBS' show ART 21, she explains that her "sculptures are beaten up by life creating Chaos". She connects with the community between nature and people. From her childhood experiences, her drawings are even in response to those events due to the fact that she keeps them very private. In the video, she also explains how her sculptures seems like pockets to hide in and escape from the world. I like she explains in an interview between Art 21 interviewer about her influences of her work.

ART:21:	Do these early experiences affect your work in any way?
VON RYDINGSVARD:	If I were to point to something from the camps that one can see most directly in my work it is that we stayed in barracks—with raw wooden floors, walls, and ceilings. I have a feeling that that fed into my working with wood. And the first time I ever saw Poland—all of the villages, all the homes there, were made of wood. There were stacks of wood, doors, and troughs of wood. Wood was the building material. So it’s somewhere in my blood, and I’m dipping into that source. The way in which I manipulate the cedar is very important to me, but I have a feeling that I even learned from things that I never saw. Working with it and looking at it feels familiar. I actually visited the home where I was born and it is made out of wood at the top. The bottom is made out of those dark beams with white plaster in between the beams. There was a basement in which the animals and the beets and the potatoes were kept. That was wooden too.
ART:21:	Do your memories get absorbed into the work?
VON RYDINGSVARD:	I remember sitting on steps and having on something like a nightgown. This nightgown was made of a raw linen that was quite stiff, and it folded in ways that had almost mountainous landscapes to it—a kind of erect landscape that made all kinds of indentations and crevices, little hilltops and so on. And I just remember feeling it on my body, the harshness of it and at the same time the softness of the parts that were more worn down. And I remember the sun hitting those structures on my body. That’s a memory that has vagueness in it, but I’ve dipped into it a lot.

Yinka Shonibare

• Born in Nigeria and lives in London.
  
• "[U]ses painting, sculpture, photography, and film to show the challenges our nations in cultural identity" (Art 21, PBS).
  
• http://www.yinkashonibarembe.com/articles.html (see article from Museum of Art in 2003 for a interesting article about a strong artwork of political means, "Scramble of Africa"
  
• I think is artwork is a good example of social justice because of his awareness of cultural identity and wanting to bring these issues to the common people.
  

Ellen Gallagher

Bio: Ellen Gallagher was born in Rhode Island in 1965 and now lives in New York. Her education came from Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Her artwork is influenced by "advertisements that she appropriated from [the] popular magazines like "Ebony", "Our World", and "Sepia".

"I’ve collected archival material from black photo journals from 1939 to 1972, looking at magazines like "Our World," "Sepia," and "Ebony." Initially I was attracted to the magazines because the wig advertisements had a grid-like structure that interested me. But as I began looking through them, the wig ads themselves had such a language to them—so worldly—that referred to other countries, La Sheba...this sort of lost past. I started collecting the wig ads themselves. And then I realized that I also had a kind of longing for the other stories, the narratives, wanting to bring them back into the paintings and wanting the paintings to function through the characters of the ads—to function as a kind of chart or a map of this lost world..."- Ellen Gallagher

Connection to social Justice: I choose this artist because of her statements about advertisements in connection to people around the world. I also believe she is a good example after reading her quote from an interview with ART 21, a series by PBS.

Art21 (2001-2010). Ellen Gallager. Art 21 Series. Retrieved September 6, 2011 from the World Wide Web: http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/gallagher/clip1.html

Laylia Ali

Bio:was born in Buffalo, New York in 1968. Received a BA from Williams College and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Her paintings resemble comic-book serials and American folk-art traditions. Her artwork contains

violent subject matter that speaks of political resistance, social relationships, and betrayal to political issues and current events. Her most famous series of paintings depicts the brown-skinned and gender-neutral Greenheads.

Her characters and scenes in her paintings have everyday objects like dodge balls, sneakers, and band-aids as well as hoods, robes, masks, and military-style uniforms. Laylah Ali has had a number of shows including:Museum of Modern Art (NY), Contemporary Art Museum (St. Louis).

Here is a video from PBS, You do need to jump to her section of the video.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1239603151

Connection to Social Justice: Her artwork is about people treating other people different based on their color. I believe she is using her artwork to portray real and common situations and put them into a point of view.