An Art Catalog For A 3D Virtual Art Exhibition On Exploring COVID-19 Through The Lens Of Art

This Visual Arts Exhibition aims to inform the public on the issues around the COVID-19 pandemic; celebrate the spirit of our resilience as a people; and inspire a sense of hope and restoration in the audience. This exhibition is organised, hosted and documented by Vilsquare Research, UK.

Art is material culture and evidence of human existence on the earth, therefore is vital in the recording of human history. Exploring COVID-19 Through The Lens Of Art, is an exhibition that is an art historical documentation of a pandemic in 2020 A.D. Pandemics are not everyday occurrences, they are so scarce that the last world pandemic was recorded in history about 100 years ago, the Spanish Flu Pandemic (1918 - 1920). COVID-19, a disease that is responsible for another world pandemic was first announced on 31 December, 2019. First detected in Wuhan, China, the outbreak of the disease was declared a public health emergency and a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 20, 2020. The disease was officially named COVID-19 on February 11, 2020. A pandemic such as COVID-19 is borderless, quickly becomes global and therefore requires a global and holistic approach in containing and controlling the spread, and eventually eradicating it. COVID-19 has affected the culture, lifestyle, language, economy, health and governance of many societies. Some responses to the disease include worldwide lockdown, social-distancing, travel restrictions, self-quarantine, mask-wearing and extreme body-cleansing. New approaches are being invented and explored by different professionals who seek adaptable methods to carry on in spite of the disruption created by the pandemic.

For art, things have changed rapidly. Artists are responding massively to the pandemic with street art, public images, informative graphics, communication arts, educational videos, comics and art exhibitions. Artists as creative people, are quick to adjust to the demands of the new social order. The internet sphere is the new world space therefore so many artistic activities have advanced online. For example, art exhibitions that previously domiciled in building spaces known as art galleries have now been enabled on 3D virtual realities. Vilsquare's Exploring COVID-19 Through The Lens Of Art is an online virtual exhibition that runs from May 26 to June 7, 2020 and is one of the earliest artistic responses to the COVID - 19 pandemic. The exhibition features forty-nine art works from twenty-five artists, located all over the globe, on the platform of a proprietary 3D virtual gallery (copyright Vilsquare). One advantage of an online exhibition is the proliferation of the art audience globally. Online exhibition attendance is extensive, accommodates a larger audience and is truly global. The audience can revisit the exhibition as many times as possible without restrictions on movements. The exhibition is also accessible from every location without barriers and borders. Exploring COVID-19 Through The Lens Of Art has artists participating from worldwide, an estimated viewership of 4,462 people who registered from 58 countries and 240 cities in five continents. Such attendance, in the short period, will be impossible to an art exhibition located in a physical gallery. This is a gain for art and artists worldwide. Other gains from online art exhibitions are in artistic ethics, art education, art practice, art technology and information.

Exploring COVID-19 Through The Lens Of Art is an exhibition that is laden with diverse purposes and impacts. There are forty-nine artworks of various sizes made up of Drawings, Paintings, Sculptures, Textiles, Photography, Videos and Mixed Media Art, including Digital Art. The medium used by the artists encompass all types of contemporary materials such as Acrylic, Gouache, Water Colour, Charcoal, Oil Colour, Ink, Photography/Photoshop, Coloured Pencils, Metals, Terracotta, Resins, Plastics, Cotton Cloth, Threads, Digital Graphics/Painting and Video. These media represent modern, durable and experimental materials found globally. The tools employed in the production of the works range from the simple manual ones such as pencil, pen, brush and palette knife to very sophisticated technology like photoshop and digital pads and cameras. The techniques vary from the agelong scribbling, scrolling, pointillism, impasto, modelling and welding to more contemporary digital graphical representations and digital painting. Stylistically, the exhibition displays a wide collection ranging from naturalism in photography and realism in more than 50% of the works, especially drawings and paintings. Several paintings show the monotonic deep hues of romanticism to depict the mood of the pandemic.