Artwork – Page 8 – Ezra Dickinson

projects: Peggy Piacenza

Peggy Piacenza

I have had the pleasure of performing for and collabating with Peggy Picenza since 2016.

Sweet, Rotten, Sweet (2019)

Dancer, set designer and movement collaborator

Photo Joseph Lambert

Performances:

Bonfire Gallery, Seattle WA (premier)

The Event (2016-18)

Dancer and movement collaborator

Photo Joseph Lambert

Performances:

Base, Seattle WA (premier)

Base, Seattle WA

Welcome Me (2017)

Dancer and movement collaborator

Photo Joseph Lambert

Performances:

Base Occasional, Seattle WA

Centrum Residency (2015)

(2015) Centrum Residency at Fort Worden in Development of Psychic Radio Star

In residency at Centrum, Paurl Walsh, Anthony Rigano, Danielle Blackwell and myself worked to generate source imagery and build a sound library for use in development of Psychic Radio Star. Paurl Walsh took sine wave recordings of each unique room/space with any amount of reverberation. This allowed us to extract an exact copy of the echo of each space at Fort Worden. Photographic documentation by Anthony Rigano created the building blocks for ideas that would grow into the performance work Psychic Radio Star.

Photos by Anthony Rigano

Cerulean Dream (2015)

(2015) Mural Installation, with New Mystics collective

Paying honor to a space that housed a fellow artist for years. In its last days before demolition, we came together to paint the entire inside of this home. We worked in shifts over the course of a week. We chose the name Cerulean Dream because the area this home was located in is called the Central District or CD for short. Blue was the chosen color for this project. We used so much paint that it started to leak through the floorboards and seep into the space below this apartment. Photos highlight my contributions.

Tiny Home (2015)

(2015) Center on Contemporary Art Un[contained] Residency, Seattle

I had recently been in the Bay Area performing and was struck by the tiny movable homes taking up no more than a parking space, I saw lining the streets in West Oakland. Upon learning I had been awarded this residency, I felt compelled to explore these movable tiny houses for myself, as I had not seen anything of this sort in the Northwest despite rampant homlessness.

Using salvaged wood in tandem with other recycled/donated resources, I created a portable living space. By painting the exterior of the structure I aimed to make this home command the attention of those who would rather choose to ignore the state of homelessness and displacement in our area. The home acts as a billboard, stating in the most matter of fact way the basic necessity of having a roof over one’s head. Voicing through words the needed legislative action of RENT CONTROL to help create sensible affordable homes for those in need.

I can’t help but notice the increase in the past ten years of people living on the streets in Seattle, especially in the last three years. Can this temporary home be a sense of pride for the inhabitant? Could this action open the eyes of developers?

Listen (2015) film

(2015) Short film (Related project with Mother Film and Performance)

Listen is meant to show the feeling of isolation that can be felt when dealing with a loved one’s mental illness.

Listen is part of an ongoing investigation in creating work for my schizophrenic mother. Footage from Listen has been meshed with footage from the 2013 performance Mother for you I made this.

Collaborators credits:

Filmed by Ryan Adams, Jacob Rosen and Doug Arney.

Sound by Paurl Walsh.

Edited by Doug Arney.

Concept and performance by Ezra Dickinson.

Screenings:

(2016) Film Installation in exhibition The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human. ArtEast, Issaquah WA.

(2015) Film Installation. The Incredible Intensity of Just Being Human exhibition, City Hall, Seattle WA (premiere)

Cycle of Life (2015)

(2015) Commissioned public art mural. Sound Transit, Seattle WA

Commissioned by Sound Transit. This banner was initially created for the build site wall erected around the Capitol Hill Light Rail station. Many public works were commissioned to create a surround build site covering of visual art. While this banner did see a little bit of time on the Capitol Hill (Red Wall), the bulk of time this acrylic painted banner was displayed has been at the University District (Gold Wall) , also a light rail station.

In an abstract sense this mural shows the interconnectedness of earth, animal, and sky.

Resource (2015)

(2015) Commissioned public art mural. Urban Artworks, Seattle WA

Commissioned by Urban Artworks, this mural was meant to both amplify the business located in this building, also this mural aimed to create a bright colorful addition to the neighborhood, of which the nearby SoDo track is one of the largest public mural corridors in the country. Length is 128’x 20′ at the highest point.

Sal Bald (2015)

(2015) Mural painted as a memorial. Seattle WA

Mural painted as a memorial remembering time, effort, and thought, in a shared rehearsal space that had been in effect for over ten years. Drifting between streets and vacant lots, not far in our past is the ghost of a rainforest lush with wet green vegetation. Sometimes it works out who ends up with the last set of keys to get into a building slated for demolition. To bring this mural to life a hundred gallons of paint were delivered to the space, then over the course of a month the entire space roughly 40.000 square foot was painted (floors and walls). The walls are painted with 20 foot tall letters reading, MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN. Oddly enough to this day the building still has not been demolished, for reasons unknown.

City Unseen City Arts Feature May 2015

Art of the city (2015)

(2015) commissioned live painted mural

Commissioned by Art of the City street festival, I painted this 12’ by 8’ mural in one day out in the sun. I was one of a collection of other muralists who were all commissioned to live paint.

There are a lot of options when it comes to what one could paint. I decided a long time ago that I would rather spend my time honing my abilities as a muralist, then obsess over what I could paint. Most of the time when I paint a mural you will see the Bald Man character, this character is a vehicle for artistic exploration. I do paint and draw many other things. This character is part me/part my impression on the world I live in/walk through.

Caldera poster (2015)

(2015) painted poster

While in a choreographic residence with Tahni Holt at Caldera in the south eastern mountains of Oregon for a month, I decided that the stunning landscape I had found myself in, compelled me to paint in my down time and I created this fifteen by seven foot painted poster. The text that fills this work is taken from a nineteenth century elementary school primer that I found in the library at Caldera. I was struck by the writing in this primer as it was confronting the child who has grown up in the city and assumed that this child would have virtually no understanding of nature or farm creatures and a more rural life experience. Taking inspiration from a poster I created while in Lisbon Portugal which also used text to create the entire design. This work is yet to find a permanent home to this day. When the right location shows itself, I will add this work to the world.