INSIGHT: Snapshots

Issue 50 | www.fokus.org

Atiba T. Edwards

Founder & Chief Curator Atiba is an engineer focused on making and connecting creative people, nodes, networks and moments.

Jozi Zwerdling Curator

Jozi is an artist enabler, educator and organizer who loves the INSIGHT project as a means of re-imagining, linking and documenting selves, stories and worlds.

Shani Cohen Curator

Shani is a Brooklyn based writer who believes in uniting our diverse communities through art and the power of words.

Cheryl Lee Bowers Curator

Cheryl is a Brooklyn based visual artist who believes photography and art is her freedom. “Visual Art is all about revelation, communication and celebration.”

INSIGHT Magazine showcases and archives emerging contemporary artists from all art disciplines. FOKUS produces this magazine to provide insight into people who are creating art, traditional and non-traditional, in their own way.

INSIGHT: SNAPSHOTS Contributing Artists Cover by Ebony Yizar

Cheryl Lee Bowers • Jill Gewirtz • Brooke Goldman • Amanda Grace • Laurie Markiewicz • Arinze Stanley • Christine Stoddard • Caroline Werner • Jeremy Wolf • Ebony Yizar •Jozi Zwerdling

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Questions, comments and contributions can be sent to insightsubmit@gmail.com.

To view older issues of INSIGHT, visit www.fokus.org/insight.

Copyright © 2016. INSIGHT (ISSN 2164-7771) is a publication of FOKUS, Inc. All rights reserved on entire contents. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

INSIGHT: SNAPSHOTS Contents 4 16 21 22 24 30 32 33 37 38 44

Laurie Markiewicz Snapshots Arinze Stanley

Patience, Practice and Persistence Jozi Zwerdling After 5 Years Caroline Werner Shapshots Jil Gewirtz New York City Abstractions Jeremy Wolf American Daydreams Amanda Grace MIT Shoelaces Ebony Yizar Cellphone Snaps Cheryl Lee Bowers Self Love Brooke Goldman Dangerous Terrain Christine Stoddard Took

Photography

Visual Art

Creative Writing

Articles

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Days In The Life Laurie Markiewicz

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Captured during my daily commute, “Days In The Life” is a collection of candid “snap shots” of New Yorkers. This black and white series features people in their natural states going about their everyday business. www.fokus.org |

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Laurie Markiewicz is a New York-based photographer and educator. Her portfolio includes a variety of lifestyle, portrait, street, video, and collage work. The images that she captures through the camera lens and shares are visual ethnographies of those who occupy the world’s most diverse city. Using that city as her backdrop, Laurie’s ability to capture detail within any composition provides new perspective on familiar and iconic locations around New York City. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and spaces in New York City, Philadelphia, the Netherlands, and Japan. www.lauriemarkiewicz.coM www.fokus.org |

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Innocence

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Insomnia

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Til He Comes

Arinze Stanley is a Nigerian based artist working in the genre of Hyperrealism. He works with charcoal and graphite pencils. Arinze says “my art is a reflection of my type of person as I consider myself as a slave of perfection so likewise, it reflects in my craft.� He draws inspiration from life experiences and everything that sparks a feeling of necessity. He loves to express deep and strong emotions as he finds them most attractive. www.hariney.com 20 | www.fokus.org

After 5 Years

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Jozi Zwerdling

it’s not all that much. the couch is so nice and the cats. there are thumbtacks holding up art and plants branches and projects from past lives. the kitchen is old, cabinets of cheap soft wood, doors falling off hinges. small bugs and grease caked in corners. there is loss now. we had this big little life together. today the sky is grey and ice melts into gutters and bricks, away from parking spaces that froze traffic. cincinnati kneads mom’s blanket. this morning my girlfriend left me in the bed to go grocery shopping. i did not want her body away from mine. clung. i am always holding close then learning again to let go.

