Concrete poetry is an arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry, a term that has now developed a distinct meaning of its own. Concrete poetry relates more to the visual than to the verbal arts although there is a considerable overlap in the kind of product to which it refers. Historically, however, concrete poetry has developed from a long tradition of shaped or patterned poems in which the words are arranged in such a way as to depict their subject.
Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a Chicano performance artist, writer, activist, and educator. Gómez-Peña has created work in multiple media, including performance art, experimental radio, video, photography and installation art. His ten books include essays, experimental poetry, performance scripts and chronicles in both English, Spanish and Spanglish. He is a founding member of the art collective Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo and director of the performance art troupe La Pocha Nostra.
The culture of Papua New Guinea is many-sided and complex. It is estimated that more than 7000 different cultural groups exist in Papua New Guinea, and most groups have their own language. Because of this diversity, in which they take pride, many different styles of cultural expression have emerged; each group has created its own expressive forms in art, dance, weaponry, costumes, singing, music, architecture and much more. To unify the nation, the language Tok Pisin, once called Neo-Melanesian has evolved as the lingua franca — the medium through which diverse language groups are able to communicate with one another in Parliament, in the news media, and elsewhere. People typically live in villages or dispersed hamlets which rely on the subsistence farming of yams and taro. The principal livestock in traditional Papua New Guinea is the oceanic pig.
Arthur Tress is an American photographer. He is known for his staged surrealism and exposition of the human body.
Mộng-Lan is a Vietnamese-born American award-winning poet, writer, painter, photographer, musician, composer, singer, Argentine tango dancer, choreographer, and educator. Former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Fulbright Scholar, she has published seven books of poetry & artwork, three chapbooks, has won numerous prizes such as the Juniper Prize and the Pushcart Prize. Poems have been included in international and national anthologies such as Best American Poetry Anthology and several Norton anthologies. Her books include: Song of the Cicadas;Why is the Edge Always Windy?; Tango, Tangoing: poems & art; One Thousand Minds Brimming; and Dusk Aflame: poems & art. Her latest CD releases include Perfumas de Amor, de Argentina y Viet Nam, and New Orleans of My Heart, jazz piano.
Chief Horst Ulrich Beier, known as Ulli Beier, was a German Jewish editor, writer and scholar, who had a pioneering role in developing literature, drama and poetry in Nigeria, as well as literature, drama and poetry in Papua New Guinea. His second wife, Georgina Beier, born in London, had a similarly instrumental role in stimulating the visual arts during their residencies in both Nigeria and Papua New Guinea.
The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, California, United States, is a major community-based, non-profit organization established in 1965 as the operations center of the Chinese Culture Foundation.
Kathan Brown is an American printmaker, writer, lecturer, and entrepreneur. In 1962, Brown founded Crown Point Press, a fine art print shop specializing in etching, and has owned and directed the shop since then. Crown Point Press is widely credited with sparking the revival of etching as a viable art medium. Some of the most important artists of our time, including John Cage, Chuck Close, Anish Kapoor, Ed Ruscha, Kiki Smith and Pat Steir, have worked there.
Leo Valledor (1936–1989) was a Filipino-American painter who pioneered the hard-edge painting style. During the 1960s he was a member of the Park Place Gallery in Soho, New York City, which exhibited many influential and significant artists of the period. He was a leader of the minimalist movement in the 1970s.
Niloufar Talebi is an author, award-winning literary translator, librettist, multidisciplinary artist, and producer. She was born in London to Iranian parents. Her work has been presented by, and/or performed at Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, American Lyric Theater, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Craft and Folk Art Museum, Riverside Theatre, Royce Hall, ODC/Dance Theater, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Magic Theatre, Intersection for the Arts, SOMArts Cultural Center, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Stanford University, and Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Cecilia Vicuña is considered one of the most authentic and multifaceted voices in contemporary poetry and an artistic powerhouse that embodies creative exploration and political resistance.
Weston Teruya is an Oakland-based visual artist and arts administrator. Teruya's paper sculptures, installations, and drawings reconfigure symbols forming unexpected meanings that tamper with social/political realities, speculating on issues of power, control, visibility, protection and, by contrast, privilege. With Michele Carlson and Nathan Watson, he is a member of the Related Tactics artists' collective and often exhibits under that name.
Kay Sekimachi is an American fiber artist best known for her masterful, three-dimensional woven monofilament hangings as well as her intricate baskets and bowls.
Brian R. Shure is an American printmaker, painter, author and educator. He is best known for his mastery of printing techniques, knowledge of lesser known art techniques and has published multiple books about the art of chine-collé.
Taravat Talepasand is an Iranian American contemporary artist and educator based in San Francisco, California. She is best known for her paintings, drawings, and sculptures addressing cultural taboos, displaying a juxtaposition of cultural stereotypes and expressing female empowerment. Talepasand currently holds the title of the chair of the painting department at San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI).
Kota Ezawa is a Japanese-German American artist and arts educator. His artwork usually responds to current events from sources in the news, pop culture, and art history. Ever since his debut 2002 video animation of The Simpson Verdict, Ezawa has been known for his flattened style in works on paper, light-boxes, and videos. By flattening his pieces into more two-dimensional figures, he creates more focus on the re-contextualized historical events in his pieces.
Dan Taulapapa McMullin is an American Samoan artist, known for his poetry, visual art and film. His major themes are his indigenous Samoan heritage and his fa'afafine gender identity. McMullin has been creating literary and artistic works for over 35 years, and has received numerous awards, fellowships, and grants. He works in a variety of literary styles and visual art modes. In his adult life, he has spent time in Los Angeles, and now live with his partner in Laguna, California, and Hudson, New York.
Louis Macouillard American artist known for his watercolor paintings of travel and marine genres, as well as his work as a commercial illustrator.
Helen Elizabeth Phillips was an American sculptor, printmaker, and graphic artist active in San Francisco, New York, and Paris.
Leon Gilmour (1907–1996) was an American artist, designer, teacher, illustrator and laborer. He is best known for his social realist, wood engravings featuring laborers or California landscape and nature. His work is often associated with the Regionalist artists.
