Sue Coe ~ Portraits

Who are these women? They are Texas prisoners who are HIV positive and are HIV peer educators in their prison unit. As part of a project by Dr. Eric Avery, Sue Coe visited the University of Texas Medical Branch in 2006 and during interviews created these portraits as well as others that illustrated parts of their lives that increased the likelihood of their becoming HIV positive. Made with Conte crayon the colors in the portraits are similar to what the women used for make-up. Actual cosmetics were forbidden so these women used the dyes from candies such as M&M's to create the effects of shadow, liner and mascara. Links to read more about this project are here and here.

In 1994, Coe and Avery had worked together on another project. At his request she went to the Infectious Disease Ward at the University of Texas Medical Branch. She sketched patients with AIDS. This was in the height of the AIDS pandemic. All of the patients she sketched died. To view these portraits, visit this link.

Sue Coe ~ Animal Therapists

Continuing with yesterday's theme of a different view of Sue Coe, here is an image of a piece with simple compassion. The bond between animal and human literally jumps off the page.

Sue Coe ~ A Different View

Do a Google search for Sue Coe and you'll find her very political images. She is unrelenting. Yet there are a few images that show a softer Coe, ones that reflect the humanity and humor you'll find if you see her in person. One of those images is from a series that she made during the time she spent with her mother in England during the eleven days prior to her mother's death. Coe and her sister Mandy Coe stayed with their mother helping her to fulfill her desire to die at home.


This and others from that were exhibited at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. From their website... "Coe's poignant drawings focus on her mother’s hands and head, perhaps a person’s most expressive features. A social and political activist, Coe’s portrayal of her mother’s suffering relates to her larger body of work in which she often gives voice to the weak and disenfranchised in society. "

Sue Coe ~ Visited Portland in 2007

PORT - Portland art + news + reviews used this image to announce Sue Coe's lecture at PNCA back in 2007. PNCA had mounted an exhibit of her work at its Feldman Gallery and Project Space. This and a number of other pieces in that show dealt with ships of animals that are transported from Australia to the Middle East. They're packed tightly into old freighters without food or water with voyages lasting weeks. Ultimately the ones who survive are slaughtered. Then there are the ones who die when the ship they're on catches fire. The crew abandons the ship, it sinks and the thousands of sheep drown. Another image from that exhibit shows ships passing in the night.

What motivates Sue Coe to create art that is a graphic witness to the treatment of animals, apartheid (she tackled the "suicide" of imprisoned blacks in South Africa), and treatment of prisoners (a series on women in Texas prisons)? It probably comes from her childhood living near bombed out buildings from WW II in England. From a young age she worked in factories and saw her future as limited by both poverty, class and being a woman. She also lived a block away from a slaughterhouse and grew up hearing the screams of the animals that went in alive but came out as meals. She realized once she had gotten herself into art school that she could bear witness to the inequities of life through her work. In 1972, Coe made a decision that would allow her to more readily put her work out to the world. She moved from England with its stricture of class to New York. Immediately hired by the New York Times to create illustrations of the news, she soon found her work in other publications such as the New Yorker and Time magazines. The Los Angeles Times published an interview with her (linked here) where you can read about her working in a Mars candy factory, growing up in England and her mounting activism after entering art college.

Sue Coe's lecture here in Portland ended with her offering the print shown below for sale. As a fund raiser for Farm Sanctuary, she sold the print for twenty dollars cash. That is typical of Coe, raising money for causes that are important to her and providing art to those who want it but might not otherwise be able to afford it.

Sue Coe, Not so Bad

I read the article LaValle posted yesterday. Judith Brody makes some points that definitely re-routed my thinking about Coe's work. In the first place, she points out that all art is porpaganda, it is impossible to remove the artists' feeling of what is right or wrong from the work they create, how can one fault Coe for that? Propaganda is natural.
Secondly, regarding critics, it is comical that those people who use propaganda themselves can possibly criticize o thersfor doing the same, and if you read the criticism of Coe's work with that in mind it does sort of make it all seem like hogwash.
I think the biggest success of Coe's work is the title. She calls this piece Greed and it does capture the feeling of complete desolation and loss-but like an arrow that hits the wrong target, I don't think the images themselves describe greed, or that it is even fair to categorize these images and sk them to find reason when the cigarette could be a cell phone, the gun a car, the blood could be oil.
I think the truth, which is that the darkness inside that causes greed, is not really formed by the instruments before us in the image, but by our deeply ingrained desire to live and fear of death. A greed for life is the only thing that can cause the darkness seen in Coe's image.
The title might make one assume that consumerism, guns, drugs, fast food- these are agents of destruction and cause the outcome seen in the image. I think these things come later, and are the effect of greed. The greed as the hunger to control the outcome of our lives and the ones we love causes suffering you can feel in the painting by Coe, but she has used images to get us there which I dont think are really responsible. Or at least not more responsible than everyday things like ipods and lattes. Why alcohol and not coffee?
If we've turned to these things, out of bleak and hollow eyes because we can no longer stand to live our lonely lives, we cannot turn our garbage cans upside down and say "this is because of you- empty hamburger wrapper, gun powder, bloody gloves, this is because of you- that I look this way!"
I think the real problem is the immediate association one makes when encountering a work of art like Greed, that by association to particular objects you have figured out the work, and that it is really too disgusting to stay with. And though you don't like it, there is the critical next step, to form an idea as to why you don't like it. This may be too much to ask, and for that reason I am not completely sure her use of imagery is successful, but maybe it's just not always successful, and in that way it truly resonates with life.
Like greed itself, Greed the painting is demanding, with no payback. It shares no heart and sheds no light, but if you stare it down you can see the comical.

Sue Coe ~ Greed and Politics

Sue Coe is one of the most politically oriented living artist. Her work addresses issues such as animal rights, war, consumption, waste head-on. Greed hangs next to one of Robert Colescott's paintings, Knowledge of the Past is the Key to the Future. Colescott is another artist who presents us with political and racial themes. Read reviews of Colescott and you'll find references to humor. Sue Coe shows us no humor and that's what makes her art difficult to view at times. Judith Brody in "Sue Coe and the Press: Speaking Out" starts her review with this:

Exploring with Sue Coe is no gentle stroll through cloistered sanctuaries of art. She makes uncompromising demands. She demands to speak freely. She demands viewers go eye-to-eye with the equivalent of road kill. She demands unflinching openness in full view of painful contradictions. Essentially, Coe demands that we re-examine our assumptions. When reading her books or looking at her images, the natural reaction is to turn away, to shut out horrific truths. One cannot meet her work without encountering resistance. This is inevitable, because this is her intent.

I recommend Brody's article. She not only reviews Coe but also the reviewers who have reviewed Coe - a review of the review that was.

While working on this post, I came across this video. While not directly related to Sue Coe or Greed, it is one of the best short films I've seen in a while. Considering the events in Amy's life and mine this week, I've decided to post it. Watch it and you'll have a look at James Joyce and Samuel Beckett at the Pitch n' Putt.

Greed ~ Sue Coe

How does one begin to describe this Sue Coe painting? These rifles, this blood, the bullet holes, the kneeling man, the splash of red, the animal, a big black cat.
A collage of beer cans, McDonalds trash, cigarettes and a hollow eyed figure looking out.
Greed by Sue Coe is a black hole of sickness, something I have never given my attention. Maybe this week, as in weeks past, I will learn to care for something that I currently detest.