Today marks the one-year anniversary of the day the World Health Organization declared the spread of the coronavirus a pandemic. Since then, more than 2.5 million lives have been lost around the world and nearly everyone has been affected in one way or another.
In the art world, gallery closures, exhibition cancellations, and income losses have taken tangible and psychological tolls on artists—and all of it is coming out in their work. To find out how the pandemic has altered their artistic practices—for better and worse—we checked in with 12 artists to hear about the past year in their own words.
Zoe Buckman
The experience of lockdown did not change my practice much logistically as I tend to make smaller, more intimate works that I create myself in a solitary manner. However, the pandemic has been formative for my personal and spiritual journey, and that has directly affected my current series, “Nomi.” I have been exploring grief and trauma within the home for some years, but the conditions of 2020 taught me that there exists within me, and within us all, a force of power, freedom, creativity, and joy that is constant and unchanged by our external conditions and experiences. I gave that force a name and persona. “Nomi” is currently on view at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, via their online viewing room.
This excerpt was part of a longer article, which can be found below.