ARTIST STATEMENT
Since my early adolescence I have drawn and collaged on notebooks, papers, canvas. It was and is the best outlet for my emotions, my feelings, my ideas about this world. For the last five years (since 1999) I have dedicated most of my time to this endeavor. Making these collages is my duty as before was writing. It is difficult to explain the pleasure I feel when I’m working at my table, cutting papers, painting, drawing, outlining, making marks. I am lost in another world where all cares melt away. As far as theme is concerned, I lean towards the political, the calling out of injustices, women and the working class. That’s not to say that I only create those kinds of works but, I can’t resist adding something to make the viewers think, reflect, question what they see. Making people interrogate the realities of today’s world and search for answers guides me when I sit to work. Images drawn for a multitude of sources plus my own creativity in the form of drawing and coloring spill out on the canvas or paper. Sometimes words make their appearance. I suppose because I am also a poet, words are ever-present, even though not always in my art work. I am drawn to lines, circles, static and in motion to take my collages beyond the ordinary into the world of the imagined. Colors dominate my works for the most part, offering the viewer a kaleidoscope of hues reflecting my state of mind.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Beatriz Badikian Gartler was born and reared in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and has lived in the Chicago area for over fifty years. Badikian Gartler holds a Ph.D in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago and currently teaches at Northwester University. Badikian-Gartler has been making art since adolescence , mostly collages, watercolors, and pencil drawings. She has studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Lill Street Studios, Museum of Contemporary Art, and privately. Currently she is a member of the Mind’s Eye Art Studio in Chicago where she has exhibited in several shows. Her first exhibit took place at Around the Coyote in the Flat Iron Building in 1999. Subsequently she exhibited at the Robert Morris Gallery, the Vintage Gallery, and the Roscoe Village Arts Walk.
She is also a writer of essays, poems, and stories that have been published in numerous journals, anthologies, and newspaper in the United States and abroad. In 2000 Badikian was selected as one of the One-Hundred Women Who Make a Difference in Chicago by Today’s Woman magazine. For the last four years she has dedicated herself entirely to producing mixed-media art, drawings, and collages.
© Beatriz Badikian-Gartler