By Koy Flores
Friday, Sept. 28 marked the end of the second round voting for ArtPrize. There are five categories represented in the competition, which has become an international phenomenon, including: 2D, 3D, Digital, Time-Based, and Installation.
After advancing to the top five in the Digital category, Grand Rapids Community College Art Professor Matthew Schenk, won $5,000 as well as an honorable mention for the digital jury award winner’s category.
His ArtPrize entry “Mictlantecuhtli: Fascism Killed the old Gods” according to Schenk, is a digital print of a sculpture, a project that took him around 40 – 50 hours to make. The entry is actually two separate portraits, however they represent the same image shot from different angles. It was made using the programs: ZBrush, KeyShot, Photoshop and Illustrator.
Fascism is a governing philosophy that prioritizes the welfare of nation and race above individual needs, and Schenk said that the piece was inspired by politics and colonialism as a whole but that the specific image is a depiction of the Aztec god Mictlantecuhtli.
“In a cenote, near where the Aztecs lived, they came upon this hanging in a cave, and it’s literally supposed to be the god of death (Mictlantecuhtli) who was killed by the colonizers (Spaniards). It’s representative of the Europeans coming here to take the Americas, destroying religion, and destroying everything.”
Schenk has been working on a series of “dark art” projects that he’s taglined with, “I am making art in the apocalypse.”
And this piece isn’t an exception to that series. For Schenk, his “dark art” is a response to critics and post modernists that say traditional art is a dead trade.
“It’s a ridiculous statement, so if art is dead, I’m doing art in the apocalypse,” he said.
Schenk works as a full-time art professor at GRCC, and upon meeting him, you’d find a man that values devotion and immersing himself into his craft. When asked about his inspiration for the piece, he sourced nothing in particular, yet he wanted to pass a message to his students and all young aspiring artists.
“You can’t wait until you’re inspired to do something,” he said. “If you do a lot of things something good comes out of it. It’s the myth of talent. It’s more hard work than talent or natural ability.”
