COVID

Cass Pangell

Art Submission

“Bridging the space of the arts and exploring the inner human vibrational experience within color and space, Cass Pangell has gained a wide lens from studies in anthropology and the arts, allowing this artist to hone individual as well as collaborative skills in the areas of human connection.

Much of their work explores what it is to be alive. Human reality constitutes a multitude of dimensions and realities—a unique assortment of psychological and inner architecture. Cass wishes to explore, address, and examine, in the exploration of this piece, the fabrics which bind the light of human perception into the cosmos and realms from which they are birthed. Artist Jean Pierre Roy wrote, “Art itself transcends human narrative and the objective reality, to become something transcendent of both.”

The piece titled, COVID was created during the height of the pandemic during the Spring 2020 semester and was inspired by a photograph on the front page of The Denver Post of a father and a son. In the article, the father states that he wishes to wear the mask to protect those he loves and those around him. The child, however, has a different viewpoint: he gets to wear the mask and look like an outlaw.

The primary colors used to create this piece were the only available colors of paint available to the artist at the time during the lockdown—this and two brushes. But this was perfect as when looking into one droplet of water, we have the ability to see the entire rainbow. At the height of something so secluding, dividing, and separative, we see something uniting; a substance beyond gender, race, and ethnicity or walls and buildings; something... which is found inherent within every human being.

This piece was influenced by MSU Denver Alumnus Mikey Todesco (MSU’20) @michaeltodesco and the work of artist Miles Toland @milestoland.”