Body, Mind and Spirit 2017 #GENDEREQUALITY

ARTIST’S STATEMENT:

My name is Jeffrey Pergament and I have been a practicing, professional visual artist since 1974. My first professional exhibit was in late 1974 as a participant in a 3-person fine art exhibit – I was the newcomer, recently graduated with my BFA and a multi-media arts practitioner. The other artists were “big league” visual artists - Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso – both global arts and cultural influencers and two of my favorite painters plus other genres. Although much information is available online when anyone enters my name, Jeffrey Pergament, into any web browser’s search engine, allow me this opportunity to identify some of my favorite artists and influencers who made me pursue a deeper understanding of the craft as well as the social profiles within which art is created and injected. Included in this group of creative people who influenced my studies and my politics about art and the humanities are Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Francis Picabia, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon, Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Frida Kahlo, Renoir, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Stanley Kubrick, Roman Polanski and many, many, many others from all around the world and especially my tropical favorite and color theory/figurative influencer, Paul Gaugin. Unlike the days in former decades when artists required cadavers to study anatomy, we now live in the age of visual sensory overload and appropriation art is a viable genre for public exhibition and sale. In this contemporary digital age, everybody is an artist and photographer, a videographer and a photojournalist, and then we have the blogs and the bloggers. I admit that I, too, have blogs and am a blogger.

The boundaries for intellectual property and copyright are being stretched daily as the world becomes more exposed with every launched and orbiting satellite that carries signals and data packets back and forth from computer to computer. Laws are one aspect; the enforcement of said laws is a different aspect – this is a socio-economic issue for intellectual property rights and copyright/trademark registrations that we in the USA face relative to China. The digital download platforms provide any pirating opportunities and artists/creators never receive the actual fees for use of intellectual property that should be in place across the World Wide Web.

Today, we can study everything that existed before us and everything that is happening around us. Through my visual art and A-V multi-media projects, I strive to push the metaphorical envelope of social taboo against knowing who we are, to remove sexual and sensual hang-ups and ignorance-based intimacy with others, eliminate the false moral values and archaic “Victorian” principles that interfere with governmental art support, and to foster and augment the sensory experiences that are available to us as the only species with the capacity for art. When we live within our natural and created environments without an adequate means of self-expression or level of self-esteem and self-worth, everything that we do serves as compensation for this basic fact – a lack of an adequate means to express oneself – exaggerated through illiteracy and poverty yet inherent by random development from negligent parenting generation after generation after generation for 4 decades.

I recognize that a certain level of literacy is required to grasp the “1,000 words per picture” that are represented in my paintings, photographs and other works of visual and multi-media art. Arrogance is worthy of containment and diminished public exposure. To eliminate the necessity of speed in balance with time to review my work, my career history and contact information, I have several proprietary web sites on the World Wide Web. I now will provide three for this commentary:

http://www.createdenvironments.com/ is my main corporate identity web site that features many aspects of my design/build and architectural fine art and design services, various client/project and personal accomplishments and current projects and special services that I administer or coordinate now. My multi-media projects and some very special elements available to the public from this web site also adorn the web pages of CREATED ENVIRONMENTS DOT COM.

https://www.youtube.com/user/visualjeff1 is my primary YouTube broadcast channel, featuring animated documentary music videos as well as my own visual art and creative writing in videos to showcase my paintings, sketches and still photography while discussing current events and the issues of the global day. Examples extend from documentary photography and graphic arts about gender equality and abuse to women to studio compositions and still life studies and live, on-air variety shows, interviews, innovations and cultural affairs, and news item introductions.

http://www.visualjeff.org/ is my dynamic WIX-hosted online project/client portfolio for VISUAL PHENOMENA STUDIO. This web address and site showcases a specific selection of my films, my paintings, hand-painted furniture and photography, and my design/build architectural accomplishments, special projects and special events with which I am or had been involved. This web site’s Special Events section in the PROJECTS category visible on the home page (there are 6 different sections in this category) is a showcase for LIQUIDISLAND, a 5-member original American rock band that I manage, market and promote through VISUAL PHENOMENA STUDIO. LIQUIDISLAND performs only the original songs written by Keith A. Forman, BMI songwriter, friend, client and band-leading guitarist who released a new CD album in May, 2016 that includes 14 original tracks written by Keith and performed by LIQUIDISLAND. GO YOUR WAY is a limited-edition CD now available for purchase directly from VISUAL PHENOMENA STUDIO and from my online gallery and design studio at www.visualjeff.net. In addition to Keith Forman, LIQUIDISLAND band members also include John Carr, vocals; Bernie Owens, drums; Rit D’Arienzo, bass; and Peter Vul, guitar. All the music included on GO YOUR WAY is available everywhere that music is streamed and sold online and especially on www.visualjeff.org, where you can listen to the entire song and the entire album, rather than a 30-second teaser that most commercial MP3 download sites offer to induce you to buy the track.

Thank you for reading my commentary today.

Dr. Jeffrey W. Pergament, DD, COTUM; Artist/Owner, VISUAL PHENOMENA STUDIO
CEO and President, CREATED ENVIRONMENTS, INC. (CEI) dba CEI T/A VISUAL PHENOMENA
Manager, LIQUIDISLAND, an original American rock band
610-504-6421
fantasyarts@msn.com (PayPal verified business account email ID for VISUAL PHENOMENA FINE ART)