Lisa Wade

WEBVTT

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Hi,

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my name is Lisa Wade and I'm an artist in
Southeast Queens, Jamaica.

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This particular show is centered around the
pandemic.

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The title of the exhibition is called Emerging
from

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Quar antine: Notes on the Pandemic. Art has
always been fascinating to

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me, but I never pursued it until I had the
time

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for it. And I guess you could say I'm retired
now.

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I think COVID just accelerated that process
for me.

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The first piece that I'm going to talk about
is a photograph on top of a photograph

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and it's called Life in Shreds. You can never
imagine what the

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photograph is exactly because it looks very
muted, but it's a tree trunk.

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I was in Forest Park and I saw this beautiful
tree trunk.

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I brought it home and then I started playing
around with different things.

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And then I superimposed the same photograph on
top of it, but I manually shredded

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every piece of that photograph. I was thinking
about how many

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people have lost their lives or lost what they
were comfortable with in their lives.

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So I started cutting up the pieces. One
photograph is as it is.

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And the second photograph I basically cut into
shreds. I felt like everything was shredding away from

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me and shedding away from me. I think many
people have lost so much and their

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life feels like it's in shreds during
COVID-19.

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The second piece is a piece that reflects how
I

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was feeling during all the demonstrations of
Black

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Lives Matter and all the killings that
happened in 2019.

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2020. I couldn't get away from the TV. I
couldn't stop watching it.

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I was amazed. I was horrified. I was proud

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of the protesters. I was proud that everyone
said across the world that that was enough

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because that's how I felt. I've been feeling
like that for a long time.

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The piece is an assembly, assemblage I think
is what it's called, of various things.

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I found a piece of metal on the street last
year.

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And I said, "Oh, this is interesting." I said,
"Oh, this looks like a face." I was just a little bit

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of a face. I was just a little bit of a face.
I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I was just a little bit of a
face. I was just a little bit of a face. I was just a little

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bit of a face. I put it as like it was
exploding out of him.

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And that's how I felt. I felt this man was
squeezed. Every breath was out of him.

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Everything about his life was just being taken
away.

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And he was expelling the air and everything.
So I added this reminder

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of his African heritage. I wanted to include
that for him.

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I found this photo clipping and it said,
"Dreams deferred, dreams denied."

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And I really, I knew where it belonged. It
belonged on the face of the face of George

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Floyd. So I added that. And then I knew I was
done.

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Because I said all I could say about it. The
last piece is an abstract

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piece on canvas with acrylic paints using a
method called

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flow acrylic. It has reds and blues and a lot
of things that represent COVID-19.

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That red you'll see throughout my work. I
started dropping the red paint on

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the canvas. And I started thinking of my
cousin who died from COVID at 55 years old.

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She had a whole life in front of her. It was
August.

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It wasn't March, February. It was August when
we should have had a handle

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on this thing. I became angry. I became
enraged. I started screaming at the

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canvas. I started throwing the paint at the
canvas.

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I've never been so emotional my whole life for
over 300,000

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people who died unnecessarily. And every time
I hear that number,

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it's 300,000, whatever, whatever, and Wanda.

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Because that was my cousin.

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So that's COVID. That's the pandemic. That's
life in quarantine.

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Let's find notes from the pandemic. I'm
thankful to be able to share this with

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you. I'm also thankful to get it out of me.
And I'm looking forward to new

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things. Thank you to York College.

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Thank you to the Southeast Queens Artist
Alliance. Thank you for all the support.

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Thank you for Queens Center of the Arts for
allowing us to have this grant to showcase

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our work. To let you know the Southeast Queens
has got some good talent out

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here.