Graffiti Me Here, There, and Everywhere
 
What occurs when myth and reality collide? 
 
In my practice, I create artworks that inspire healthy emotional and intellectual tension, stirring the imagination and sparking dialogue about one’s identity and the concept of self-acceptance and beauty.
 
As children, we scribble from the time we can hold a crayon or pencil. In some cases, scribbles lead us into the world of art where we “learn” to be an artist. Once ensconced in that domain, artists can lose site of the intuitive, automatistic, expressionistic marks that served as their undercarriage.
 
 
The internal struggle for self-acceptance battles with all the societal and cultural chaos of images and words and conflicting messages regarding who we are and what is valued by society. The search for identity means quieting all that external noise and diving into ourselves to appreciate and recognize the beauty beneath the surface.
 
Interspersed in my practice with more identifiable figurative works is a body of work that falls into my graffiti series. That series encompasses my Chester park freedom ride series, representing some of the happiest times in my life when I would ride my bike up and down the hills in our local park. These Freedom Rides crystalized as the key moments in my teenage years when I remember being happy and light beyond belief. I remember pedaling fast and then picking my feet up off the pedals to let momentum carry me… flying over bumps, the wind in my hair… laughing out loud.
 
Also forming their own graffiti sub-series are works representing explorations of identity that contain layers of paint, some containing handwritten words in English or French, many of which were formed of emotion-packed bold strokes and lines. This series focuses on capturing all the thoughts boiling and roiling around us and traveling through us. In other words, the conflict and contradictions in our society. Examples from this series include: Stop Injustice, Family Dynamics, Spectral Lines, Turning The Page, Balancing Act, and Red, Black, and Blond. At times, the series took me to calmer places and the graffitiesque works represent a mystic mindfulness: Sands of Time, Renaissance, Fabric of Time.

Listen to the Art. 

Look at the Music.

 

Convergence of Art and Music:

    Music has always been entwined with Elaine Weiner-Reed’s art. Sometimes she paints to the music of Chimene Badi, the Beatles, or Funky and Motown favorites, but her inner rhythm syncs best with Jazz. As a result, her studio is generally filled with the soulful music of Miles Davis, Maynard Ferguson, Sonny Rollins, Claude Nougaro, Herbie Hancock, and Vanessa Collier.

 

    A sculptor during her college years, Weiner-Reed primarily devoted the intervening decades to painting (oil, watercolor, acrylics). Gradually, she worked her way back to sculpture in 2014, carving her first stone sculpture during an International Artist Residency in Poland. By 2017, she was creating mixed media sculptures in metal and plaster (the Phoenix Rising series), which made her 2018 entry into the world of metal art fabrication at Anne Arundel Community College seem a natural, logical progression for her. Weiner-Reed’s question “How does my art SOUND to you?” launched her “Every Painting is a Song” collaboration in 2016, and became the genesis for the 2018 Art-Meets-Music collaboration event of the same name with the music group ROGUE COLLECTIVE during the artist’s Annapolis 2018 solo show.

 

    Subsequently inspired by the enchanting violin and cello music of ROGUE COLLECTIVE after their creation of five unique Structured Improvisational pieces inspired by her original artwork*, Weiner-Reed found herself sketching imaginary musical instruments. Within a few months, her Visual Acoustics collection was born and Weiner-Reed explains that she can now show ROGUE COLLECTIVE “how their music LOOKS” to her.