by Andrew Urban
Voyeurism could be considered a bug in the human condition since we’re all taught to mind our own business. Yet there is something poignant about the everyday doings of people who don’t know they’re being watched. It’s tempting to look and listen, and to wonder who are we when we aren’t trying to be anything other than ourselves?
Artist Laura Atria is gazing at voyeurism as part of “Everything Is Beautiful,” a free art and music event encompassing Atria’s paintings, a mixtape release party and live performance by South Florida musician tiny.blips, and real-time visual projection mapping by Gulf Coast artist The Nautilus Project.
Broward County-based Atria tells PureHoney that her component of the September 20 event in Fort Lauderdale’s Thrive Art District began with an Instagram callout earlier this year: “I invited Broward County residents and visitors to take photos of their own life and voyeuristic encounters around town while hashtagging #LifeLately.”
Atria then painted her own renderings of some of the shutterbugs’ submissions to “capture the day-to-day beauty of life through their eyes,” she says. Her #LifeLately series of canvases will remain on display at Uncommon Path Brewing into January.
“These paintings allow the viewer to engage actively in these secret relationships, but remain the watcher,” Atria says. “Displaying vulnerability through disconnection … I find myself close to the subjects, even sometimes closer than the people they are directly interacting with, creating background stories in my mind of how the person came to be where they are now.”
Atria and tiny.blips both had separate events in the works through local Artist Support Grants. But the two decided throw in together, pairing her #LifeLately exhibition opening at Uncommon Path and his release party for juicy curveballs: beat tape at neighboring Connect Record Shop, and recruiting The Nautilus Project to connect the venues with live projections — all to create “a more engaging, immersive, festival feel” for their adjoining events, Atria says.
Everything is Beautiful takes place 7-11pm Saturday, September 20th at Thrive Art District in Fort Lauderdale. instagram.com/laura_atria_art tinyblips.bandcamp.com uncommonpathbrewing.com connectrecordshop.com ~ Tim Moffatt
