Projekt30 announces a call to artists.
The artist as alchemist; the unending quest to purify and transform both one's materials and one's self.
Before the Baroque Period there was often little difference between art and science. Painters and sculptors were often alchemists, inventors, and naturalists. Eventually the two split, but alchemy in particular got torn right in half. Its physical aspect became modern chemistry, whereas its philosophical aspect drives the arts. To the alchemist fire (both literally and spiritually) was not a destructive influence but a transformative one. The transformation of raw ingredients into shining metal and the transmutation of that metal into the Essential Mercury or the Philosopher's Stone was its purpose. This was a process not simply chemical in nature, as to achieve these goals the alchemist himself must be purified and transformed.
So it is with the modern artist. The artist's "fire" takes raw ingredients such as paint, clay, light and a lens, etc. and transforms them into something greater then they once were. In that action the artist is transformed, and as they create more and finer works, they reach for that Essential Artwork, their "Philosopher's Stone".
This April Projekt30 will host "Fire and Metal" an exhibition devoted to the artist's search the that which is "Essential". The exhibition will be publicly juried, with the final 30 posted on April 21, 2011.
"None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry."
-Edith Hamilton
This is a 30 artist, publicly juried exhibition. All work is presented online, site visitors select the final 30. All participants receive exposure.
Opens: April 21st. $35 for 10 images. Free for Projekt30 members.
Visit website for more information.
Deadline: April 2, 2011.