Artist Bio
My mother is a Russian immigrant named Yana Long. My father grew up as your typical American, Christian, white guy, his name is Jeb Beich. The odds of me being born Muslim with the middle name Abdurahman seem highly unlikely. The religion of Islam and the inseparable culture that comes with it, provided me access to a different world, one that existed within and outside of suburban white America. As I matured I became increasingly self-aware of the privileges my whiteness afforded me. That realization launched me into a flurry of discovering all the other privileges I benefit from without being aware. This has led me to a slightly corny but still true guiding sentiment “With great privilege comes great accountability.” My art and my life are aimed to be of service and aid to those who to this day in America, are shunned and discriminated against not only by other citizens but also by the institutions that create the infrastructure of America.
Artist Statement
My practice has been developing steadily since my freshman year of high school. It was that year when I caught my first rush of fulfillment after making a drawing. For many years up until the final year or so of my undergraduate degree, my practice remained very didactic and stylistically this led to information rich works. They were still filled with color and emotion but my works often had texts and almost always had a clear desire to impart a moral lesson on the viewer. However in my last year of undergrad and the following year in which I’ve been working a regular 9-5 at a sign store, I’ve noticed my intuition has driven me away from this foundation. In these past two years my work has become far more “entertaining” or more accurately escapist. That translates to far more purely abstract work rather than primarily figurative work with abstract elements, which was my previous methodology.
“The goal is to create impactful images that move and comfort my intended audience, through art which weaves together the representational as well as the abstract. This overarching method creates a bridge or window into our emotions without the risk of completely going over the average viewer’s head like purely abstract art can” (previous artist statement).
I no longer perceive abstract art to be so meek, I now embrace its ability to channel the soul and appreciate its role in my artistic practice as a place/medium for me to continue working while researching the ways in which I want to approach more complicated topics. To clarify, I’d like to add that my initial goal hasn’t changed, instead my understanding of how I can effectively achieve that goal has shifted (and still is). Much like the Socialist Realists I thought the figure was required in an artwork for the general public to have a point of relation to the artwork. I’ve now embraced, somewhat on the opposite end yet similar goals of communicating effectively, some ideas of Suprematism. Hence, my recent commitment to abstraction. However I’m not satisfied entirely with my current state and am dealing with where my work is going. I feel a huge rift in my practice and I think it’s because I’ve swung so far from my cradle, and it’s time to find some sort of compromise.
On two ends I feel there is didacticism and escapism/ entertainment, there’s protein and candy, there’s representational and abstract. My work has spanned across many parts of this web and I seek to continue pushing how I can effectively communicate in plain terms, not some highfalutin ways.
Previous Artist Statement
My practice as an artist includes traditional and digital forms of painting, sketching, and collage. The goal is to create impactful images that move and comfort my intended audience, through art that weaves together the representational and the abstract. This overarching method creates a bridge or window into our emotions without the risk of completely going over the average viewer’s head like purely abstract art can. Art movements such as Post-impressionism, Orphism, and Expressionism act as the infrastructure for me to create portraits that go beyond the representative. If I were to compare my paintings to music, I’d say my art is like M.I.A’s song Paper Planes. Her song on the surface is a bubbly pop anthem, but underneath there’s a powerful message about immigration and how immigrants are perceived in nations like the U.S. and the U.K.. This method of “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down,” is how I approach many of my artworks. The bright colors can lure you into a breakdown of how westward expansionism and Roman imperialism still haunt us today in the U.S. And all the while I’m spoon-feeding this information, I’m dressing it up with skillfully made illustrations that utilize, charcoal, oil paint, spray cans, vinyl reproduction, acrylic paint, and just about any other art supplies that I get my hands on.
Thanks
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