{"id":31548,"date":"2015-08-27T13:35:30","date_gmt":"2015-08-27T18:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artmur.com\/en\/?page_id=31548"},"modified":"2015-09-18T16:37:13","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T21:37:13","slug":"lesser-gods","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/artmur.com\/en\/artists\/bevan-ramsay\/lesser-gods\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesser Gods"},"content":{"rendered":"

September 10 \u2013 October 31, 2015
\nOpening reception: Thursday, September 10th from 5-7pm
\nBevan Ramsay: Lesser Gods<\/p>\n

Beyond Sociology: The Act of Seeing a Person
\nText by Edwin Janzen<\/p>\n

It is hardly surprising that in our society perceptions of homeless persons remain two-dimensional, stereotypical, inadequate. Even for the rare administration tackling the problems of homelessness in an effective, meaningful way, the homeless person\u2019s humanity is buried beneath a mountain of endless statistical markers: mental illness, substance abuse, soup-kitchen attendance, etc. The enormous negativity lingering about the resultant profile permits scant room for other, arguably important accoutrements of the human experience\u2014character, emotion, intellect, beauty, relationship to divinity\u2014and leaves homeless persons basically where they already are: on the street, the objects of middle-class loathing or pity. <\/p>\n

Struck by this depressing determinism, artist Bevan Ramsay set out to cast portrait busts of homeless persons (one woman, the others men), producing an edition in fine, white statuary Hydrocal plaster mounted on mahogany bases. These portraits, titled Lesser Gods, are objects of fine craftsmanship, skillfully rendered and strikingly beautiful, and they permit us to reconsider these folks not through the screen of stereotypes or statistics, but as individuals, complicating our urge to pity.<\/p>\n

A Montrealer by upbringing, until recently Ramsay lived and worked out of New York, a city in which homelessness is closely contiguous with the city\u2019s history and identity. In a certain irony, homeless people are statistically more likely to be native to New York than most New Yorkers. Yet, although they are more closely tied to place than the housed citizens (including Ramsay) of this intensely transplanted city, they are politically non-existent.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, Ramsay spent many hours in conversation with his portrait subjects, getting to know them and letting them determine the course of the discussion. Most were open and forthcoming; only one remained demure. Biographical details were left out for privacy\u2019s sake. Mindful of the need to respect person and character, and confronted by complex, daunting ethical issues, Ramsay did not rush to realize the project. <\/p>\n

Baroque portraiture supplied Ramsay with an art-historical antecedent; with its emphasis on asymmetry, such portraiture yields greater charismatic possibilities than classical traditions. Rather than ideals or types, baroque portraiture insists on character, allowing the artist\u2019s subjects to be \u201cimmortalized in high style,\u201d as Ramsay explains. <\/p>\n

We experience ourselves suddenly free to appreciate each subject\u2019s facial expression and attitude, decisions on hair and beard grooming, or jacket style. And in Ramsay\u2019s plaster, quite similar to porcelain, there is neither stench nor besmirchment\u2014no abjection, no \u201cstreet\u201d\u2014and we begin to understand what it is about homelessness that so terrifies the middle classes in the age of austerity. This guy\u2014he could be you or me. Your son or my father. Our brother. <\/p>\n

<\/div>

\n\t\t\t