Art & Life with Kareem-Anthony Ferreira

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kareem-Anthony Ferreira.

Kareem-Anthony, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
Art is something that has always been a part of my life. Having an artist for a farther exposed me to numerous outlets for artistic development. Being the one of three boys who showed interest in the art, I was then the one that was repeatedly chosen to assist my father with any of his own artistic projects. Whether it was working with my dad or following my own interest painting was always readily accessible growing up.

For my undergraduate degree I followed in my father’s footsteps and attended McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario Canada. McMaster for me was more about learning numerous different processes for making my art and opening my eyes to the possibilities for making work. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very inspiring to me personally in regards to developing conceptually or giving meaning to my work. This lead to a unique situation for me of having the desire to make work but not knowing what to make which, unfortunately, lead to years of not creating any work. It wasn’t until a residency in New York in 2014 at the School of Visual Art and interacting with artist Gregory Coates that lead to renewal of direction in my work.

For about three years after that I practiced privately, creating and exhibiting my work. Now I am working towards my MFA at the University of Arizona in the painting department. I am currently exploring personal family traits of accumulation and the reassignment of value, as well as the relations of growing up as a first generation of Canada and my strong direct ties to the Caribbean.

Can you give our readers some background on your art?
My recent work I re-assign value and purpose to a series of photographs and objects to develop a commentary on traits inherent to my family. My paintings are heavily directed by the accumulation and the assemblage of disassociated objects in an effort to delve into the significance of the collections of my family members. These individuals found object are a direct reflection of myself and some family traits. Each painting is individually built up of layers of information and history. The human figure is also another found object, that is a vehicle for this exploration. The source material I am working with are from photographs taken at a time of high significance, but I now find these pictures discarded and forgotten. By extracting sections of these photographs and re assigning value and meaning, I hope to discover the significance of the accumulations in my family.

In your view, what is the biggest issue artists have to deal with?
One of the biggest challenges facing artists today, in my opinion, is dealing with outside pressures steering your practice in easily consumable ways. I feel there are a lot of outside pressures that imply that a particular art form or media are more relevant than others and because of that artists are now forced to deviate from their desired practice.

What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
You can view my work online at my website kareemferreira.com. I am currently Working out of Tucson, AZ where I currently have the honor of displaying work at the ongoing Arizona Biennial at the Tucson Museum of art. I also post a lot about my work on my Instagram account @kareemanthony.artist and can be contacted via email at kareemf94@gmail.com.

Contact Info:

• Website: kareemferreira.com
• Phone: 9055126785
• Email: kareemf94@gmail.com
• Instagram: kareemanthony.artist

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