“I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.” -David Bowie
We make our way. We find our freedom as we can. We
couple and separate, we procreate and raise the next generation, learning along the way all that means for our own path. We can not be all, be everything at once as some movements have said is possible. We must, by very nature, pick and choose, decide what is important to us and run a grooved path along that road.
Bosko Begovic is an artist living and working in Serbia. At present he is working on writing and visual art. About a year ago he started a project that uses his work to create a comic book of sorts combining his drawings with texts. Now he is considering how to finish this work but is as yet unsure where it might go. Perhaps it will evolve to paintings or some other media combined
with text. He is also writing. The Philosophers Comic, one of Bergovic’s projects, is set up as a blog at present.
Bergovic began writing at a young age and always wanted to learn to write in English. After trying for a year early on, he found it too difficult to continue. Eventually he decided to write in English rather than Serbian and committed to this goal. This is where his blog was born. His writing has experimented with dialogue and with difficult subjects such as
suicide. Because he has always been friendly with visual artists, he always hoped to match his writing with visual art. Unfortunately, this was never quite a match. Eventually he decided to learn to draw and match his writing with his own artwork.
As a kid, Bergovic was drawn to comics but never wanted to write in the conventional style. But always somewhere in the back of his mind was the image of comics and this eventually blended with his writing a character that is an
anit-hero with a martial arts infusion. This led to a study of character including portraits of faces that he became comfortable drawing over the years.
Bergovic eventually desired to simply study a character and this has become a major focus of his work. At first his character studies were very basic line drawings but over time the nuances began to seep in.
To hear more about Bosko Bergovic’s complex and intricate character studies in both visual art and on
his blog, and to hear is insights on Dostoevsky and more,
listen to the complete interview.
Saya Woolfalk is an artist living and working in New York. As she spoke to Praxis, there was sunshine coming into her studio. She is working on several projects at the moment, all connected to a long term work called The Empathics. This is part of a three part project that has been exhibited multiple times in
various iterations, each time being a chapter of the story that Woolfalk ultimately wants to tell. Presently she is talking with anthropologist and dancer Meredith Cox about future collaborative projects involving ethnography and movement in public spaces.
The origin of The Empathics goes back to 2006 when Woolfalk was a Fulbright Scholar living in Brazil. She was deeply inspired by the work of descendants of slaves in the region, particularly that pathos and miraculousness of
the work. When she returned to the U.S. she wanted to create work that related to this. From the work that grew out of this experience, The Empathics emerged.
Woolfalk created ChimaTEK Life Products to explore the potential exploitation of the indigenous mystical culture she experience in Brazil as it might be in the hands of a corporation.
Woolfalk is also the mother of a young child and has had to incorporate this role into her work. Her daughter was born
shortly before her first solo museum show. She says she is incredibly lucky to be from New York and to have family who support and help her facilitate things. But she also, very early on, made it clear to places showing her work that she would be showing up with her infant in tow. In this way, she never allowed it to be an issue and indeed allowed motherhood to structure her life. Woolfalk works in her studio from 9-5 and goes home to her family after that.
