ARTPRIZE


This exhibition honors the lives of Diane Granat Yalowitz and Brendan Ogg. Both were gifted writers who lived in the same community and both lost their lives to brain cancer.

Diane was an award-winning journalist who died at 49. She wrote about issues such as equality, charity and social justice. Brendan was diagnosed with cancer during his sophomore year at the University of Michigan. Drawing on his love for writing, he turned to poetry, and a book of his work was published just before his death at the age of 20.

After their deaths, a stricken community began considering the words Diane and Brendan left behind. The act of taking Diane’s published works, cutting them up and wrapping them word-by-word around paper clips — a process that went on for more than a year — allowed people to think about those words in ever new ways.

DIGITAL ART :: Summer Becomes Absurd by Brendan Ogg
As Brendan wrote his poetry sometimes thoughts were difficult and his words would surface then disappear, or come to him rapidly. Brendan’s raw autobiographical poetry showed that even in the fog of pain, words can provide clarity and understanding — or as one friend put it, “preserve both dark nights of the soul and ecstatic moments of being.”

He wrote these words with specific meaning in mind. And, like the digital art done for Diane the words are resurfacing, letter by letter, memory by memory, meaning by meaning, allowing each of us to continue a conversation about friendship, family, community and life. After death.

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Artists:  Francie Hester and Lisa Hill
Date:  2004 to 2011
Materials:  Printed magazine articles, paper clips, digital prints on transparency film and etched aluminum honey-combed panels, Fresnel lenses, binder rings, acrylic, raw pigments and wax on aluminum honey-combed panels, wood and digital projection.
Dimensions:  10 x 16 x 8 feet
Venue:
48 West Fulton, Grand Rapids, MI 49503