#anysquaredspotlight

AnySquared Spotlight Art Talk with Tracy Kostenbader. Brett Swinney guest hosted! See full series of art talks on AnySquared Projects YouTube (@anysquared)

_____

ABOUT TRACY KOSTENBADER tracykostenbader.com or IG: @tracykostenbader tracykostenbader.com

Tracy Kostenbader is a visual and social artist who co-founded AnySquared as an artist collaborative in 2010 to develop art projects with others in rejection of an elitist view of art and institutions. Functioning on the basic premise of mutual aid and cooperation, Tracy has also helped build a unique organization and space in Chicago where people come from all over the city to participate and build projects together.

She transformed her home studio to make space for other artists where people can interact and produce art together. Tracy has been hosting AnySquared’s studio days more than a decade and mentors emerging artists to expand their ideas about how to create their work.

In AnySquared, she spearheads collaborations with a network of artists and groups and brings people together. She leads visual arts projects where participants are included in the process of designing and producing them. She creates arts programming, curates exhibitions, and nurtures others to also become arts organizers and make more challenging arts projects.

Tracy’s philosophy is rooted in collaboration. Her history of work with social justice campaigns has a profound effect on her ideas as an artist. Working together is the underpinning of AnySquared.

While producing collaborative projects, Tracy has maintained her own art practice. She explores personal and political themes with paintings, drawings, and digital images.

____ AnySquared.com YouTube, Twitter & Facebook: @AnySquared IG: @ne2_gallerysquared _____

AnySquared Spotlight art talks highlight artists of all ages and experiences and include both members and friends. See videos of recent spotlight art talks on our YouTube Channel. AnySquared Spotlight Art Talk Cristian J Roldán >> BE PART OF THE DISCUSSION ON ZOOM: Wednesday, February 24 at 7:30pm Facebook Event Reminder > Get on the Zoom! It’s worth it: The recorded Q & A and unrecorded after-discussion is great! Zoom ID 815 2306 1543. For direct zoom link, inbox AnySquared at least one hour before start time: [email protected]. >> SEE THE STREAM: Saturday, February 27th at 6pm on Hairpin Arts Center’s Facebook Live! Thank you Hairpin Arts Center for being our streaming partner! >>• IF YOU MISS IT: Watch on AnySquared Projects’ YouTube

ABOUT Cristian J Roldán IG: @c.j.roldan and @roldan.aponte I was born in 1989 in Caguas, Puerto Rico, where I studied an undergrad degree in Sociology at the University of Puerto Rico in Cayey. In 2014 I moved to Chicago, where I started working with the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and developing my career as a community-based muralist. In 2019 I received my Master Degree in Art Education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I use mural painting as a community-based tactic to resist invisibilization, and objectification by outsider narratives. This practice serves to codify the local narratives to challenge the indoctrination by hegemonic discourses. My art practice and research is based on a dialogue approach where mural painting narratives emerge from the community. Through this praxis, public art is applied as a means to preserve the collective memory, encode narratives from a first-hand perspective and politicize the public space. I create public art with the objective to intervene public spaces, as a way to raise consciousness, stimulate the imagination and preserve the collective memory. ____

AnySquared Spotlight art talks highlight artists of all ages and experiences and include both members and friends. See videos of recent spotlight art talks on our YouTube Channel.

AnySquared Spotlight Art Talk Makeba Kedem-DuBose >> BE PART OF THE DISCUSSION ON ZOOM: Wednesday, February 3 at 7:30pm Facebook Event Reminder >

Get on the Zoom! It’s worth it: The recorded Q & A and unrecorded after-discussion is great! Zoom ID 879 5542 3438. For direct zoom link, inbox AnySquared at least one hour before start time: [email protected]. >> SEE THE STREAM: Saturday, February 6th at 6pm on Hairpin Arts Center’s Facebook Live! Thank you Hairpin Arts Center for being our streaming partner! >>• IF YOU MISS IT: Watch on YouTube

ABOUT MAKEBA KEDEM-DUBOSE IG: @ahnmedek22 & @mkdubose_art Facebook: mkdubose Chicago native, Makeba Kedem-DuBose, is a multidisciplinary artist, curator, and arts educator.  She studied interior design at Harrington College of Design, and completed a Visual Arts Certification Program in Curatorial Practices at the University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies at Hyde Park Art Center in 2017. She is a career artist practicing throughout greater Chicagoland, and has exhibited both nationally and internationally.   2021 Artist Statement One of my strongest influences were the stained-glass windows in the church affiliated with my childhood school. As a child, I often wondered why there were no people of color in those beautiful windows. Being a huge part of my youthful curiosity, this fascination concerning the absence of people who looked like me later lead to my adding this missing element into my often multi-component stained-glass mimicked paintings, in the form of multi-hued, Afro-inspired abstract people. More recently, in addition to the stained-glass window influence, central themes of my work are now also informed by social justice issues related to mental health, spirituality, politics, race and gender.

____

AnySquared Spotlight art talks highlight artists of all ages and experiences and include both members and friends. If you missed the Zoom and the Stream check out the AnySquared Spotlight featuring Monstrochika (Naomi Martinez). Find her on instagram: @monstrochika