Jozi is an artist enabler, educator and organizer who loves the INSIGHT project as a means of re-imagining, linking and documenting selves, stories and worlds. www.fokus.org |

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Idi Amin: Take with Food Caroline Werner

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Sale: Contemporary African Fiction

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Caroline Werner is a New York City-based visual artist. Born in northwest Florida and raised in Virginia, the South is everpresent in her work. Caroline works with a variety of media, including layered transparency photos, oil and acrylic works, handmade stamps, maps, silkscreens, ink drawings, photographs, and metal furniture. Her main passion and focus is oil-based mixed media work, which often incorporates shellac, newsprint, found objects, white-out, and stamps. Her art is inspired by world news, text, NYC, and the urban American South. www.carolinewerner.com www.fokus.org |

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New York City Abstractions Jil Gewirtz

Eyes

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Rothko Red

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Blue Tape

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Hands

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Red and Tar

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Rothko Rectablge

As a native New Yorker, Jill Gewirtz has done some form of art since the 1970s. She is drawn to surreal art and is able to recreate that blurred line between reality and fantasy. www.JillGewirtz.com www.fokus.org |

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American Day Dream II Jeremy Wolf

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Here We Are With What We Have Done

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Jeremy Wolf is a 27-year-old artist living and working in Brooklyn. His work explores themes of identity, power dynamics, and relationships between persons and groups. Recent paintings react to the seismic shifts in the current American political landscape, the subsequent effect on society, and the changing concept of what it means and has meant to be an American. www.jeremywolf.com www.fokus.org |

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MIT: Shoelaces

Amanda Grace Gamsby

This photo is of myself and my son. We found these MIT Technology Review magazines on a stoop and before long my seven-year-old son was reading them.

Actually reading them! But then as we took off for a walk to the park, I asked him to tie his shoelace and he flat-out refused. “I caaaaan’t.” he said. I sensed I was going to lose this one but as I went in to tie his shoe, I handed my friend my phone and asked him to capture the moment. If I was going to tie my kid’s shoelaces while he enjoyed MIT Technology Review, the whole family was going to get to appreciate this transitional moment for all of posterity.

Amanda Grace Gamsby is a single mother and Goth person who never grew out Of It. She is dealing with mental illness the best she can by creating art and just getting along in this crazy life. www.comingupviolets.com 32 | www.fokus.org

Cellphone Snaps

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Ebony Yizar

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Cellphone Snaps (cont.)

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Cellphone Snaps (cont.)

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Cellphone Snaps (cont.)

Ebony Yizar works with high school students who have special needs. Creating, studying and learning about v​ isual ​art is her true passion.

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Self Love

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Cheryl Lee Bowers

I took a snapshot (selfie) of myself. We often snap shots of plants, moving objects, or anything beautiful in this world. But some forget the most beautiful photo to capture is YOU. No matter what emotional state you’re in, YOU are the most beautiful and most important.

This is a snapshot of myself to show self love. You cannot truly love anyone if you don’t love yourself.

Cheryl Lee Bowers was born in East New York. Art has always been a part of her life. She had her very first art exhibit at the young age of 5. In her art, she likes to capture the beauty in everything. Art is and always will be. www.24-mp.com www.fokus.org |

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Dangerous Terrain Brooke Goldman

Butterfly World

“Dangerous Terrain� utilizes snapshots that my parents took when I was a child to speak about the idea of the family album. While making this work, I questioned, lost, and regained parts of my identity.

I realized that what I previously believed may have been false for a long time.

This transformed my views further about the family dynamic, family face, and overall, myself. In trying to make sense of my relationships, I started cutting away parts of images that I found unnecessary, highlighting the parts of my relationships I found integral and real.

This intuitive act created unrealized relationships with places, objects, and people that have existed for quite some time without my knowledge.

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Petting Zoo Party

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Ethel

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Held

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Fishing Trip

Brooke Goldman is a conceptual artist who utilizes the mediums of photography and video. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fine Art Photography at The Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. Her work focuses upon the issues of revisiting the past, reoccurring mistakes, relationships, childhood and family, secrets, loss, and intimacies, exploring her past and present relationship to each of these topics. Within these pieces, she attempts to tie together related and non-related events from the past to uncover the reasoning behind the occurrences in her life, justifying and reworking her concerns into a form of closure. www.brookegoldmanphoto.com www.fokus.org |

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Took

Christine Stoddard

Took No. 1

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Took No. 8

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Took No. 10 Christine Stoddard is a Salvadoran-Scottish-American artist and the founding editor of Quail Bell Magazine. Her visuals have appeared in the New York Transit Museum, the Ground Zero Hurricane Katrina Museum, the Poe Museum, and beyond. www.WorldOfChristineStoddard.com www.fokus.org |

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Thank You for reading INSIGHT: SNAPSHOTS We hope you enjoyed the work shared with you.

The theme for the next issue is: WOUNDS Read more issues @ www.fokus.org/insight