Araújo Art: My Proposal to the Pasadena Council on the Arts

There are several written components required when submitting a proposal to the Pasadena Council on the Arts for an Individual Artist Grant. Visual documentation is also required. I submitted a PowerPoint presentation as part of my proposal. This is, basically, what I submitted for the visual documentation (I'm not including every single image that was in the PPT file):

1. Intro Slide
Proposal: The Age of Revolution
Exhibition at Side Street Projects

2. Icons is an unconventional series of drawings made of hardware store materials: metal grommets pounded through 22 inch square plastic tarps.

3. The Icons are a hybrid of drawing and sculpture. I hammered hundreds of metal discs through each small tarp to create the images.

4. Double-sided Icons installed in the windows of the Urban Institute of Contemporary Arts in Michigan were seen by pedestrians on Sheldon Boulevard and gallery visitors.

5. I made this piece from materials that Homeland Security recommended I purchase to protect myself from biological or chemical warfare. Instead I wound up using the duct tape and plastic sheeting to make Orange Alert, a stream-of-consciousness text piece.

6. In my installations, I’m interested in creating the maximum impact with the most economical means, in this case with simple cut paper. Dirty Bombs’ images are visual puns derived from various meanings of “dirty” and “bomb”. My 88 fragile cut-outs floated across the fourteen foot wide wall of the Santa Monica Art Studios, forming a loose narrative.

7. Grey Zone is another cut-paper piece deconstructing hidden meaning in language. I was struck by the term “grey zone” which is used by C.I.A. agents to indicate the state of being unable to distinguish allies from enemies. I pinned white cut-outs to a white wall to create a piece made of grey shadows giving physical form to an elusive idea.

8. Cost Cuts is a graphic representation of the sacrifices our soldiers are asked to make as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continues. (This piece is pictured in the previous post.)

9. I wanted to make a connection between sex and violence in the library, a place removed from both. I installed visceral paintings beneath the glass floor tiles in the human sexuality and the history of warfare sections of the Pittsburgh public library, creating a startling stained glass window underneath library visitors’ feet.