Highlights from Baren Forum Exchange #76 2/3

Humanity by Brad Ladwig

More highlights from Baren Forum's Exchange #76. 

With these two prints, the theme of humanity is represented in the abstract. Brad Ladwig's people remind me of Leo Lionni's picturebook Little Blue and Little Yellow, as all the people are shown as circles of color. In Lionni's story, the colors are at first separate, but then they mix, and become unrecognizable to those around them. 

Conversely, in Ladwig's print, the circles are all together in the same bowl, still, static and distinctly separated from each other. As Kahil Gibran wrote On Marriage: "let there be spaces in your togetherness." 

Interconnected, You & Me by Diane Cutter

Diane Cutter's print perhaps shows what happens if the circles intermingle but instead of blending their colors, they create new shape, rather like the intermingling of oil and water. The shapes morph like a lava lamp, creating new shapes as they go, though it seems no matter how much they intermingle, creating ever increasingly complex designs, the even percentages of stark black and white will persist. 

Looking longer at these images, they both seem to illustrate a sort of pluralism, where participants of equal value manage to meaningfully retain their differences as they share the same space with each other.